Gengenbach

Gengenbach was a free imperial city and keeps its gate towers, a ring of former walls and a compact old town of half-timbered and baroque houses around a market square, with vineyards climbing the slope behind. Each December the twenty-four windows of the baroque town hall become an Advent calendar, one opened each evening with a different image behind it, a different artist commissioned each year; it is billed as the world's largest Advent calendar and draws crowds nightly through the month. The town was used as a filming location for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 2005. A former Benedictine abbey stands at one end.

Background

Gengenbach lies in the Ortenau district at the western fringe of the Black Forest and has about 11,000 inhabitants. Founded in the 13th century, it held the status of Imperial Free City from 1360 to 1801. Its abbey dates from the 8th century, and the abbey's church, the Stadtkirche Sankt Marien, rebuilt after 1689, holds a number of 18th-century frescoes. The town hall with the Advent windows is itself an 18th-century building. Carnival follows the Alemannic Fasnacht tradition, called Fasend locally, with carved wooden masks and the Ratsche, a wooden noise-maker. In the 2005 film of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the town stood in for Düsseldorf, where Augustus Gloop finds the first Golden Ticket.

Source: Wikipedia, "Gengenbach"

What's there

• The Advent calendar - twenty-four town hall windows opened one a night.
• The gate towers - surviving gates of the imperial city walls.
• The market square - baroque and half-timbered fronts around one space.
• The vineyards - slopes rising directly behind the town.

When to go

April to October for the town and wine; December for the Advent calendar, when the square fills every evening for the opening ceremony.

Things to know

December evenings are very crowded and accommodation books out. Outside Advent the calendar is just a town hall. The town is small.

Nearby

Offenburg lies west; the Kinzig valley runs east.

Key facts