Rottweil

The oldest town in Baden-Württemberg began as Arae Flaviae, a Roman settlement raised to a municipium under Emperor Vespasian around 73 AD — the only place in today's state to hold Roman town rights. That deep past is still tangible: the celebrated Orpheus mosaic, laid in the second century and unearthed in 1834, anchors the Dominikanermuseum's Roman collection, and foundations of the Roman bath complex survive across the river.

A medieval stage set. Rottweil's later wealth came as a Free Imperial City, self-governing from 1268 until 1802 and allied from 1463 with the Swiss Confederation — a bond still audible in the local dialect's Alemannic lilt. The core it built on its spur above the young Neckar is remarkably intact: the Hauptstraße climbs past the Renaissance market fountain between burgher houses hung with painted oriel windows, the 13th-century Schwarzes Tor guards the upper end, and the Gothic Kapellenturm — a 70-metre tower more ornament than steeple — rises beside the Heilig-Kreuz-Münster.

Fasnet and hounds. Two exports carry the name abroad. Each carnival, thousands of costumed Narren in carved wooden masks pour through the Schwarzes Tor at the Narrensprung, one of the great processions of the Swabian-Alemannic Fasnet. And the Rottweiler dog descends from the butchers' droving dogs that worked this old cattle-market town.

Old and very new. On the plateau outside town, TK Elevator's 246-metre test tower — a sleek concrete needle wrapped in spiralling mesh — holds Germany's highest public viewing platform at 232 metres. From the top, the whole lesson of Rottweil is laid out at once: red roofs and Gothic towers in the Neckar loop below, the Swabian Jura on the horizon, and on clear days the distant line of the Alps. Come for the Roman stones, stay for the walk along the old town-wall promenade at dusk, when the oriels glow and the valley goes blue.