Regensburg Audio Tours

Regensburg is one of Germany's best-preserved medieval cities and also one of its oldest, founded as the Roman legionary fortress Castra Regina in 179 AD. The Romans chose the spot where the Regen River meets the Danube, and the imprint they left is still legible in the street plan, in the Porta Praetoria arch embedded in the city wall, and in the sheer stubbornness with which Regensburg has survived every subsequent century. The Stone Bridge, known as the Steinerne Brücke, was completed in 1146 and remained the only crossing over the Danube in this region for centuries, making Regensburg the gateway between northern and southern Europe.

The old town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2006, is a maze of patrician towers built by merchant families who wanted to display their wealth in the only language the Middle Ages understood: height.

The Thurn und Taxis Palace, a vast complex built into a former Benedictine monastery, was the headquarters of the European postal service for three centuries. Today Regensburg is a university city of 160,000 people, compact enough to walk entirely, with the Danube promenade giving a fine view of the 12th-century bridge and the cathedral's twin spires rising behind it.