Look at the white building directly in front of you. That's the Ratstrinkstube or the Councillors' Tavern and only city council members were allowed to drink here. Today it houses the tourist information office, which feels a bit like a downgrade. But the real attraction is up above. It’s that ornate clock in the gable. Every hour between 10 AM and 10 PM, two small doors on either side of the clock flip open. From one side emerges a figure in cavalier dress representing a Catholic general named Count Tilly. From the other comes a sombre man in black, lifting a tankard to his lips. That's Mayor Georg Nusch, and what you're watching is a reenactment of the most famous legend in Rothenburg. Here's the story. In the year sixteen thirty one, during the Thirty Years' War, General Tilly showed up at the gates with 40,000 troops. Protestant Rothenburg tried to resist, but after three days of fighting that cost Tilly 300 soldiers, a gunpowder tower exploded, the wall was breached, and the town was forced to surrender. Furious, Tilly condemned the city councillors to death. Their wives begged for mercy. Someone offered the general an enormous tankard filled with over three litres of Franconian wine. Amused, Tilly supposedly declared that if any man could drain the whole thing in a single draught, he'd spare the town. Former mayor Nusch stepped forward, picked up the tankard, and drank every last drop. It took him about ten minutes. Tilly, true to his word, called off the executions. Nusch reportedly slept for three straight days afterward. Now, is any of this true? Almost certainly not. The story doesn't appear in writing until over 100 years later, and what actually happened is that Rothenburg just paid off the invading army with a lot of money. But the legend was too good to let go. A local poet turned it into a play in the nineteenth century, and it's been performed every year since, at Pentecost, with over a hundred costumed amateur actors on stage. UNESCO added it to Germany's Intangible Cultural Heritage list. And the actual tankard, or maybe I should say the supposed tanker, with 3.5 litres of capacity, is on display in the RothenburgMuseum, which we'll pass by later on our tour. Now, turn to face the grand building dominating one side of the square.