Where to Stay in Reutlingen, Baden-Württemberg

What is Reutlingen known for?

Weaving made the working town, and the Industriemagazin Reutlingen and the Trachten- und Mühlenmuseum both keep that trade on show beside the machinery, leather and steel work that came after it. Church towers come next. St Mary's Church carries the skyline, with the Katharinenkirche, the Martinskirche and the Magdalenenkirche filling in behind.

One street draws its own visitors: Spreuerhofstraße, the narrowest in the world.

What are the main landmarks in Reutlingen?

St Mary's Church rises over the old quarter, and the Tübinger Tor and the Gartentor are what remain of the medieval walls that once ringed it. Spreuerhofstraße is the oddity. Art divides between the Kunstmuseum Reutlingen (Spendhaus) and the Kunstmuseum Reutlingen (Wandel-Hallen), while the Naturkundemuseum Reutlingen and the Reutlingen city museum cover nature and the town record.

Burg Pfullingen and the Pfullinger Hallen lie out at Pfullingen.

What is the history of Reutlingen?

A charter in 1240 set Reutlingen going as a town. Free Imperial City status followed, and the walls that came with it left the Tübinger Tor and the Gartentor standing when the rest of the circuit was pulled down for building room. Churches went up early.

St Mary's Church took the largest share of the town's building effort, while the Church of St Nicholas, the Katharinenkirche, the Martinskirche and the Magdalenenkirche served their own quarters and their own congregations. Another dedication, St Wolfgang, belongs to the same crowded record. The Obermarchthaler Klosterhof marks where a monastic house held property inside the walls.

Cloth is the other thread. Baumann'sche Mühle stands for the water-driven work that came before the factories, and the Trachten- und Mühlenmuseum keeps both milling and dress together in a single collection. A weavers' school opened in 1855 and grew into the university of applied sciences that still trains here.

Textiles brought machinery, leather goods and steel behind them, a sequence the Industriemagazin Reutlingen sets out in its own rooms. The Reutlingen city museum and the Heimatmuseum hold the wider record, the Adam-Müller-Guttenbrunn-Denkmal marks one name in public, and Spreuerhofstraße survives from all that rebuilding as the narrowest street in the world.

Where is Reutlingen?

Baden-Württemberg holds Reutlingen, which serves as the seat of the district that carries the same name. The city spreads over some 87 square kilometres and takes in outlying villages, among them Betzingen, whose small Museum in the village of Betzingen records the farming and weaving life of that ground. Pfullingen adjoins it.

Burg Pfullingen and Pfullingen Castle stand on that side, near enough that the Pfullinger Hallen and the Pfullingen City History Museum read as part of one outing rather than two.

What is the climate of Reutlingen?

Reutlingen lies well inland, far from any sea. Summers turn warm and often thundery, winters stay cold enough to leave frost standing in the narrow lanes around Spreuerhofstraße, and rain spreads across the whole year instead of gathering into one wet season. Sheltered corners help.

The gates and church porches, among them the Tübinger Tor, the Gartentor and the Church of St Nicholas, give somewhere to wait out a shower on a walk through the old quarter.

How do you get to Reutlingen?

Reutlingen keeps its sights close together. A single walk from the Tübinger Tor to the Gartentor passes St Mary's Church, Spreuerhofstraße and the Kunstmuseum Reutlingen (Spendhaus), which is how most of the centre gets seen. Pfullingen is the exception.

Burg Pfullingen, the Pfullinger Hallen and the Pfullingen City History Museum sit beyond the built-up middle, as does the Museum in the village of Betzingen, and each of those wants a short ride out.