32 destinations chosen entrely subjectively
Where To Go in Germany – Part 2 – History of the Germans
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to the second part of your Christmas bonus, my entirely subjective list of places to visit in Germany. Today we will cover the remaining Bundesländer, namely Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Saarland, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein, Thüringen and two more places that I have chosen entirely because I can.
One of the legacies of the Holy roman empire is that Germany does not have just one place where everything happens, where politicians, entrepreneurs, bankers, artists, and actors travel on the same underground trains and eat at the same restaurants. Berlin is the capital with its political class of members of the Bundestag, journalists and lobbyist and at the same time a major gathering place for artists, musicians and thespians of all stripes and home to many tech startups. But the bankers are in Frankfurt, the headquarters of the major companies are in Stuttgart, Munich, Düsseldorf and spread around everywhere. Several of the major publishing houses are in Hamburg, the private TV stations in Munich, but none of these places have a monopoly on any of these activities. There are banks headquartered in Munich and major corporates in Frankfurt, there is great theater in Düsseldorf, Dresden and Schwerin, there are world leading companies headquartered in tiny towns like Künzelsau.
And that cuts through to the major cultural sites. Though the quip that there were 365 states in the Holy Roman empire is vastly exaggerated, there were once a hundred capital cities, from splendid Dresden to tiny Hohenzollern-Hechingen, each with its princely residence, cathedral, grand monastery and theater. The great artists either travelled from court to court, leaving behind their works here or there, or stayed in one of the free imperial cities, operating large workshops.
Therefore what you cannot do in Germany is to go to one city and see all the major treasures the country has “collected” over the centuries, as you can do in the Louvre or the British Museum and the National Gallery. In Germany you have to move around, see one thing at the time, always in the knowledge that its significant counterpart is a few hundred miles north, south, east or west of you. This is one of the legacies of the medieval empire that Germany has in common with Italy.
And hence we are going through each of the Bundesländer trying to pick out one absolute must-see and one place where you are likely to encounter fewer people. And as we have covered 9 Bundesländer up to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern already, the next location we will have to get to is Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany’s most populous state.
Nordrhein-Westfalen
If we talk about must sees, Aachen is where every upstanding listener of the History of the Germans will go, and it is undoubtably the right thing to do. The imperial chapel, with its Roman columns brought across from Rome and Ravenna and Barbarossa’s magnificent chandelier provided suitable surroundings for the coronations since Otto the Great. And if you happen to go there, take a look at the treasures in the Dommuseum, worth every second of it. And do not forget to listen to the ghoulish opening of Charlemagne’s grave by Otto III in episode 14 .
Cologne
A close second place you should not miss is Cologne. The city has been mentioned 500 times already in the show and there are likely another 500 incidences to come. Germany’s most venerable and for a long time largest city has been the stage for events from the Prologue episode to the siege of Neuss we discussed in episode 214. As the seat of one of the seven Prince electors, a major pilgrimage destination and the main hub in the trade between the empire and England, Cologne often played a decisive role. Its history is so varied and significant, it warrants its own podcast, the History of Cologne by Willem Fromm.
Of the things to see in Cologne, the Cathedral and its shrine of the Three Wise Men is unavoidable. I would also recommend the Römisch-Germanische Museum, that displays items related to the long history of Roman presence in Germany and specifically in Cologne. And do not miss the remains of Cologne’s history as a free imperial merchant city and senior member of the Hansetag League. The Overstolzen House, a 13th-century Romanesque house, and the Town Hall, with its 16th-century porch, the Gürzenich, or Banquet Hall, of the merchants of the city (1441–47), and the 16th-century Arsenal are all reconstructed on the outside, though the interior has sadly been lost to war damage.
These alone would justify a visit, but what makes it a must see are the 12 great Romanesque churches including Sankt Gereon, Sankt Severin, Sankt Ursula, Sankt Maria im Kapitol, Sankt Kunibert, Sankt Pantaleon, Sankt Aposteln, and Gross Sankt Martin. Few places in Europe can boast such a density of sacral architecture erected between the 4th and the 13th century.
