Germany · Baden-Württemberg
Where to Stay in Aalen, Baden-Württemberg
Aalen is a town of eastern Baden-Württemberg in Germany, set on the Swabian Jura around the largest Roman cavalry fort north of the Alps.
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Where to stay in Aalen
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
Where you stay in Aalen turns on the old town or the hills. The streets around the market keep the church, the museums, and the shops within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the town. The market square holds the centre.
Old houses line the lanes. Out toward the fort and the Ostalb, the town gives way to the Roman site, the iron mine, and the wooded slopes. A room by the hills trades the streets for the fort museum, the underground mine, and the forest walks of the Jura.
Beech woods climb the slopes. Stay downtown for the market, or by the hills for the fort. The wooded Ostalb slopes stand only a short way beyond Aalen's market square.
About Aalen
Aalen is the Roman-fort town of the Swabian Jura.
What is Aalen known for?
On the Kocher river below the wooded hills of the Ostalb, it stands on the line of the old Roman frontier, and it keeps the site of the largest Roman cavalry fort north of the Alps, a museum of the Roman wall that ran through here, an old iron mine now open to visitors, and the market square of a Swabian town. Wooded hills ring the town. The river runs through the valley.
What are the main landmarks in Aalen?
The Roman fort is the mark of Aalen. The site of the great cavalry fort on the edge of the town, the largest of its kind north of the Alps, is dug out and shown with a museum of the Limes, the emblem of the city, on the old frontier. An iron mine lies in the hills.
The Tiefer Stollen, a worked-out ore mine, is opened for visitors underground, while the market church, the town museum, and the wooded Jura hills mark the country around Aalen.
What is the history of Aalen?
Aalen began on the Roman frontier. When Rome held the lands beyond the Rhine, it ran a great walled frontier, the Limes, across these hills, and stationed a whole regiment of cavalry in a fort here, the largest of its kind north of the Alps. The horsemen held the wall.
From the fort at Aalen the Roman cavalry guarded the frontier against the tribes beyond, until Rome drew back and the wall was abandoned. A Swabian town grew on the ruins. In the middle ages a free town rose by the Kocher on the old Roman ground, living by its markets and, in time, by the iron dug from the hills of the Ostalb.
Iron made the modern town. The ore of the hills fed foundries and works, and Aalen grew into an industrial town of the Swabian east, keeping an old mine open as a museum. The Roman fort is dug and shown.
Aalen keeps its Roman past and its iron hills on the Jura.
Where is Aalen?
Aalen lies in the east of Baden-Württemberg in Germany, on the northern edge of the Swabian Jura. The town sits in the valley of the Kocher below the wooded limestone hills of the Ostalb, where the highlands fall toward the Ries basin, with beech forests and iron-bearing hills rising around. Wooded hills close the valley.
The river winds through the town.
What is the climate of Aalen?
Aalen has a cool, temperate climate. Warm summers and cold winters cross the Jura hills, cooler and wetter on the heights, with rain through the year and snow in the winter months. Grey damp weather is common.
The hills turn white in winter.
How do you get to Aalen?
Aalen lies in eastern Baden-Württemberg, on the road and rail between Stuttgart and Nuremberg. Trains and the highway run to it through the Jura hills from Stuttgart, and roads run out to the Ostalb towns. Lanes cross the old market.
Stuttgart lies west over the hills.
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Updated August 2026