Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Rothenburg ob der Tauber is the world's mental image of the medieval town — and the original outperforms the postcard. The free imperial city froze economically after the Thirty Years' War, and poverty preserved what prosperity would have modernised: the complete circuit of walls with their covered walkway, the gates and towers, the Plönlein's little forked-street tableau that every camera finds first, gabled streets descending to the Tauber's double-decker bridge. The nineteenth century's Romantics rediscovered it; the world has been arriving ever since, most magically in December, when the Reiterlesmarkt and the year-round Christmas emporium of Käthe Wohlfahrt — with its Christmas Museum — make Rothenburg the season's unofficial capital.

The town's soul, though, is carved in limewood: in St Jakob's church, Tilman Riemenschneider's Holy Blood Altar — the master's angular, inward-grieving apostles framing the relic above the west choir — stands among the summits of German sculpture, worth the journey alone. The Meistertrunk legend, in which a mayor saves the town by draining a three-litre tankard before a conquering general, is re-enacted each Whitsun with civic solemnity and costume.

Night belongs to the watchman: his lantern-lit tour of the ramparts, ironical and unhurried, has become the town's most beloved performance. The medieval museum of crime adds its shudders; the Tauber valley below, its mills and chapels, restores the peace.