Every design for Aschaffenburg

Aschaffenburg spreads over both banks of the Main where the smaller Aschaff flows in, on the western edge of the Spessart hills. Those hills cut the town off from the rest of Lower Franconia, while to the west and north-west it opens onto the Rhine-Main plain, and its name, Ascaffaburc in the Middle Ages, meant castle at the ash tree river.

There is a quieter side to the town that people tend to remember: the long, narrow strips of orchard meadow between Schweinheim and Obernau, left in small plots by old inheritance law and now home to the rare little owl. Back in the centre, the Magnolienhain, the Pompejanum and Schloss Johannisburg make an afternoon walk of their own, alongside the Herstallturm and the Schönborner Hof.

The detail to keep is inside the Stiftsbasilika St. Peter und Alexander: Liutgard of Saxony, who married King Louis the Younger here in 869, was laid to rest in this church with her daughter Hildegard.