ROTHENBURG OB DER TAUBER, Germany — Cloaked in black and brandishing a deadly medieval weapon, Hans-Georg Baumgartner strides purposefully into Market Square at dusk. The crowd parts — not out of fear, but fascination. Cameras flash.

Meet the night watchman, a lowly figure in this town centuries ago, but in Baumgartner's incarnation a tour guide with a rock-star aura and a wit so calculatingly clever he's been called a medieval Jerry Seinfeld.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Baumgartner's watchman tour has helped make Rothenburg — Germany's best-preserved walled town and the jewel of the medieval trade route known as the Romantic Road - one of the country's most popular tourist sites.

Rick Steves, the ubiquitous Europe travel impresario savvy in what American tourists will pay to see, calls the watchman tour "flat-out the most entertaining hour of medieval wonder anywhere in Germany."

While Baumgartner is at the top of the tourist food chain, he's by no means Rothenburg's only attraction. Besides its 2 1/2-mile fortifying wall, the town is also known for the heavy — some might say leaden — Schneeball pastry, medieval crime museum and a hybrid saxophone-trombone instrument invented by a local innkeeper with a passion for Dixieland. Christmas shops sell knickknacks year-round, but a seasonal Christmas market offers puppet shows, concerts and walks during the holiday season. There's often a line to get in to the Kaethe Wolfahrt Christmas shop, an ornament and cuckoo clock emporium popular among U.S. military personnel.

Make a difference. Donate to The Advertiser Christmas Fund.