The donor plaques
Names from around the world, each opposite the metre it funded.
**A complete wall circuit that can be walked the whole way round** — about **2.5 km** of covered sentry walk at roof height, **free and open at any hour of the day or night**. This is rare: most European cities pulled their walls down in the nineteenth century to widen streets, and what survives elsewhere is usually **scattered fragments**. Rothenburg kept the full circuit because it was too poor to demolish it. The wall has two historical layers: the **inner** of the twelfth century, when the town was smaller, and the **outer** of the fourteenth, after it grew — and parts of the older wall still stand inside the town. It carries **42 towers and gates**, the best known being the **Röder Gate**, which can be climbed. Note: the detail that sets it apart — after the destruction of 1945 the wall''s rebuilding was funded by individual donations from around the world, and **small stone plaques** naming the donors were set along the walkway, each opposite the metre it paid for. You read names from the United States, Japan and across Europe as you walk. The scheme **still operates**: you can donate today for a plaque. Note: the walkway is **narrow and low-ceilinged** in places, with steep steps.
Names from around the world, each opposite the metre it funded.
The best-known of the towers, and climbable.
Always open, and entirely empty after dark.
The wall circuit around the old town, Rothenburg
The full circuit is about **2.5 km** and takes **an hour** at an easy pace with stops to look. But it is **not a level path**: the walkway rises and falls by steep stone steps at every tower, its ceiling is low enough in places to make you stoop, and in some stretches it is not wide enough for two people to pass. ⚠ **Entirely unsuitable for a wheelchair or pushchair**, and hard with knee trouble. ⚠ You need not complete the circuit: there are **many entrances and exits** at the towers and gates, so you can go up for one stretch and come down whenever you like — which is what most visitors do. ⚠ The best stretch for views is the eastern one, between the Röder Gate and the northern corner.
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