Regensburg

Regensburg is the middle ages, preserved alive. Spared by the bombs, the old town on the Danube's northernmost point survives as Germany's best-preserved large medieval city — UNESCO-listed, a labyrinth of patrician towers built like San Gimignano's by merchants competing skyward, with the Gothic cathedral rising above and the twelfth-century Stone Bridge, the engineering marvel its builders' era compared to wonders of the world, still crossing the river on its ancient piers. Beside the bridge, the Wurstkuchl has been grilling sausages for some eight centuries — plausibly the world's oldest continuously operating public eatery.

For a century and a half the city was Europe's parliament: the Perpetual Diet of the Holy Roman Empire sat in the old town hall from 1663 until the empire's end, making Regensburg the continent's diplomatic capital; the princely house of Thurn und Taxis, hereditary masters of the imperial post, still resides in its vast palace, whose courtyard festival brings stars of every genre each summer.

The city's proudest sound is a thousand years old: the Regensburger Domspatzen — the "cathedral sparrows" — have sung the cathedral liturgy since 975, among the oldest boys' choirs on earth, their concerts carrying the tradition worldwide. With the theatre's opera seasons and the medieval taverns' Danube gemütlichkeit, Regensburg offers time travel with excellent acoustics.