Today the weather was a lot nicer than yesterday so after breakfast, packing up as unfortunately we have to head home today, checking out and leaving our bags with the hotel we set off for Plonlein Corner, this is the most iconic image of Rothenburg, the bright yellow half timbered house in the split of the road framed by two towers is the picture you see at the centre of every postcard. While Plonlein means a small level area in Latin, it is the change in elevation at the fork in the road that makes it so impressive, the information we had suggested we needed to get there before the tour busses arrive for the day and they were right, when we arrived we were the only people there, but by the time we came back as part of the wall walk later on it was packed! We could have joined the city walls at this point but we decided to walk to the start of the walk I had just to make it easier to navigate so after walking back up through the town square we arrived back at Marcus Tower and Arch which is the gate we came through when we first arrived. This was built in the 1100s and was the outer edge of the first city wall with access through the Woodsman Archway, the gate with its clock tower was part of the first ring wall protecting the early village, by 1204 the first town wall had 4 watch towers, the lower level of this tower had walls that are 6 foot thick and housed a prison until 1844. There is a nest on the top that houses a family of storks from Spring to Autumn but we couldn’t see them! Just outside the wall is a massive well, this was so large that in Medieval times it served as a birthing fountain! We walked back round to the blacksmiths shop again before climbing up the wall, this time we could actually see the replica sign and the carriage doors that are shaped like a horse shoe. Then it was time to climb the outer city wall which expanded outward from 1208 to become a wall that contained 70 watch towers of which 43 are still standing, every night one of the city watchmen in the Roder Tower would signal back to the city centre to let everyone know that either all was well or that danger was on the way. The name Roder means Woodsman in German, this was derived from the small hamlet called Roder that once sat just outside Rothenburg in this direction, gates were often named after the destinations they pointed towards. We set off along the wall, there are a number of stone plaques inside the wall with family names on them, during WWII bombs dropped on the north side of Rothenburg killed 37 people, destroyed 306 houses, 6 public buildings, 9 watch towers and damaged over 2,000 feet of wall. Through donations the damage was restored to its original state, the donations came from people sponsoring a 1 meter section of wall which when it was started in 1950 would cost $40 per meter, now the cost is over $2,000. Walking along the wall you pass a number of towers, all named after the activities that were carried out in that area, one of the towers is called the Sifter Makers Tower, after the Association of Flour Sifter (Sieve) Makers further round is the hospital Tower and Bastion as in 1280 a religious order called the Knights of the Hinterland established a hospital to help the sick and poor, when the first city walls were built in early 1200, the neighbourhood was left outside the wall, in 1370 the infirmary was incorporated into the city wall and a gate was built to serve as the new Southern entrance to Rothenburg. The defences of this gate were enhanced in 1586 when the tall gate tower and figure eight shaped bastion were added on. These are fascinating, there are 2 inner courtyard and 7 gates, an upper walkway and a dry moat that surrounds it, it felt like it would be very easy to get lost in the figure eight design, but we did go up on the upper level, where there was a carriage and a couple of cannons, the inscription over the outside of the gate says “Peace to those who enter; Farewell to those who leave” which is rather nice. We had to leave the wall here for a while as we couldn’t work out how to get back onto it, but we walked round to the old horse mill which was built in 1516 as a corn mill, this was powered by 16 horses rather than water power like the other waterfront mills. At one point the mill was said to be the biggest in Southern Germany before time, technology and eventually fire caught up with it! We managed to rejoin the wall here and walked along the wall until we came back to Plonlein, which by this time was packed so we were so glad we had done this earlier. This area needed us to leave the wall again for a little bit, but we soon re-joined and walked along the part of the wall that is known for its panoramic views on the way up to the Castle area you get great views over the Tauber River Valley, interestingly the area by Rothenburg Castle Road was actually part of 1200 trade route connecting over 70 castles that helped the early city of Rothenburg prosper. The castle was ruined by a large earthquake which also damaged parts of the old city wall in 1356. It was never repaired and the Emperor sold the ruined castle to the city in 1380 which allowed the stone to be quarried to repair and grow Rothenburg’s fortifications. All that remains of the old Castle area is the gate and tower, the castle gate became the main entrance to the city as it connected directly to the Market square. Once the castle was ruined they decided they needed to expand defences on the West side of town adding the towns tallest watchtower, a drawbridge and other protective measures. Two small gatehouses were built in front of the castle gate to help funnel the traffic and thwart would be attackers. Just inside the gatehouse is a decorative mask that has a mouth hole that guards would use to pour hot tar on attackers, to the side of the mask are slots where chains were fastened to raise the drawbridge. As in Medieval times all gates were locked at sundown you would have to pay a fine to enter after dark. To get in the gate you would need to enter via a special Eye of the Needle door which was a small opening that only one person could get through at a time and was know as the manhole. We couldn’t rejoin the wall here so we had to walk along the outside, which was pretty spectacular and showed how high it was in places. We could have continued down into the valley but instead we walked up to St Wolfgang’s church which is where we were able to rejoin the wall. The church has a gate and a tower called Narrow Gorge Tower which drops steeply to the Tauber River below, hence the name, Around 1550 the gate tower was raised to a 99 foot tall watch tower which served as a large water tower with a lantern hood top. The Northern Wall wall takes you all the way from the Narrow Gorge Tower to Hangman’s Tower although we stopped when we returned to the part of the wall that we started at. I actually liked the last bit but it was quite busy, it let you look out over the roof tops of the houses and also get a view of the size of the city. Once we had descended we decided we would have some lunch before we headed off to the train station and our flight back home. It is a bank holiday in Germany today for German reunification, so a lot of the restaurants were quite busy, we ended up back in our lunch stop yesterday but it was just as nice. Then we went and got our bags and walked to the station, we had a little excitement on the train as we couldn’t make the ticket machine work, but when the locals also couldn’t get it to work we felt a bit better. We arrived at the airport quite early, so we went and got a drink then joined the queue for checkin and got through security all within about 40 minutes so there was time to sit in the lounge and have a few drinks which updating the pictures and the blog before finally heading for home.
