Nördlingen - The Walled City

Somehow time seems to have stopped in this small, circular town. Swabian Nördlingen still is completely surrounded by its medieval walls - but while most other historical cities grew vastly beyond their former borders, there are still fields and pastures just beyond the gates here. And inside its walls the town is giving off a special charme of times past, attracting afficionados from lots of different countries. There are even quite a few visitors from Japan, even though some of them have very special reasons...

Okay, let's start with some pictures for a first impression. When I arrived in Nördlingen, the weather wasn't exactly at its best, but it improved over the day.

Red building on the left: "Alte Schranne", used to be a granary for the region's corn trade.

Sign: "Tannery and leather shop of Alexander Keßler" 

Tanners used to be amongst the wealthiest and most influential people.

Behold: On the rooftop there's a stork's nest. Inhabited by storks. Real ones.

Inside the church.

On the left: The "Fool's Mirror" in one of the townhall's corners. 
Text is saying: "Now it's two of us."

Yup, this is the city wall. Might not match your typical clichéd picture, but back then (14th century) they built their walls in that style around here. It's about 7 meters tall, completely preserved and accessible and most of the guard's walkway is roofed. The corridor's town-facing side is open while the outside world can be observed through small crevices. It takes about 45 minutes to slowly walk around the city, and it's nice to take your time to view its houses from a slightly elevated point of view:

 This tower belongs to one of the five town gates.

This prominent church tower, just being called "Daniel" by the locals, is situated directly in the center of the almost circular city. You can climb it to view Nördlingen in all directions from the very top, this is how the introductory picture came to be. 350 steps are leading up to the tower watchman, where it's also possible to buy souvenirs. Another 18 steps are left in order to reach the observation platform located in an altitude of 70 meters. There used to be an elevator...

Sign is talking about the elevator being moved by the treadmill below.

Looking at the townhall.

But there's more than just the view up here... You can also meet this lady who lives with the tower watchman:

This is the official tower cat named Wendelstein. About five years ago she just arrived after climbing all the stairs and decided to stay. Nobody knows why exactly she wants to live up in the tower, but as a new mascot she was welcome of course. Visitors love her. And by now she even got a job: The world's (probably) only employed cat offically holds the job title of pigeon hunter. Her salary of €150 a month, paid by the city, is used for cat food. And if there is no work to do at the moment, Wendelstein likes to accompany visitors on their way back down, to take catnaps or to guard the guestbook, as seen in the picture above.

Speaking of the guestbook: A look inside is a good way to learn where most visitors come from. And amongst all the entries in German, English, French or Italian there are surprisingly many in Japanese, oftentimes accompanied by small drawings:

How comes and what's the point?

Well: Nördlingen inspired the setting of a manga/anime series that became extremely popular in its country of origin and has a whole load of fans. It's called Attack on Titan, watch the frst intro here for an impression. The story is set in a world where humans had to withdraw inside a circular city surrounded by giant walls, all in order to protect themselves from the man-eating titans of the outside world. (Fortunately the sense of life is a different one here...) Inside those walls there are medieval buildings like half-timber houses everwhere, as well as towers that look quite similar to the Daniel. And since the Japanese can be pretty enthusiastic about things they like and most of them are strung out on Germany anyway, some actually go on a pilgrimage to Nördlingen.

"Sometimes the actually arrive in their costumes up here", the tower watchman said. "They dress up as their heroes... like Spiderman, just their version of it. At first we had no clue what all that was about. Some day one of them explained it to us."

But Nördlingen is not only run over by fans of Attack on Titan. There's yet another, older anime series that however not only got inspired by the city, but actually is set here: Houses and Streets are used as background for the animated characters. There were some changes or simplifications for the layout, but the place still is easily recognizable:

The serie's name is, uhm... Princess Tutu and it's twelve years old already, but there are still some hardcore fans actually traveling to Germany.

Anyway, the town thinks about building a new hotel outside of the walls thanks to all the visitors coming even from the far east. The current (small) capacities are barely enough. And by now even the Chinese like to drop by on their Germany trip, because tower cat Wendelstein is very popular on the internet over there.

But fortunately there is still no mass tourism going on here, which would harm the ambience a lot. From time to time you hear people talking in a foreign laguage, but that's pretty much all. I hope it will stay that way for a while... The usual performers and stalls with people selling junk just don't belong in those streets:

Well, the cars disrupt the aesthetics a little as well. But the people of Nördlingen know what to do:

Every three years there is a very special city festival taking place, carrying back the world inside of the walls to the middle ags for three days. That also means: No cars allowed and at the gates you have to pay an entrance fee a toll. Other attractions include food prepared using historical receipts as well as the usual renaissance fair stuff. I wasn't traveling during the right year for this little time travel adventure, but I might come back again...

To honor that consciousness of traditon and the general quality of life over here, the Nördlingers got a special certificate: Their town is Cittàslow. This movement originating in Italy encompasses small towns where people can live a good life without noise and rush. Other requirements are hospitality, intact environment and good, natural food.
In the organization's own words: "Cities given life by people with respect for times past, rich in places to meet, in theatres, workshops, cafes, restaurants, spaces for imagination, with intact landscape and skilled craftsmen and craftswomen, where people can still appreciate the slow, wholesome passing of the seasons, with good eating and good health provided by natural foods, with respect for tradition."

And while we're at respect for tradition: Every day in the evening from ten to midnight the tower's watchman is doing his originally most important job. Every half hour he's calling out to all of the five town gates. In past times he got an answer back if everything was alright. Medieval security system that actually saved the city from a raid once.

Conclusion: Nördlingen's pretty cool, would even move there for a while. Now have a model of the city to close this post. Can even be vastly enlarged.