Germany's Medieval Heartland

Proud cathedrals and small country churches, defiant castles and peaceful monasteries – they all bear witness to the deep-rooted fear of God, yet also to the most mysterious eras in history: the medieval …

Passion Play 2010: Tickets for Sale

A play of life and death, promised in a moment of mortal threat - so began the history of the Oberammergau Passion Play in 1633. In the middle of the Thirty Years War, after months of suffering and death …

High Speed Mobility with ICE Trains

Germany certainly has not become smaller but distances between cities are shrinking fast – at least if you take the train. Due to extensive investments in railroads and tracks, new ICEs connect German Cities with a travel speed of up to 160 mph. With the German Rail Pass, the ICE offers high speed mobility at a very competitive price …

Historic Lodging

Muenster. Tipped off by a European Union investment scheme, 14 castles, monasteries and manor houses in North Rhine Westphalia have started to run Bed & Breakfast services – providing both, remarkable historical authenticity and a high grade accommodation.
Hotel-turned-castles include, amongst others, Schloss Diersfordt (built 1432), 14th century country house Hertefeld or Schloss Ossenberg with its unique Rococo style architecture. Vacancies can be checked by online booking requests…

Magdeburg. – The “Romanesque Road” leads right into the heartland of medieval Germany and home of early kings and emperors like Heinrich I. and Otto the Great. Sixty stations with 72 buildings – Proud cathedrals and small country churches, defiant castles and peaceful monasteries, they all bear witness to the deep-rooted fear of God – and are waiting along the way to be discovered.

Abundance of Architectural Monuments

Saxony-Anhalt is blessed with an abundance of architectural monuments from the early part of this period. Some of them are well known, e.g. the “Stiftskirche” (collegiate church) in Quedlinburg, which towers over the old town with its 1200 half-timbered houses. This ensemble has been chosen as one of the World Heritage sites of UNESCO. Others are more difficult to discover, like the small village churches and red-brick buildings in the Altmark, the late Romanesque wall paintings in the church of St. Thomas in Petzien or the gardens of the monastery in Drübeck, which are regarded to be amongst the most beautiful of the 1000 or so historical gardens and parks in Saxony-Anhalt.

The Romanesque Road” invites you to discover the romantic medieval gardens of the Michaelstein monastery or the colossal castle of Querfurt, (which is seven times the size of the Wartburg!) or castle Falkenstein, where the “Sachsenspiegel”, the most significant legal document of the Middle Ages, was translated into German. You may also wish to visit Neuenburg Castle towering above the vineyards of the Saale-Unstrut-Valley or the partially reconstructed “Königspfalz” (king’s palatinate) of Tilleda with the Kyffhäuser mountains within viewing distance.

It is this variety of beautiful countryside, architectural sites and a multitude of touristic events that make Saxony-Anhalt such an incomparable destination for the culturally interested. The “Romanesque Road” is not just a parade of historical buildings, it also offers a glimpse into medieval life with banquets, markets, entertainment and music.