Once you have done this marathon, head down to Früh’s, Sünner im Walfisch or Sion for a refreshing Kölsch and the unique atmosphere of a classic beer house. If you do that, you have to take the S-Bahn down to Cologne’s eternal rival, Düsseldorf and taste their Altbier in one of their traditional beer houses like the Füchschen, Schiffchen or Uerige.
Essen – Zeche Zollverein
18 million people spread over 34,000 km2 making Nordrhein-Westfalen one of Europe’s most densely populated areas, in particular the almost continuous urban landscape between Düsseldorf and Dortmund, otherwise known as the Ruhr.
I would love to say that the Ruhr is pretty, but that would be pushing it. There are pretty places though, like the Bredeny lake and its park with the villa of the Krupp family or the Schwebebahn in Wuppertal. Several of these cities are very old; Essen abbey boasts an Ottonian Westwerk and 10th century artworks and Dortmund had been a member of the Hanse and still retains some vestiges of that time, whilst Mercator established a cartography business in Duisburg.
If people travel here from afar, it is usually related to football, or soccer for our American friends, given the region hosts some of the most successful and most storied clubs.
But there is another way to get an understanding what made this state where almost one fifth of Germans live. And that is a visit to Zeche Zollverein, a coal mining industrial complex that counts amongst the largest of its kind in europe. It operated from 1847 to 1986 and has now been turned into a museum, or to be more precise, one of the many buildings on the site is now the Ruhr Museum providing an insight int how this region turned into one of the largest industrial agglomerations in the world.
But what impressed me more than the exhibits is the sheer scale and awesome beauty the structure. It comprises two large complexes, the mine with its Shaft 12, built in the Bauhaus style that is the basis of the claim that this is the most beautiful coal mine in the world. And then there is the nearby coking plant, a 600m long behemoth. The canal that ran alongside once held water used to cool down the coke. Today it is used In winter as one of the coolest ice rings I can imagine.
Zeche Zollverein has a museum but is not a museum, it is a vibrant centre with 150 start-ups and corporations using the space, a range of cultural institutions, a branch of the university and shops. Since opening in the 1990s, Zeche Zollverein has become a weekend destinations for people from all around, including my cousin who took me there and left me speechless.
That is unfortunately all we can cover in Nordrhein-Westfalen, leaving such gems as Paderborn (see episode 19) and Münster for later exploration.
Rheinland-Pfalz
It is time to head down to Rheinland-Pfalz, the state created in 1946 from chunks of Prussia’s Rhine province, Rheinhessen and the Bavarian Palatinate. This is the land of the archbishops of Mainz and Trier, the Counts Palatine on the Rhine, the counts of Nassau and most significantly the various barons on their castles overlooking the Rhine river.
Which gets me to the must-see in Rheinland-Pfalz, and that is the Rhine valley, namely the bit between Mainz and Bonn. I know, it is on everybody’s bucket list for a visit to Germany, but so is Heidelberg and we covered that as well.
What is most fascinating is the gap between its preception and what it actually signifies in German history. Turner and Byron had made the rhine valley into one of the main destinations on the grand Tour and many a mylord travelled along citing these stanzas from Childe Harold’s pilgrimage:
childe harold audio – Google Search 2:11:20
The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o’er the wide and winding Rhine.
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,
And hills all rich with blossomed trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scattered cities crowning these,
Whose far white walls along them shine,
Have strewed a scene, which I should see
With double joy wert THOU with me!
The river nobly foams and flows,
The charm of this enchanted ground,
And all its thousand turns disclose
Some fresher beauty varying round;
The haughtiest breast its wish might bound
Through life to dwell delighted here;
Nor could on earth a spot be found
To Nature and to me so dear,
Could thy dear eyes in following mine
Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine!
