Regensburg, Germany has been able to retain much of its early architecture, while street layouts have remained essentially unchanged for centuries with narrow streets leading up from the Danube River and around cathedrals and churches.Florian Trykowski/German National Tourist Board
Crooked timber frames concealed behind plaster, warped red rooflines and glimpses of grey stone arches through open shutters: to stroll through the UNESCO protected towns of Regensburg and Bamberg in Bavaria is to watch them evolve over a thousand years.
As someone who studied medieval buildings as part of my architectural masters program, I’d been eager to explore these places for years.
Uncommonly in Germany, both towns have retained much of their early architecture and even their street layouts have remained essentially unchanged for centuries. In both, keen observers can spot centuries of altered building fabric, where buildings have been repurposed, reconstructed and refaced.
In Regensburg, a 90-minute train ride north of Munich, tour guide Rosemarie Stoffregen leads me down a side street and stops in front of a looming stone and plaster wall. The bottom two floors are a motley patchwork of limestone blocks and roundheaded openings.
This, she tells me, is what’s left of the Roman gatehouse the city forgot.
Uncovered during demolition work in the 19th century, the Porta Praetoria is one of only two remaining Roman gates north of the Alps, dating back nearly two millennia. In a city so architecturally layered, the fact that a lumbering 11-metre-tall monument could be lost for centuries feels less surprising than one would imagine.
Remains of the Porta Praetoria tower, a part of Roman fort in Regensburg, Germany. The Porta Praetoria is one of only two remaining Roman gates north of the Alps, dating back nearly two millennia.naumoid/Supplied
Nearby, the narrow streets, subdued but charming, lead up from the Danube River and tangle around cathedrals and churches. I peer through windows and spot gothic vaulting in living rooms.
On an off-season weekday, Ms. Stoffregen and I have these well-worn cobblestones nearly to ourselves. Church bells echo through the lanes as we walk.
The riverfront, however, is lively with visitors. They cluster near the UNESCO museum and by the riverboat ticket office. Larger tour groups troop over the city’s stone bridge, built on 11th-century foundations with 1950s concrete balustrades.
Ms. Stoffregen leads me to the Haidplatz, one of a string of city squares punctuating the medieval street plan. My eyes go right to the Thon-Dittmer Palace, a cultural centre dating to the early 19th century. As a neoclassical giant in a city of heavy medieval buildings, it stands out.
What intrigues me is that it’s not perfectly straight and even, like classical buildings usually are. The walls are buckling, and the line of orderly windowsills dips and wobbles across the 20-metre expanse. It’s slight, but enough to make me wonder: Is the building hiding something?
In my hotel room later, I consult the internet. My suspicions about what lies behind the classical façade are confirmed: Thon-Dittmer Palace is actually made up of the remains of two medieval merchant houses, masquerading in an 1809 trench coat.
Giddy at the observation, that evening I set out to get a feel for the nightlife. I walk with a stream of people over the river to the fairgrounds, now hosting one of the year’s several celebrations of Bavarian music, food and drink. The lights of a distant Ferris wheel crest the treetops and sparkle on the water below.
In Regensburg, keen observers can find altered building fabric, where buildings have been repurposed, reconstructed and refaced over the centuries.Hans Bauer/German National Tourist Board
Most locals are in formal German attire: dirndls and lederhosen. But many are wearing them with sneakers. The people of Regensburg embrace the old with the new, I think to myself.
I spend that night chatting with students as they celebrate the beer festival, or Dult, and join in with a litre of beer and a pretzel of my own. But I pass when offered a second. The next morning I have a train to catch to Bamberg, my next UNESCO site.
Baroque Bamberg
Today, Bamberg is famous for its Franconian Baroque architecture – curvaceous sculptural elements, pastel colours and lots of gold. But to the eyes of an architectural historian, the city’s facades conceal their true form.
The Baroque in Bamberg is the legacy of a pair of brothers who, in the 18th century, ruled as Prince Bishops and admired the Italian style. The Schonborns offered tax relief and low-cost building materials for locals to redesign their buildings in the Baroque manner.
But what many did was simply slap Baroque facades onto the front of their timber-framed homes. The deception is still visible in the steep slope of the rooflines – usually a telltale medieval feature – and on the reverse of the buildings, where weathered wood slats are still visible from some back alleys.
