Hann. Münden

The Werra and the Fulda meet here and the combined river is renamed the Weser, marked by a stone at the point carrying a rhyme recording the fact. The old town between them holds around seven hundred timber-framed buildings from four centuries, one of the densest concentrations in Germany, with a Weser Renaissance town hall of 1618. Johann Andreas Eisenbarth, an itinerant surgeon of the early eighteenth century whose name entered German as a byword for a rough practitioner, died in the town in 1727; a play about him is staged in summer. Three rivers make the town a boating and cycling junction.

History

The town is first mentioned as Gimundi in deeds of gift to the abbey of Fulda in 802, its name meaning "confluence" in old German, and it may have received town rights in the latter half of the 12th century; the prefix Hannoversch was added in the 19th century to tell it apart from Minden. In 1707 the French inventor Denis Papin used a paddle-wheel boat he had built to travel down the Fulda from Kassel to Münden, and the town was later home to the Royal Prussian Academy of Forestry, whose arboretum gardens were laid out for it and which moved to the University of Göttingen in 1970 (Wikipedia, Hann. Münden).

Highlights

• The confluence - the Werra and Fulda joining to become the Weser.
• The timber town - around seven hundred framed houses in the old centre.
• The 1618 town hall - a Weser Renaissance facade on the market square.
• The Eisenbarth connection - the surgeon's grave and a summer play.

When to go

April to October; boat trips run on the rivers in the warm months. The Eisenbarth play is staged on summer weekends. Cycle routes meet in the town.

Good to know

The confluence is a marked point rather than a spectacle. Boat trips are seasonal. The town is small and quiet outside summer.

Nearby

Kassel lies south; Bad Karlshafen is downriver.

Key facts