And as the boat floated between the Lorely and Katzenellenbogen the representatives of Thomas Cook sold the tourists steel engravings of Burg Katz, the Mäuseturm in Bingen or Stolzenfels castle which they would hang on their walls to dream of grim robber barons, helpless prelates and damsels in distress. All these images and dreams of the Romantic Rhine ended up in the rubbish bin when Germans and Brits faced each other across their trenches in World War I.
But that romantic yearning for crumbling castles, picturesque towns and to quote Byron again: peasant girls, with deep blue eyes, And hands which offer early flowers” was not an exclusively British obsession.
The Germans were at it too, Goethe, Hölderlin and Kleist started the literary tradition that peaked with Heinrich Heine and Clemens von Brentano, Schumann and Liszt composed piano pieces, symphonies and Lieder, Wagner’s ring of the Nibelungen takes place on the Rhine, before we get into the less salubrious world of the “Wacht am Rhein” and Carl Zuckmaier’s famous Wine, Women and Song. During the 19th century rich industrialists and the Orussian royal family turned the castle ruins into what a fairytale gothic castle was supposed to look like.
The whole place is so drenched in narratives, myths and anecdotes, it is a dreamworld made into reality. A dreamworld that obfuscates its real significance. The Rhine had been the backbone of the European economy for centuries, the main transmission line that connected the Low Countries and Italy. Its castles were toll stations funding princely ambitions, may they have been territorial, political or religious all through German history. Its cities were centres of trade and innovation, its villages made the world’s favourite white wine etc., etc.
And it is gorgeous!. Take a trip down the river either on the train that follows the banks of the river, or on a ship or boat….
Trier
Going from one of the absolute top destinations in Germany we now go to one that is quite incomprehensibly overlooked, and that is Trier. Trier may not formally be Germany’s oldest city, but it is certainly the one that holds more ancient Roman buildings than any other in Germany, and could easily compete with better known places in France or Spain.
Augusta Treverorum became one of the four capitals of the Roman empire in 293 AD and grew to between 75,000 and 100,000 inhabitants. It retains its famous city gate, the Porta Nigra from this period, the Aula Palatina, the basilica that once served as the throne room of emperor Constantine was preserved as a church, making it the largest extant hall from classical antiquity, it’s cathedral goes back to a church commissioned again by the emperor Constantine, and retains much of the old structure, with later additions in the 10th, 11th and 12th century. Trier obviously comes with the usual complement of amphitheatre, ruins of the impressive Roman bath, and a still fully functioning 2nd century bridge. The Rheinische Landesmuseum holds more exhibits from Roman times, including the famous Wine ship of Neumagen that explains a lot about trade on the Moselle and Rhine and Roman navigation and the largest treasure of Roman gold coins ever found.
And if you have time, drop into the city library that holds the Codex Egberti, one of the great Ottonian illuminated manuscripts, a reminder that Trier was not just important in roman times but had been a crucial archbishopric throughout the Middle Ages and into the early modern period. Who could forget Baldwin of Luxemburg, brother of emperor Henry VII and eminence grise of the empire for most of the 14th century.
That is of course only a small selections of the delights of Rheinland-Pfalz. You will almost certainly want to go to Speyer as well and marvel at its great cathedral we described already in episode 25 or spend some time in Mainz, home to the most senior of Prince Electors as well as of Johannes Gutenberg (episodes 186 to 188), or follow the river to Worms, original home of the Salian emperors and site of the Nibelungenlied.
Saarland
Fortunately our next destination is not far. The smallest of the territorial German states, the Saarland is where we go next. And I have to make a grave admission, I have never done more than drive through. I will of course remedy that, but what it means is that for now I cannot offer any personal recommendations.
Amongst the things I found that could entice me to go to the Saarland is first up the Saarschleife, a gigantic bend in the River Saar caused by the stream hitting a hard Quarzite rock. It looks cool.
