The Plönlein is the most photographed view in Rothenburg and one of the most reproduced images in all of medieval Germany: a narrow cobbled street forks around a half-timbered house, with the Siebersturm (a Gothic gate tower) rising on the upper fork and the Kobolzeller Tower framing the lower one. Every surface is weathered timber and old plaster; the street curves enough that you cannot see around it. It looks, to a degree that is almost disorienting, exactly like the Germany of fairy tales and Disney concept art — because those things were modelled on places like this.
The view is best in morning light, before the day-trip crowds arrive. The actual fork in the road is tiny and fills quickly once the tourist coaches park up; by midday in summer the narrow lane can barely contain the photographers. Come before 8am, or come after 7pm, and it reverts to something more like itself.
The name "Plönlein" probably derives from the Latin planum, meaning a small flat area or square. The half-timbered house at the junction is private. The whole thing covers about the area of a tennis court, which makes it all the more remarkable as a composition.