Bamberg Old Town

Bamberg spreads across seven hills and a split river with a completeness most German cities lost long ago - a millennium of streets, churches and burgher houses still standing shoulder to shoulder, inscribed whole by UNESCO in 1993. The show-stealer is the Altes Rathaus, the old town hall built on an artificial island mid-Regnitz and frescoed to the waterline, wedged there - the story runs - because the bishop granted the citizens no land for it. Above, the four-towered cathedral holds the enigmatic stone Bamberg Horseman of the 1230s, the tombs of Emperor Henry II and his empress Kunigunde, and the grave of Pope Clement II - a papal burial unique north of the Alps. Along the river, the fishermen's cottages of Little Venice lean over their moorings, and in the taverns the local eccentricity is liquid: Rauchbier, beer brewed from smoked malt, somewhere between ale and campfire.

What you actually see

• The Altes Rathaus - the frescoed town hall on its island in the Regnitz.
• The cathedral - the Bamberg Horseman and a pope's tomb under four towers.
• Little Venice - fishermen's cottages leaning over the river moorings.
• Rauchbier - the smoked-malt beer that is Bamberg's signature, poured across the old town.

When to go

April to October for river terraces and long evenings; December dresses the squares in market lights. Summer Saturdays bring the densest day-trip crowds - mornings and evenings restore the town to itself.

Honest expectations

Day-trippers pack the Rathaus bridges from late morning; stay overnight and the lanes empty beautifully. It is a town of cobbles and hills - good shoes matter. Rauchbier divides opinion sharply on first sip; give it a second before ruling.

Nearby

Nuremberg, Wurzburg's Residenz, the crags of Franconian Switzerland and Coburg's fortress.