The other location would be the Volklinger Eisenwerke, the only fully intact steel works from the 19th and 20th century. There are visiting tours and a museum explaining how this enormous facility operated, as well as special exhibitions. So if you decide to skip the Zeche Zollverein in Essen, and you want to better understand Germany’s industrial past, this might be a suitable replacement.
Sachsen
Our next Bundesland is almost due east from here – it is Saxony in all its splendour. And when we talk about Saxony as in the kingdom and now Bundesland of Saxony, as opposed to the stem duchy of Saxony, we are talking about a state created by and for the House of Wettin. For much of the 17th and 18th century this principality outshone Prussia, its neighbour to the north. Augustus the Strong and then his son Augustus III were both electors of Saxony and kings of Poland. They maintained two capitals, Dresden and Warsaw where they made a credible attempt at competing with the Versailles of Louis XIV. This expenditure relegated the dynasty back to the second league, but left behind some of the grandest and most impressive baroque architecture on German soil.
In other words, Dresden is a must-see. Several of the structures that had been heavily damaged, even wiped out by the Bombing of Dresden in February 1945 but much has now been reconstructed. In particular the Frauenkirche has become a symbol of reconciliation and rebirth. The whole process had already started under the GDR government with the reconstruction of the Semperoper in the 1980s and continued with the almost complete rebuild of for example the Taschenberg Palais and the Residenzschloss. I worked in Dresden in 1991 and I had the chance to visit the building site of the Residenzschloss. Seeing the concrete walls of what is today the audience chamber of Augustus the Strong was one of the weirder experiences I ever had in sightseeing.
But whilst much of the city centre had suffered horribly, there are several absolute gems of the heyday of baroque Dresden that have survived largely unaltered. There is the Alte Gemäldegalerie that houses the collection of Italian renaissance art put together by the otherwise hapless Augustus III, and the Grüne Gewölbe, the treasury of the House of Wettin that had been made accessible as a museum in 1729 as a means to project its immense wealth.
Going a bit further afield, you may want to see Meissen where the principality started and its castle where Johann Friedrich Böttger established the famous Meissener Porzellanmanufactur, the first place where porcelain was produced in Europe. Porcelain was an obsession amongst aristocrats in the 17th and 18th century, but had gone into total overdrive amongst the German princes. Everyone had a porcelain collection, usually housed in small “Chinese” room full of mirrors and golden wall shelfs. In Dresden you had an entire palace to house the collection, the Japanese Palace in the Neustadt.
Today the collection is shown in the Zwinger, once part of the city’s defences but repurposed by Augustus the Strong as, a party palace, orangery, garden, just something very unique and strangely wonderful. A Japanese palace was of course not enough exoticism for the spendthrift Saxon rulers, so they had a Chinese palace too, in Pillnitz, just a few miles upriver. Pillnitz is of course not just one small Chinese villa, but three separate buildings, one on the water, one on the hill and one in the middle. And there is Moritzburg, the fairytale castle in a lake full of hunting trophies..and, and, and.
I am going to shut up now. And if you go to Dresden, just spare a few days for Leipzig too. Where Dresden was where the money was spent, Leipzig is where it was made. And today Leipzig is arguably the more vibrant of the two cities.
Bad Muskau
When it comes to overspending, the two Augustuses are hard to beat, but it can be done. The man who achieved that sheer impossible feat was Hermann, Fürst von Pückler-Muskau. He is today mostly remembered for Fürst Pückler ice cream, a mix of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry flavours he did not even invent himself but was just named in his honour by the Prussian court cook.
He was a famous dandy who kept a team of white stags to pull his carriage down Unter den Linden, but his true achievement was as a gardener. His two parks, one in Bad Muskau in Saxony and the other in Branitz in Brandenburg are absolute high points in European garden architecture. Laid out in an English style the park stretches 5.6 km2 across what is now the German-Polish border. As you would expect, this is an artificial landscape of lakes and hills dotted with various follies and pavilions.
