Germany 2010 11-RothenburgWall

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Ansbach District

Vacation 2010

September 16, Germany
Rothenburg ob der Tauber

City Wall & Towers

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Rothenburg's city wall, built in the 14th century, is well preserved like everything else in this town. Parts of the wall were damaged in World War II, but with the help of worldwide donations it was soon rebuilt. One little known fact: The wall is not only 27 feet high, it extends the same distance underground to prevent enemies from digging tunnels under the wall.

One can walk around the entire town on the parapet walk, but only one of the towers is accessible all the way to the top. So we started our tour at Röder-Tower, conveniently located right next to our hotel.

The Röder-Tower is one of the towers of the "second fortification", that was built in the 1300s, when the town expanded past its original wall. It was built between 1385 and 1390.

Röder-Tower, seen from inside (left) and outside (right) the city walls.

View at the Röder-Gate and over the town from the top of Röder-Tower.

View to north and south from Röder-Tower. We took the northern route towards Gallow-Tower.

People from all over the world take part in preserving the wall. One can actually adopt a couple of feet.

We left the wall at the Gallows Tower (below left). This is the town's tallest tower, built in 1388. Nearby used to be the town's galow, symbol of the city's independent jurisdiction.

We then walked to the White Tower (below right), which was built around 1172 as one of the gates to the original twelfth century wall.

The cool picture in the middle above is one of Steffen's and the picture below left is borrowed from mihalko-family.com.

Earlier this day, we already went to the western end of town and checked out the Castle Gate. It is named after a castle that was built here in 1142 but was destroyed in an earthquake in 1356. We left the town through a small gate just south of the Castle Gate.

The Castle Gate and its tower were built between 1460 and 1470. In the middle part of the gate (above right), one can still see the rails for the drawbridge chains and an evil looking mask through which invaders were attacked with hot tar.

The pictures below show the gate from outside (left) and inside(right) the city walls.

The Castle Gate is also famous for its "Needle Eye." The big gate remained closed between sunset and sunrise. Whoever missed the closing time had to crawl through a small, only four feet tall door. That way, only one person at a time was able to enter and the guards could scan for suspects.

Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to check out the entire town. The website romanticroad (in English) and the town's Tourism Service (in German), give you an idea of what we missed.

We also borrows a number of pictures from varius sources (click the links) to show you the remaining main attractions.

Powder Tower Klingen Tower Spital Bastion

Kobolzeller Tower & Gate Local Dentist Plönlein and Siebers Tower

The Powder Tower was built in 1408 and rebuilt after the Thirty-Years War in 1531, when a careless guard blew up the tower (and himself) and thus opened the gate for invading imperial troops.

The 121 feet high Klingen Tower in the north was built between 1395 and 1400. It also serves as water tower for the towns fountains.

The Spital Bastion in the south was built around 1586; it has two inner courtyards and an adjacent moat.

Kobolzeller Gate in the west was built in 1630 and named after the village Kobolzell.

Siebers Tower was built in 1385 as part of the second fortification that was built when the city expanded. It is located in the south at the Plönlein (Little Square).

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Or click the right turn signal to move on to Julia's home town Jena.