Rothenburg ob der Tauber at Christmas

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Before Christmas, I visited the town of Rothenburg ob der Tabeur in Bavaria, Germany. The town is a well-preserved medieval town with the majority of its city walls intact. The town is located about the river Tabeur, and there are stunning views. Cobble-stoned streets lead off to picturesque buildings and towers. 

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I had a day trip here from Nuremberg, and we parked at one of the western entrances and walked into the city walls and into town.

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rothenberg

We came to the market square and went into several shops as the Christmas Market stalls were not yet open.

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I admired the beautiful architecture.

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rothenberg

We walked down the hill from the main street and popped into a few of the shops.

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The following photograph shows one of the most beautiful locations from Rothenburg ob der Tabeur, at Kobolzeller Steige and Spitalgasse. I had to take several photographs. This was in the morning, but the area was still busy. I visited Rothenburg on a Monday, but I have been told that the town can get extremely crowded, and weekends may be one of the busy days. The town is particularly busy with Japanese tourists, and it is twinned with one town in Japan.

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I loved the hidden areas of this town. Walk down any street, and there was always a surprise waiting for us.

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The Christmas Market opens from 11:00 in the morning, so we headed up to the market square, taking in the beautiful buildings. This town was lucky to have not been destroyed during World War II. It survived for a number of reasons, but one reason we read was that an American soldier or commander was familiar with it as his mother had a picture of it, so he knew it was important to keep it from being destroyed.

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Nativity scenes are quite common in Germany, and the Christmas Market area in Rothenburg had their own display.

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We visited the Kathe Wolfahrt shop, which is one of the largest in the world. Kathe Wolfahrt sells Christmas decorations. This one has a Christmas museum inside it, so we popped in here to have a look before the Christmas market opened. We learned about the history of Christmas decorations.

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Photographs were not allowed inside the museum or the Kathe Wolfahrt shop, unfortunately.

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rothenberg

We had lunch at one of the hotels in Rothenburg and ended up being the only diners. The food was nice, and I had chicken in mushroom sauce with another item that the Germans call "noodles", which may have been potato and batter/flour.

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After the meal, we browsed around the Christmas market.

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I had a mulled punch (non-alcoholic punch can be bought, and it's really meant for children). This came with a biscuit.

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rothenberg

After the browse around the market, we went into the City Hall in the market square. For a small fee, one can climb up the tower to have a good view over the picturesque town.

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Rothenburg ob der Tabeur is well-known for its festive fried and battered treat, the snowball (schneeball). Traditionally, this is covered in powdered sugar, but other varieties can also be purchased, such as chocolate. The dessert does not taste that great as it's just pastry crust and does not have much flavour.

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rothenberg

I loved the little details on all of the buildings.

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There are so many beautiful areas to this town. 

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rothenberg

In the afternoon and after we browsed the Christmas Market, we had a walk around the city walls. This takes the majority of the time, and half a day is needed to just walk the city walls. I'll be covering this in a later post. 

Rothenburg was one of the most beautiful towns that I've visited, and it reminded me of several of the small towns that I have visited in Alsace-Lorraine.

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