Inland navigation has always been crucial to the city of Minden, in the very northeast of North Rhine Westphalia. In Medieval times Minden needed the Weser River for fishing and trade, and became a member of the international Hanseatic League of merchant cities. In the 1910s century the second largest aqueduct in Europe was built …
Kansas is known for its agriculture, giving it the nickname ‘The Wheat State’. It is also known as ‘The Sunflower State’, as it is home to Mount Sunflower. In addition to this mountain, Kansas is also home to hills, forests, flatlands and rivers. Two-thirds of Kansas sits within the Great Plains, with the remaining third …
The seat of a historic county in the old Electorate of Mainz, the town of Miltenberg is pressed against a bend in the River Main by the final eastern peaks of the Odenwald range. The old town is 2.5 kilometres long but only a maximum 150 metres wide. And those slopes bank up to the …
The World Heritage City of Bamberg is in Upper Franconia resting on seven hills. And if that sounds Roman, this seat of episcopal power is still called the “Rome of Franconia”, You’ll certainly get that impression on Domplatz, where the cathedral and its four towers are awe-inspiring and flanked by the solemn Medieval and Baroque …
A lovable town of timber-framed houses, Michelstadt is a tourist favourite in the Hessian Odenwald. Michelstadt’s coil of little streets and squares could be in a fantasy movie, while the Gothic town hall is known all over Germany for its timber stilts. People have lived in Michelstadt since the time of Charlemagne in the 9th …
A UNESCO World Heritage city, Quedlinburg rests below a sandstone cliff that has an abbey and palace on top. The king of East Francia, Henry the Fowler founded Quedlinburg in the 10th century, and his successor, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I would hold court here and develop the city. Quedlinburg has been left with enigmatic …
Where the Mulde River empties into the Elbe, Dessau is a city that you’ll often hear described as the “Bauhausstadt”. And with good reason, as Walter Gropius brought the Bauhaus school to Dessau in 1926. The main building for the Bauhaus school is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the same goes for the houses …
What may be the most romantic stop on southern Germany’s Romantic Road, Dinkelsbühl is a town of Renaissance patrician houses encircled by Medieval walls and sky-scraping gatehouses. After 1274 Dinkelsbühl was a Free Imperial City, and so was subject only to the Holy Roman Emperor. This was an economic boost and the wealthy merchants and …
A UNESCO city of overwhelming beauty, Goslar is under the northwestern hills of the Harz range in Lower Saxony. One of these peaks, Rammelsberg proved especially lucrative for Goslar, and the city’s finances were boosted by its lead, copper and silver mines. Rammelsberg has some of Europe’s oldest mining infrastructure, and its Medieval tunnels and …
Up to 1945 the city of Hildesheim in Lower Saxony was feted for its 1,900 half-timbered houses. Many of these were wiped out towards the end of the Second World War, and modern concrete constructions took their place. But since the 1980s the ensemble of Renaissance guildhalls, municipal buildings and patrician houses on the Historic …