Miltenberg, Germany: the "Pearl of the Main" and its half-timbered market square

The market square of Miltenberg, known to everyone as the Schnatterloch, is one of the most photographed scenes in Germany: a cluster of leaning half-timbered houses around a red sandstone fountain of 1583, with a gate tower above leading up through the woods to a hilltop castle. Set on the left bank of the Main between the Spessart and Odenwald hills, this Lower Franconian town of around 9,000 people has earned its nickname, the Pearl of the Main. It sits roughly 75 kilometres south-east of Frankfurt and about the same distance west of Würzburg, in the heart of the Franconian wine country.

Some 150 half-timbered houses, most from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, line the long Hauptstraße. Among them stands the Hotel Zum Riesen, claimed as one of the oldest inns in Germany, its present building dating from 1590 on far older foundations.

Tolls, trade and a hilltop castle

Miltenberg grew up around a Mainz toll station on the river and was granted town status in 1237. The Mildenburg, the castle on the wooded slope above, was begun by the archbishops of Mainz in the twelfth century to guard their territory and collect dues; today it holds a museum of icons and modern art. The town belonged to Electoral Mainz until 1803 and passed to Bavaria in 1816, and a long economic slumber afterwards helped keep its medieval streets intact.

Wine, woods and the Main

The surrounding slopes yield red wines such as Spätburgunder, and the Red Wine Trail threads through the vineyards nearby. River cruises run upstream in summer, the city museum traces the town's Roman and medieval past, and the old gates - the Würzburger Tor and the Mainzer Tor - still mark the edges of the centre. Quiet on weekday mornings, Miltenberg rewards an unhurried stroll.