Roman Noviomagus, Civitas Nemetum

The second city planned for today after visiting the neighbouring city of Lorsch on our day trip where we still have to do as last the city of Maulbronn; its Speyer. Let’s call this lunchtime in Speyer as we came in perfect time for this, and for enjoying the sightseeing on this rather small city. At 30 kilometres from Lorsch, or 100 south of Frankfurt, our base; it is another of the beautiful small cities near the ring of Frankfurt, and another of the many in the region listed a World Heritage Site by UNESCO for its marvellous Cathedral.

The city is within the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, neighbouring to Hesse which capital is Frankfurt. It is one of the country’s oldest cities, founded by the Roman and it’s like almost any city and village in this part of Germany full of timber-framed houses so traditional and typical. It’s a very charming place to visit, but not for overestimating the time. Few hours is well enough to see everything, and with few I would probably count with no more than 4 including some time for lunch and enjoying a coffee before moving onto the next city.

A region with countless places you can go one after another, it’s a great day out from the larger cities of Frankfurt of Stuttgart if any of these is your base. The best you could do is having a rental car and be free to go as your day goes, or on a defined tour as was our experience on this trip where I wanted to aim for some of the World Heritage Sites we’ve not been before. But other than this, there is not much more needed to say in this brief introduction to the city.

(more…)