The sheer scale of the project pushed the man who was born as one of the richest nobleman in Germany deep into debt. In a desperate attempt to raise funds he and his wife divorced so that he could go to England and marry a wealthy heiress. That scheme turned out to be a touch too obvious and the British press made a mockery of the German prince’s attempts to woo an English rose. Pückler described events in hilarious letters to his now divorced but still much loved wife. She then published these letters to rustle up cash, which turned into a best seller. Like modern a day sailing youtuber, Pückler embarked on a new career as a travel writer. He journeyed across the Ottoman empire, even made it to Ethiopia and Sudan. One of the souvenirs he brought back from his trips was an11-year old Ethiopian enslaved girl that he installed in Bad Muskau where she promptly succumbed to the inclement climate, and probably just utter misery.
Money eventually ran out completely and Pückler had to sell his castle and gardens in Bad Muskau in 1845 and moved to Branitz where he could not stop himself and got gardening again. He died in 1871. Like his lifestyle, his religious convictions were at odds with the conservative world of 19th century Germany. Since cremation was not yet permitted, he went around the problem by having his heart dissolved in sulphuric acid, and ordered that his body should be embedded in caustic soda, caustic potash, and caustic lime. These granular remains were then buried underneath a pyramid in his garden.
His life cries out for its own episode.
Sachsen-Anhalt
Moving swiftly, or in fact not so very swiftly on, we come to Sachsen-Anhalt. This is the land of Otto the Great who is buried in Magdeburg cathedral and his father, Heinrich the Fowler whose grave is somewhere underneath the abbey church of Quedlinburg. Even Barbarossa squeezed himself in on the Kyffhauser, which is shared between Sachsen-Anhalt and Thüringen.
Naumburg
And the must-see place here is also linked to these early medieval days, it is the Cathedral of Naumburg, and more specifically the Stifterfiguren, the sculptures of the founders of the church. These include the legendarily alluring Uta von Ballingstedt, but also the other 11, each carved by an absolute master of the craft in the 13th century. If you are following me on social media you can find a post going through every single one of the 12 figures and their histories.
The second destination in this state is Dessau. This is another of these tiny capitals, in this case the seat of the dukes of Sachsen-Anhalt-Dessau. Not much of the old city of Dessau is left, apart from a ducal palace. But halfway between Dessau and Wittenberg, famous for Luther’s theses, is the garden landscape of Dessau-Wörlitz, a set of interwoven palaces and parks that cover an impressive 142 km2
But that is not the only reason why I would suggest to go there, the real attraction is the Bauaus. You can visit the original building where the Bauhaus school moved to after it had been more or less expelled from Weimar in the 1920s. It is a fascinating structure that, like much of the other ideas of the Bauhaus had enormous influence on the way the world looks everywhere from Texas to Tokyo. The Bauhaus museum is by the way not in the actual Bauhaus buildings, but in the centre of Dessau.
Schleswig-Holstein
Time to take our last trip up north and have a look at Schleswig Holstein. As a sailor, this is my place, along with Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It is just stunningly beautiful if you have a soft spot for hard winds and sandy beaches.
Culturally the must see place is of course Lübeck, the queen of the Hanse. We did a whole series on the Hanse and the role of Lübeck within it, we talked about the art and culture that in the main centred here – episode 127, so I am not sure what I can add in this episode. Maybe take a marzipan safari. Whilst Niederegger has become the leading brand for German Marzipan, there are four more manufacturers in Lübeck and true aficionados prefer either Mest or Martens or Carstens or Lubeca over the better known fare. Lots to discover…
As for the second location in Schleswig Holstein, there are of course the islands, namely Sylt which provide a uniquely German summer holiday experience and of course any kind of water sports in the Förde on the Baltic shore, including but not limited to sailing.