Haus zur Trommel, for instance, an art shop on Judenstrasse, may look Baroque at first glance. But don’t be distracted by its pink plaster and decorative panels under the windows: Really, it’s a 12th-century bakery in disguise.
Yet some houses were built from scratch in the Baroque style. Across the street from the bakery is the Boettingerhaus, a lavishly sculptural and somewhat cramped-looking city palace, completed in 1713. It’s marvellous. I linger until Fritz Hager, my tour guide, pulls me along.
Like Regensburg, Bamberg houses a university, and students weave down side streets and rollerblade by the river, lying on the grass in groups.
“This is not a museum city,” says Hager, as we walk through the busy Gruener Markt, where vendors offer fresh vegetables just as they did hundreds of years ago. “It’s a living city.”
The old Town Hall and bridge at the Bamberg UNESCO World Heritage site in Germany.Günther Bayerl/German National Tourist Board
Of the two cities, Bamberg seems to attract more tourists, and it’s better to wait for the river-cruise tour groups to leave before exploring the city centre. So early the next morning, I turn away from the busiest area and climb the steps to the former monastery gardens. Bamberg was built over seven hills, like Rome. The city stretches out below me. Church steeples catch the early light.
Later I pass “Little Venice,” where cheerful fisherman’s cottages jostle for place on one side of the Regnitz River. I pause to watch a woman across the water, tossing food to a group of placid swans. Nearby, a man with a fishing rod drops his line into the current. The vignette feels like it could have taken place 20, 50 or 200 years ago.
Most of the day-tripping visitors cluster around the Rathaus, the city hall, so I wait for the late afternoon to get a good look. The 1467 building hovers over the river, balanced on a narrow pier. A bridge crosses the Regnitz River and runs right through the hall, passing through two enormous stone rococo doorways.
For 20 minutes I lean over the edge of the bridge, peering down at the side of the timber structure, which once housed the city guards. I’m trying to figure out which timbers, if any, are original based on their pattern of weathering. I can just make out where the tan studs and criss-crossing beams have been subtly renewed.
I’m sure passersby wonder what I’m looking at so intently, but I don’t mind. I’m lost in the shape of the wood and plaster.
By evening, the old part of town is largely empty of tourists, except for the area around one brewery: Schlenkerla, famous for serving Bamerg’s smoky Rauchbier. I order one and find a seat by the window. The smell of the beer mingles with the warm, malty air inside the 600-year-old wood-panelled tavern.
Chatting travellers spill out into the yellow streetlight, beer mugs in hand. They form jaunty clusters against a backdrop of red blooms, which dangle from window boxes on the medieval inn behind them. For a moment, the scene looks like an engraving of old Europe, frozen in time.
If you go
Regensburg:
Sleep: Jakob Regensburg Downtown, on Jakobstraße, is a short stroll from the city’s main squares
Eat: Find Restaurant Bischofshof am Dom, with its biergarten ringed with red flowers during summer, on Krauterermarkt. Order a Bavarian classic: Crispy roasted pork shank, with potatoes and cabbage.
Try Orphée, a French restaurant with original 19th-century wood interior, on Untere Bachgasse 8. The $40 prix-fixe lunch menu is worth it if you’re taking it slow: It comes with bread, an appetizer, a main, an alcoholic drink, mineral water and a coffee. The boeuf bourguignon was among the best I’ve ever had.
See: Take a guided tour at the Princely Palace of St. Emmeram south of the main city centre on St.-Peters-Weg
Bamberg
Sleep: Residenzschloss, a hospital turned upscale hotel by the Regnitz on Untere Sandstraße 32
Eat: Lunch on Brauhaus Zum Sternla’s convivial terrace near the Schönleinsplatz in warm weather. Try the award-winning Bratwurst, served with traditional German potato salad
Drink: Sip some tradition at Schlenkerla, located in the Old Town, and order Rauchbier, or “smoked beer,” it’s bittersweet like Guinness but with a unique flavour of smoke and toasted nut
See: Visit the Bird Room in the Naturkundemuseum. The Gartner- und Hackermuseum will be a big hit with gardeners.
The writer was a guest of the German National Tourist Office. It did not review or approve the story before publication.