4 Best Places to Shop in Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber, The Romantic Road

This pastry shop is renowned for its Schneeballen, which translates as snowballs but does not really describe the fried dough strips wrapped into balls and slathered with confectioners sugar or sprinkles or drizzled with chocolate or a vanilla glaze, or all of the above. This is the signature pastry of Rothenberg, and no visit  can be considered complete without sampling one or more varieties. If you can't decide which baseball-sized treat to indulge in, opt for a mixed bag of golfball-sized.

You'll find cuckoo clocks, beer tankards, porcelain, glassware, and much more at this old and atmospheric shop near the Rathaus, run by the delightful Anneliese herself.

This multi-level store is a year-round wonderland of mostly German-made toys and decorations, particularly traditional ornaments, priced from from €5 into the hundreds, and a floor of cuckoo clocks priced into the thousands. The store's Christmas Museum is across the street.

Housed in a building dating from 1371 and filled, appropriately, with Medieval swords, shields, pistols, and armor, this Middle-Ages-themed shop offers goods that are all made on the premises by a skilled blacksmith, along with period-accurate clothing and figurines and prints of historic Rothenberg made from the original copper plates. There’s also a selection of locally made bottled period drinks, such as mead honey wine, as well as a basement pub where they are served.