Every design for Arnsberg

When the French advanced on Cologne, part of the cathedral's treasure, including the relics of the Magi, was carried to Arnsberg for safekeeping. The little Sauerland town had once been the seat of its own counts, and later of Westphalian justice, so it was used to holding things of weight.

There is something calming about the place. The Ruhr loops round the old town so tightly that every walk seems to end at the water, and the woods of the Arnsberger Wald press in on almost every side. Days run at a small-town pace: past the Glockenturm and the Altes Rathaus, up to the Kreuzberg, or along the river path towards Neheim and Hüsten.

Above it all stands the Arnsberger Schloßruine, the broken walls of a castle once rebuilt as a palace and hunting lodge for an elector. From up there you can see the whole double bend of the Ruhr, and that is the view anyone from Arnsberg carries away with them.