Regensburg
UNESCO World Heritage Site: Old Town Of Regensburg With Stadtamhof (2006); A Medieval Merchant City On The Danube With The Twelfth Century Stone Bridge, Patrician Towers And The Oldest Sausage Kitchen In Germany · Regensburg, Bavaria
Regensburg sits where the Danube turns east in the Bavarian Upper Palatinate, an hour and a half from Munich and an hour from Nuremberg by train. UNESCO inscribed the old town with Stadtamhof in 2006 as the best-preserved large medieval city in Germany: a merchant town that grew rich on the river trade and then stopped growing, leaving around a thousand listed buildings and a skyline of patrician tower houses built in deliberate imitation of Italy. The Stone Bridge of the 1140s is the reason for all of it - for three centuries the only secure crossing of the upper Danube, and the thing that pulled the salt and spice routes through the town. The cathedral carries Bavaria's finest Gothic glass and the Domspatzen boys' choir; the Historische Wurstkuchl grills sausages at the bridgehead and claims to be the oldest sausage kitchen in the world; Porta Praetoria shows the Roman fort in a wall. It is flatter, larger and busier than Bamberg, with a river-cruise rhythm, and it suits a day of walking with a student-town evening attached.
Regensburg old town on the Danube, with the Stone Bridge and the cathedral, eastern Bavaria, Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany
The old town and the Stone Bridge are open street, free, at any hour. The cathedral is normally open daily with free entry to the nave, closing to sightseers during mass and choir services; the cloister and the cathedral treasury have their own shorter hours and a charge - confirm. Schloss St Emmeram, the Thurn und Taxis palace, can usually only be seen on a guided tour at set times, with reduced or no tours in winter, and the Christmas market in its courtyard changes everything in December. The Document Neupfarrplatz underground site and the Historical Museum keep museum hours and close Mondays as Bavarian museums generally do. Walhalla downstream is open daily with winter hours; the boats to it run roughly April to October. The Wurstkuchl opens from mid-morning and stops when the charcoal does.