Every design for Euskirchen

Euskirchen is known as the gateway between the Rhineland cities and the Eifel hills: a busy shopping town with a history that goes back more than seven centuries, since it was granted town status in 1302. Parts of the old town wall and three of its defensive towers still stand among the modern buildings.

The town sits in the Zülpicher Börde on the northern edge of the Eifel, with Bonn and Cologne to the north-east. The Erft runs through the municipality, and wide fields of sugar beet surround it; a sugar factory has worked here since 1879. Cloth-making once mattered just as much, and the two reservoirs in the south were built to supply the mills with water. The name itself is said to mean a church on the riverside lowland, and the Martinskirche is the oldest church in town. Euskirchen is also the birthplace of the chemist Emil Fischer.

Burg Kessenich, standing among the fields, is the kind of place you remember long after you leave – and a fine reason to keep Euskirchen on your shirt.