But I would like to break a lance for the city of Schleswig, the seat of the dukes of Holstein-Gottorp who occasionally ruled Denmark, Sweden and Russia, though not all at the same time. There is an impressive palace here with gardens and the like.
Beyond that there are three unique and compelling things here. The first are the remains of Hedeby or Haithabu, a Viking settlement that dominated the trade in the Baltic between the 8th and 11th century. You can see reconstructed Viking houses and a Viking museum explaining the significance of the place in international trade.
In the 7th century the Danes built a line of fortifications from Haithabu on the Baltic to the North Sea shore which remained the main Danish line of defence against invasions until the Schleswig-Holstein war of 1864. The great wall of China, begun around the same time, is admittedly more impressive, but lost its military function in the 17th century.
And then you have the cathedral of Schleswig, itself a lovely gothic church with an impressive carved main altar. The funky bit is in the cloister. Like so many churches and monasteries, Schleswig too was given a massive makeover in the 19th century. The creative renovation work here included the discovery and enhancement of a frieze underneath the massacre of the innocents. The frieze depicted various animals, including some quickly identified as turkeys.
This caused some confusion given the original decoration dated back to 1320. The only viable explanation was that the Vikings must have been to America before and had brought the motif of the turkey back from their journeys. That rapidly turned int0 a whole narrative of brave Nordic sailors spreading out to the American continent long before any Spaniard had ever held a compass. Under the Nazis the story that men from Schleswig had discovered America became canon. It wasn’t until 1948 that Kurt Wehlte used x-ray to prove that the turkeys were indeed a turkey placed there by the 19th century “restorers”.
Thüringen
Congratulations, we have made it to the last Bundesland in alphabetical order, but by no means the least.
If you look on a map of the Holy roman empire from say after the peace of Westphalia, you see several large entities, Austrian and Spanish Habsburg, Bavaria, Brandenburg-Prussia, Saxony, Wurttemberg, Hessen, Brunswick etc. And then in between all these tiny places. And Thuringia is one of the regions where the chart says things like “various Saxon duchies” or “unmappable microterritories”.
Weimar
And here in Thuringia is the probably most famous of these duodez principalities, Sachsen-Weimar. This tiny principality whose political position was so insignificant, they did not have to contribute their own soldiers to the imperial Reichsmatrikel but simply paid an equivalent tax, managed to attract Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Martin Wielandt and Gottfried Herder to its court. And they came there and lived there during the absolute height of their fame. There is no real equivalent, unless you were to say that Charles Dickens, George Elliot, Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen had decided to live together in the grounds of Belvoir Castle. Very pretty, but a bit off the beaten track.
Weimar retains much that reminds one of these days when the country’s greatest writer was also the prime minister of the tiny state and walked across the park to have tea with the duchess and her court of local baronesses.
Weimar is of course also the place where the national assembly hunkered down to write the constitution of the republic in 1919, since Berlin was simply too dangerous.
Wartburg
Thuringia has many more of these smallish state capitals, including Gotha, home of Prince Albert and Meiningen, capital of the Duchy of Sachsen-Meiningen until 1918, complete with theatre and one of the oldest orchestras in the world. And of course Erfurt, beautifully restored to its late medieval glory. I could go on.
But the other place I would suggest you see in Thüringen would probably be on most people’s must see list anyway. But again, I actually do make the rules, so I can break them if I want to.
Perched high above the town of Eisenach, Wartburg castle offers sweeping views over forested hills that immediately justify the journey. This is where Martin Luther found refuge and translated the New Testament into German—an act that shaped the language and transformed European religious life. Walking through his modest room gives you an intimate connection to ideas that changed the world.
Beyond the Reformation, Wartburg is also a cradle of German identity. Medieval legends of competition between singers, the courtly life that disgusted Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia, and 19th-century nationalism all converge within its walls. The architecture itself is striking, blending Romanesque foundations with later restorations that reflect changing artistic ideals.
