The Photography of Dr. Jeffrey P. Harper

The medieval town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, in central Germany, was founded around 950.  Today it is one of only a few intact walled medieval cities left in Europe. (This image was borrowed from Turistmus Rothenburg.) It is also known as "the best place in the world to spend Christmas." So, we went there for Christmas.

Our train pulled into Rothenburg on the afternoon of Christmas Eve.  The Hotel Eisenhut was a fabulous Old World experience right in the center of this charming town.  We checked in at the beautiful lobby, then offloaded our baggage in our spacious room and went out to look around before it got dark . . . and the shops closed.

Our hotel was next door to the "World Famous Christmas Museum" (Kathe Wohlfahrt) which had a wonderful old bus parked outside.

It was getting to be late afternoon, making photography in the dark shadowed narrow streets very difficult.

Rothenburg is carefully and loving restored and maintained to the original medieval condition.

It was a beautiful (and mild) afternoon to walk around this historic and architectural gem.

Cobbled streets and pastel colors.

Lots and lots of cobbled streets!

Rothenburg has the fine St. James Church from 1311.

The St. James Church holds an altar carved by the great German sculptor, Tilman Riemenschneider.

All over Germany people eat sneeballen ("snow balls") during the Christmas season.  They look delicious, but are, in fact, somewhat dry . . . unless you get the amaretto and almond coated ones.

It was beautiful no matter which way you turned.

We walked around in amazement, but before too long we realized that almost all of the shops were closed!  No Shopping! Oh No, it was Christmas Eve and everybody was home with their families.

All we could do was window shop.

There were many things we wanted to purchase from the beautiful shop window displays.  Drat!

Here and there we would head up a street to find the old arched gateway of the city wall.

It felt like we had gone back in time . . . except for the occasional car.

The City Hall and City Museum were under restoration . . .

The old building exteriors were amazing, and so were the interiors!  We loved looking into each shop window and marveling at what we were seeing.  Bread!

So many beautiful shops . . . and shop window displays.

We were desperate to buy a set of these small ceramic Rothenburg town buildings to add to our collection from Prague, but the shops closed early on the 24th of December and did not open until after we left.  Oh No!

We need doyleys and lace around our new Scottish home, but, alas, it was closed too.

However, shops selling food were generally open on the 24th and 26th.

Beautiful German breads!

The sausage shop was closed.  We could have filled our suitcases with these.

Fortunately the butcher was open and had these cute pepperonis with cigar bands in a wood box.  We bought a couple of boxes . . . they are great!

A Rothenburg doll shop. I always find great collections of dolls creepy . . . its the animist in me.

We never tired of strolling arm in arm around this gem of a town.

While walking around the narrow medieval street that Rothenburg, it's easy to forget that it is a walled hill town.

Every once in a while our wanderings would spill us out at a view point over quaint river valley village scenes.

There was always something interesting to catch your eye, like this two-tailed merman.

It was cold, grey, and cloudy, but it was still like being in a post card.

We walked around Rothenburg all day, but eventually had to get back to the rococo hotel to get ready for Christmas Eve dinner.  Our hotel was filled with these wonderful old religious artifacts.

Christmas Eve dinner was a special event at the Hotel Eisenhut Hotel: a three hour, nine course meal that culminated with this delicious fruit sorbet.

After dinner we went for a stroll in the brightly lit streets.  This is our hotel on the right; the Hotel Eisenhut.

The World Famous Christmas Museum.

I woke up early and walked around the corner to fetch breakfast.  Fortunately I brought my new Fuji X-E1 camera.  What an amazing sight.

Take-away coffee, cheesecake and strudel back at the hotel room.  Delicious.

The following morning (Dec. 26) broke cold, wet, and gloomy.  We decided to walk the length of the covered ramparts of the old city wall.  There was much to see on the way, as usual.

Now THIS is what I call 'an addition' to your house!

We first walked to the edge of town past these amazing vine covered homes.  They would be just as wonderful in summer.

As is my habit, I was infatuated by old doors showing their age.  What is in there?

Yes, at some point, the neo-classical style even penetrated this old German village.

Grand, heroic, and romantic . . . and pigeonproofed.

One of the newer buildings in Rothenburg from 1681.  Only 335 years old.

An old door again; this time one of the city gates leading outside the town to a small garden and chapel.  The textures visable in this flat light were wonderful.

The small austere chapel was a little gem in the winter gloom.

The rain started to get heavier at this point, so we headed back under the gate we came from and discovered this wonderful view of medieval Rothenburg.

I couldn't resist taking more photos of this gate and wall.  I am sure you could produce a fascinating book of photographs of just this gate alone.

"If these gates could talk" . . . . .

The other tourists began to immerge from their hotels to begin their silent meander through the streets of Rothenburf ob der Tauber.

So much to see in Rothenburg.

Rothenburg was especially beautiful in the rain.

Wet cobblestones evoke a kind of melancholia . . .

We followed the wall around to find the steps up to the ramparts.  Nope, these would not take us where we wanted to go.

