Tour Audio a Neuss

Neuss was founded as Novaesium in 16 BCE, a Roman military fortress on the Rhine's western bank. The city celebrated its 2,000th anniversary in 1984, making it one of the few German cities that can document an unbroken habitation across two millennia with physical evidence. The Roman fort, the medieval pilgrimage town built over it, and the industrial Rhine-side city that grew in the 19th century are all layered into a 154,000-person municipality that most visitors to the nearby Düsseldorf never think to cross the river to find.

The Basilica of St.

Quirinus dominates the city skyline with an unusual dome-capped eastern tower that gives the Romanesque building a silhouette unlike anything else in the region. The church was built in the 12th and 13th centuries on the site of an early Christian martyr's tomb, and its treasury holds medieval reliquaries that attract serious pilgrims. Outside the church, the city's most unexpected institution is a Globe Theatre replica -- a close reconstruction of Shakespeare's original London playhouse -- that hosts an annual Shakespeare festival with performances in multiple languages. Neuss built this because it wanted to, not because the connection was obvious.