As much as I enjoyed the other towns, Rothenberg ob der Tauber was, by far, my favorite.  For me, it was the most quintessential fairy tale-like town you could have.

We stayed at the Hotel Gotsiches Haus, right in the heart of the city.  It was a wonderful boutique hotel, that I will gladly stay at again.

 

Rothenburg isn’t a large city. It is a quaint walled city (no cars allowed) with medieval and timber roofed houses.

 

We took some time in the doll and toy museum, and had an enjoyable walk, but the highlights were the Kathe Wohlfahrt stores.  It is all about Christmas with her, and not just your standard ornaments that say Germany.  The items are true hand-carved and painted souvenirs.  The flagship store is much more than just a store…it is a Christmas village, and every turn you take leads you to another beautiful piece of work.

We have never been ones that buy a lot of things on vacation, especially for ourselves, but my husband had no shot at getting me out of there without purchasing something.

We decided we should buy a German Christmas decoration.  The choices were either a pyramid or a schwibbogen.  We decided on the schwibbogen (the link will show you an example of one on her website). When we left the store we thought we were done for the day.  Then, we turned the corner.  There in front of us was another one of her stores.  I had to go in.  More wonderfully crafted items.  Our intent was to just look around, but when we saw more pyramids (the link will show you an example on her website), we understood they were calling our name.  We debated on which one we liked and bought it.

Ok, so we were good to go.  Right? Wrong!  We turned yet another corner and there was another store.  This one had hand carved Advent calendars.  My husband’s cousins had small children at the time and we knew that this was not something we would find at home.  We picked out two – One that was a gingerbread house, and one that was a manger scene.

While the decorations were not cheap, they were not that expensive considering the fact that they were hand carved one of a kind items.

If you like Christmas decorations, the store can be deadly.  If you think you know what they are like because you have visited one in America…you are wrong.  They don’t even come close to the ones in Rothenburg ob der Tauber.