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Tübingen, a traditional university town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, is situated 30 km (19 miles) southwest of Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.In central Tübingen, the Neckar river divides briefly into two streams, forming the elongated 1500 meter-long Neckarinsel (Neckar Island), famous for its Platanenallee with high plane trees, some of which are more than 200 years old. Pedestrians can reach the island via stairs on the narrow ends leading down from two bridges spanning the Neckar. During the summer, the Neckarinsel is occasionally the venue for concerts, plays and literary readings. The row of historical houses across one side of the elongated Neckarinsel is called the Neckarfront and includes the house with adjoining tower where poet Friedrich Hölderlin stayed for the last 36 years of his life as he struggled with mental instability.
View from the Stiftskirche.
Tübingen town hall.
Neckar and Hölderlinturm.
Stiftskirche.
Tübingen's Altstadt (old town) survived the Second World War due to the city's lack of heavy industry. The result is a growing domestic tourism business as visitors come to wander through one of the few completely intact historic Altstädte in Germany. The highlights of Tübingen include its crooked cobblestone lanes, narrow-stair alleyways picking their way through the hilly terrain, streets lined with canals and well-maintained traditional half-timbered houses.
Old town landmarks include the Rathaus (City Hall) on Marktplatz (Market Square) and the castle, Schloß Hohentübingen, now part of the University of Tübingen. The central landmark is the Stiftskirche (Collegiate Church). Along with the rest of the city, the Stiftskirche was one of the first to convert to Martin Luther's protestant church. As such, it maintains (and carefully defends) several "Roman Catholic" features, such as patron saints. Below the Rathaus is a quiet, residential street called the Judengasse, the former Jewish neighborhood of Tübingen until the town's Jews were expelled 1477. On the street corner is a plaque commemorating the fate of Tübingen's Jews.
The centre of Tübingen is the site of weekly and seasonal events, including regular market days on the Holzmarkt by the Stiftskirche and the Marktplatz by the Rathaus, an outdoor cinema in winter and summer, festive autumn and Christmas markets and Europe's largest Afro-Brazilian festival.
Students and tourists also come to the Neckar river in the summer to visit beer gardens or go boating in Stocherkähne, the Tübingen equivalent to Oxford and Cambridge punts, only slimmer. A Stocherkahn carries up to 20 people. On the second Thursday of June all Stocherkahn punts take part in a major race, the Stocherkahnrennen.
Source: Tübingen - Wikipedia