Our route led us to an amazing door.  I could not tell if this was contemporary or some kind of an old world attempt at 'modern' iron and rivet door-making. It looked like a lot of doors I have seen in India.

A retrofit?  There was so much to look at and contemplate in Rothenburg.

A cat in an old Rothenburg window on a cold and dank winter day.

More old weathered doors than I knew what to do with . . . but fortunately I had a lot of storage media!

We eventually found the way to the top of the city walls.

Up we went for a walk around the top of the city wall.

There was some beautiful cantilever stonework on the city wall stairs.

Walking the covered ramparts of the old city walls turned out to be the best thing to do on a rainy day.

The views from the ramparts were spectacular.  It was fun to walk along these old passageways above the town.

This foreign tourist seemed very happy to be where he was.

There were some good opportunities to photograph patterns from the top of the city walls.  We walked about 3/4 of the way around the city walls before coming down.  It was getting late.  Time to head back to the hotel.

We walked back through one of the city gates to find Rothenburg lit up like a scene on a Christmas card. 

We walked home in the gathering darkness as a few shops lit up the street. We went in this bakery and had coffee.

Hmmm . . . what do we want this time? . . . .

We changed and walked a block to this Gasthof for another wonderful meal.

There was a manger in the churchyard.  It was Christmas, after all.

We walked around a while in the dim, moody alleys.

We walked around the same streets we walked during the day, but in a very different mood.

I wanted very badly to check these doors . . . and see what was behind them.

At last we stumbled upon the main town square next to our hotel.

Some of the Christmas Market stalls opened on the night of the 26th . . . we stopped for another Gluhwein before turning in.  We were off to Stuttgart and the airport for a flight back to Geneva the next morning.

The next morning, bright and early, we were on the train.  What an enchanted couple of days we spent in Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

The charming and spare German countryside from the moving train.

We departed Germany ant the small, but very nice Stuttgart Airport.

Our Winter vacation started off with a flight from Aberdeen, Scotland to Copenhagen, Denmark where we caught a connection to Geneva, Switzerland.  My CRS flared up and and I left behind my camera bag at the security check-in at the Aberdeen Airport.  A phone call to Aberdeen fortunately yielded the good news that my expensive camera equipment was safely locked up in their lost and found.  Whew!We stayed the night with good freinds on their lovely farm outside Geneva and then headed off to the medeival German town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber.  In route, I picked up the excellent Fuji X-E1 camera fitted to their equally excellent IS 18-55mm zoom lens at the Geneva Duty Free. I couldn't go on this vacation without taking some photos! We arrived in Stuttgart for a one night layover before our train to Rothenburg ob der Tauber.  As it turned out, the Stuttgart Christmas Market (first started in 1692) was in it's last night!

A monument as only the Germans can make them.  Heroic, gigantic, romantic.

Stuttgart Winged Liberty (under repair).

Did I mention Stuttgart pastry . . . it would be worth moving here just for the pastry . . . . almost.

The Christmas Market spread along the entire length of Stuttgart's main walking street.

Their were lots of pretty booths set up selling just about everything Christmas-related.

There was a lot of festive seasonal food for sale too.

We stopped for delicious sausages and Glühwein (roughly translated, "glow-wine").

It was a beautiful, not-too-cold night in Stuttgart.  There were many tourists in the crowd that night (all, eventually, heading to Rothenburg the next day, we found out).

It was a wonderful evening to stroll around with the entire population of Stuttgart looking at the fun and interesting booths.

We were tempted . . . . but where would we put it?

There have been Bolivian street musicians in EVERY European city I have visited in the last twenty years: Stuttgart was no exception!  These guys were playing a kind of Bolivian Space Music.  Very esoteric.

A brightly lit merry-go-round tested the dynamic range capabilities of the new Fuji X-E1 camera.  Excellent!

Did they only use this Christmas Tree Bulb Ferris Wheel one month of the year?  Who knows . . . it was beautiful!

I imagine that the shapes and sizes of these Christmas Gingerbread Hearts have huge significance to the residents of Stuttgart.

About half way down the walking street my wife made the observation that all the buildings seemed new.  Yes, they were . . . because most of Stuttgart was bombed into smithereens in WWII.  Only a few old buildings remained, like this cathedral tower.

But the Stuttgart city fathers made the most of their suddenly new city by planting and trimming very lovely trees down the promenade.

We found a nice beer garden that brewed their own ale, and had delicious pork schnitzel (me) and pork knuckle (my wife) with authentic sauerkraut.

We had a wonderful evening among the throngs before walking back to our hotel.

I saw this interesting poster in the gutter on our walk home.  I'm guessing it is either a political poster for a politician running in the Big Partei, or it is an invitation to a Big Party.  The arrangement of leaves is attractive.

Our hotel was clean and centrally located.  We slept well after our long walk in the Christmas Market.

I took my obligatory art shot in the lobby of our hotel before we headed out the door.  We had a train to catch.

We hustled through the austere beauty of the Stuttgart Hauptbahnof to catch our train (after a quick stop for Starbucks). We would come back through this train station in a few days and then transit to the airport.