Limburg an der Lahn

Limburg an der Lahn is dominated by one of the most photographed silhouettes in Germany: the cathedral of St George, seven-towered, striped in orange and white, standing on its rock above the river like an illumination from a medieval psalter. Built between about 1170 and 1235, it catches the exact moment when the Romanesque learned Gothic ideas — massive walls outside, early rib vaults within — and no other German cathedral carries so many towers. Beneath it huddles an old town of more than four hundred half-timbered houses from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries, among the best-preserved in the country, with lanes so narrow the roofs nearly touch; the cathedral's boys' choir, the Limburger Domsingknaben, keeps the musical tradition of the rock alive.

The town below the hill is a practical creature of the Lahn crossing — the medieval stone bridge carried the trade road, and today the ICE station places Limburg midway between Frankfurt and Cologne. Its concert address is the Stadthalle, since 1996 named the Josef-Kohlmaier-Halle after a long-serving mayor and honorary citizen, the region's platform for theatre, classical seasons and galas. The archive records a January evening of 2020 there — "Die Nacht der 5 Tenöre" with the Plovdiv orchestra — Italian arias under the town where seven towers keep watch over the river.