"If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" -- Percy Bysshe Shelley, in his “Ode to the West Wind”
========================================(in the Franconia region of Germany's federal state of Bavaria) Rothenburg ob der Tauber is part of the popular Romantic Road which runs between Würzburg and the Bavarian Alps through southern Germany. Today Rothenburg is one of only three towns in Germany that still have completely intact city walls -- the other two being Nördlingen and Dinkelsbühl. First mentioned as Rotinbure in the 9th century, it developed around a Hohenstaufen fortress and was a free imperial city from 1274 until 1803. Rothenburg attained its zenith under Bürgermeister (Mayor) Heinrich Toppler (1373–1408) and declined after the Thirty Years’ War, during which it was besieged and captured (1631) by Catholic League forces under Johann Tserclaes, Graf (Count) von Tilly. At that time the city was supposedly spared when a citizen accepted a dare from the enemy to drink more than three quarts of wine in one gulp; the tankard is featured in the collection of the Imperial City Museum. The event is commemorated every Whitsuntide by the performance of a play, Der Meistertrunk (“The Master Gulp”). Landmarks include the Gothic and Renaissance Town Hall and the Church of St Jacob.
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