Equally compelling is the setting. Wartburg sits amid hiking trails and quiet woodland, allowing you to combine cultural discovery with nature. It is everything with everything on it.
Odd Ones Out
And that is where I could, or maybe should end it. But no. I promised you two more places that are purely subjectively my favourites amongst the must-sees and the not so well known.
Bamberg
And top of the pops, the place to be that others also go, at least for me is Bamberg. If you go and see one piece of art in Germany, make it the Bamberger Reiter. Yes, I know that the Nazi used him as an archetype of the Nordic race and national ideal. Which makes it even more ironic that he may or may not depict a Hungarian and was likely made by a French artist.
Put all this away in a box and just look at it. The serenity of the figure, the elegance of the shapes, the mystery of its meaning and the unusual position of an equestrian statue inside a church, all makes this wonderfully bewildering and captivating.
And the Dom is full of other wonders, the marble sarcophagus of pope Clement II that appears more Roman than medieval, the stunning carvings of Tilman Riemenschneider on the grave of Henry II and Cunigunde and the modest box that holds the remains of Konrad III stuffed into a corner of the crypt by his ungrateful nephew Frederick Barbarossa. And more 13th century sculptures that take your breath away.
The city below too is stunning, one of the few that survived intact, including a town hall on a bridge across the river. There is an episcopal palace by Balthasar Neumann, not as breathtaking as the one in Würzburg, but still impressive. And in the Bamberg Museum you can see what may be the absolute pinnacle of Ottonian illuminated manuscripts, the Bamberg apocalypse.
And since you are in the area, nip across to Bayreuth, not necessarily for Richard Wagner, but to see the theatre, built for the wedding of a daughter of the Margrave in 1750 and still standing, almost unchanged in all its epic gold and red splendour. A unique survivor.
Weikersheim
And now for the very, very last place, Weikersheim. If we talk about tiny states with artistic and architectural ambitions far beyond its resources, Weikersheim takes the biscuit.
The state its capital had once been, Hohenlohe-Weikersheim ended to far beyond the border of the princely park. But still, they built themselves a palace in the finest 16th century style. Its great knight’s hall sports a 40 metre long ceiling, decorated with hunting scenes by Balthasar Katzenberger, whose skill lay more in colouring in, than actual painting . On the walls count Wolfgang II ordered his hunting trophies to be displayed as part of plaster reliefs of the actual animals they belonged to. Once seen, you will never forget the Weikersheim elephant.
In the 18th century another count of Weikersheim remodelled the castle again. This time it was brought up to the latest fashions of aristocratic living, complete with a defile of rooms for him and her and a mirror cabinet to show off their collection of Chinese porcelains.
What makes a visit so spectacular is that literally nothing had been changed inside and out since the line of Hohenlohe Weikersheim died out in 1760. The house became a secondary residence for another branch of the family and remained that until the family had to sell it to the state of Baden-Württemberg in 1967.
One consequence of 200 years as a secondary residence was, that the place was never heated in winter. The furniture and artworks have become so used to the seasonal changes in temperature and relative humidity that heating the castle would now result in the destruction of the decorations. So when you visit in winter, you very much keep your coat on.
For me Weikersheim epitomises so much about Germany. The fragmentation into so many smaller entities has led on the one hand to political insignificance followed by overcompensation in the 19th and 20th century, but at the same time has massively enriched the country. A place the size of Weikersheim in France or Britain would not harbour quirky works of art and a history all of its own.
I hope me droning on about places, gardens, cathedrals and coal mines has given you an idea of how diverse Germany is and maybe you found something you feel you want to visit…and in case you cannot join me on this year’s History of the Germans Tour and glide down the Main and Rhine Rivers this summer, there may be another tour in 2027.
Thanks for listening and usual service will resume on January 8th when we find out how Maximilian of Habsburg fares as King of the Romans.