Every design for Neuwied

Neuwied lies on the east bank of the Rhine where the Wied comes down from the Westerwald, in a wide basin where the hills step back from the river for a few kilometres. Known as the Stadt der Schulen, the town of schools, it has close to fifty of them, and on a weekday morning that is easy to believe.

The river sets the rhythm here. The town centre sits on a former arm of the Rhine, and the memory of high water runs deep: a dyke has kept the floods out of the streets since 1931. On the bank, the Monument General Hoche remembers the French general whose army won the Battle of Neuwied in 1797, while the Deutsches Flippermuseum offers a more playful kind of history. People also come for the Roentgen-Museum, named after the cabinetmakers Abraham and David Roentgen, whose furniture found its way to almost every important court in Europe.

Schloss Neuwied stands for the counts who founded the town in 1653 and drew settlers with the promise of religious freedom, until seven communities of faith lived side by side. Coming back along the Rhine and seeing the waterfront again, you know you are home.