Klingenberg am Main

Klingenberg is red on red: red sandstone under red wine. The tiny Franconian town — one of Bavaria's smallest — terraced its precipitous Main-side slope into vineyards centuries ago, and the Spätburgunder from these warm sandstone walls, the "Clingenberger", earned a court reputation historic enough that the town still pours it with proprietary pride; the parallel trade quarried the same stone, Klingenberg's red sandstone travelling down the Main to face buildings far beyond Franconia, the clay pit above town adding raw material famous among tile-makers.

Above the gables rises the Clingenburg, the ruined castle that named the town — and gave it a stage: the Clingenburg Festspiele fill the castle courtyard each summer with opera, musicals and drama against the panorama of river bend and vineyard, one of the Lower Main's cherished open-air seasons, torch-lit descents included.

The town between rock and river is a compact delight: half-timbered lanes and the old town hall pressed between slope and bank, wine taverns in courtyards, the Main promenade watching barges and cyclists pass on the Main radweg's most scenic reach, with the Spessart's oaks rising opposite and the Odenwald behind. Churriguera-scale it is not — Klingenberg's charms are concentrated: stone, wine and summer theatre on one steep, sun-struck bank.