Schandtauber Stream and Wooden Bridges

The Schandtauber Valley, which stretches southwest from Rothenburg to Bettenfeld, is a piece of untouched nature. Here you can really enjoy the peace and quiet and learn interesting things from geology to historical use of hydropower on the water management educational trail.

The Schandtauber is a 13.8 km long tributary of the Tauber. It rises south of Gammesfeld on the Hohenloher Plain and winds its way as a trickle to Bettenfeld in Bavaria. There, water emerges from a karst spring from an underground cave system and the Schandtauber supplies most of the water. Now the river flows through the untouched Schandtauber Valley, past several mills, before flowing into the Tauber at the Schmelzmühle below Rothenburg.

The Schandtauber is an almost 13 km long left and southwest tributary of the Tauber. It flows mainly to the northeast.The name of the river, first recorded in 1317, was Old High German "Schantauber" with the meaning of short Tauber.While the Schandtauber above ground is only a small clot of water up to that point, at Bettenfeld underground water from a powerful karst spring emerges in a cave system. Some therefore only see the origin of the wicked magicians here. Before the water comes into daylight, it already flows a few kilometers under the earth's surface in cavities with a cross-section of 3 m². They form the largest known Muschelkalkhöhle in southern Germany; it has been under nature protection since 1984. It is designated as Geotope 571H001 by the Bavarian State Office for the Environment