Rothenburg – Private Walking Tour

Rothenburg ob der Tauber is the town most first-time visitors to Germany have already seen in a photograph. It kept its complete ring of walls because it became too poor to knock them down, and that accident of economics left one of the best-preserved medieval towns in Europe. Two hours on foot with a private guide is enough to walk it properly, and short enough to fit into a driving day on the Romantic Road.

What the walk covers

The tour works outward from the Marktplatz, where the town hall carries both a Gothic tower and a Renaissance front, then into St Jakob for the carved altarpiece that draws art historians to a town of eleven thousand people. From there the route follows the lanes down to the Plonlein, the fork of two streets beneath two gate towers that appears on every second postcard of Germany, and up onto the covered wall walk. The guide points out the donor plaques set into the parapet, paid for by people around the world who funded the rebuilding of the sections destroyed in 1945.

The stories your clients will remember

Rothenburg is unusually rich in narrative, and a private guide can choose which strand to follow. There is the Thirty Years War and the legend of the master draught; the craft guilds and what a walled town did for a living; the night watchman and the practicalities of locking a town at dusk; and the uncomfortable twentieth century, when the town was promoted as the ideal German settlement and then bombed anyway. Tell us in advance which of these interests your clients and the guide builds the two hours around it.

Practical points

• Two hours on foot, private, starting at a time your clients choose
• Meeting point at a hotel in the old town or at an agreed landmark on the Marktplatz
• Cobbles throughout, steps up to the wall walk; the wall section can be dropped for guests with limited mobility
• Licensed English-speaking guide as standard, other languages on request
• Church and museum admissions are quoted separately once you confirm what the party wants to enter

When to come and what to add

The town is busiest between eleven and four, when the coaches are in; an early start or a late afternoon slot gives your clients the lanes almost to themselves. December is the other consideration – the Reiterlesmarkt fills the Marktplatz and the town is at its most atmospheric, but rooms need booking months out. Rothenburg sits neatly between Frankfurt and Munich, which makes it a natural stop on the eight-day Munich and Bavaria journey and a fixed point on the nine-day Christmas markets journey. Clients who want a second Franconian town usually add the Nuremberg private walking tour. Background on the town and the surrounding route is on our Rothenburg destination page.