Rothenburg

A roofed walkway follows the top of the rampart, so the circuit works in rain. Door frames are low enough to duck under, and no lamps burn up there at night. Names of people who paid for repairs are cut into the stones, Japanese and American towns among them.

Two lanes fork here around a yellow timbered house, with a gate behind it at each level. Everyone photographs this corner, so an empty frame means going early in the morning.

A watchman with a halberd and a lantern leads an hour of stories out of the market square and through the lanes. The German round and the English round set off at different times. No booking is taken; whoever is standing in the square simply goes.

Riemenschneider's Holy Blood altarpiece stands on the west gallery upstairs, not down in the nave, so it takes a stair. A rock crystal capsule in the cross is said to hold one drop of blood. The figures look different ways, so from anywhere one meets your eye.

Four floors deal with old law and punishment. Things meant to shame outnumber the instruments of pain. Iron masks locked over the face carry different noses and ears for different offences. The cage for dunking a baker who cheated on weight is here too.

It gathers the history of Christmas decoration, so glass ornaments and old trees stand on every floor. It opens through summer as well. That means walking it in August with carols playing.

The castle did not survive the earthquake of 1356; one chapel gate and a garden hold its ground now. From the west end the Tauber valley drops away below you, and this is the side the sun sets on.

Climb the gate tower to the top on its wooden stairs and the red tile roofs read as one slope running down towards the valley.

Down on the valley floor a stone bridge carries one row of arches on top of another. Walking down from the town is easy; the climb back is steep enough to want an hour.

Two hundred and twenty steps up, the last stretch is nearer a ladder, ending at a hatch. The rail up there is narrow and takes only a few people at a time.

A clock on the gable of the Councillors' Tavern on Marktplatz, where at set hours the windows open and a mayor figure drains a huge tankard. It replays the legend of Mayor Nusch saving the town in 1631 by downing 3.25 litres of wine at once.

A tower house built in 1388 by Mayor Toppler in the meadows of the Tauber valley, its upper floors jutting wider than the base. It gives an odd upward angle on the walled town, and walkers on the valley path stop to photograph it.

The bastion closing off the walls to the south, laid out so that anyone entering passes several gates and two inner courtyards in turn. Gun positions on the upper level look over the fields beyond. Follow the wall walk south and it ends here.

A small Romanesque church in Detwang, the Tauber village below the town, holding a Crucifixion altar carved by Tilman Riemenschneider. Far quieter than St James's, it lets you sit before the altar undisturbed. Walk down from the Castle Garden to reach it.