Every design for Plauen

Plauen fills the valley of the White Elster where the little Syra flows in and the land opens into a basin, with wooded knolls, the Pöhle, rising on every side. It is the largest town of the Saxon Vogtland, close to the borders with Bavaria and the Czech Republic, and the local Vogtland dialect belongs with the East Franconian of neighbouring Franconia rather than with Saxon.

The thing that sets Plauen apart is lace. The town and the Saxon Vogtland around it are the historic centre of German embroidery and lace-making, and the region's work is protected under the name Plauener Spitze; the Schaustickerei Plauener Spitze and the Fabrik der Fäden keep the craft in plain view. Just outside town, the Elster Viaduct crosses the valley as the second-largest brick bridge in the world, while Schloss Plauen and the Bärensteinturm are landmarks every local knows.

In the centre stands the Altes Rathaus with its Renaissance gable and its clock, the emblem everyone here knows by heart. With Plauen on your shirt, you carry that gable, and a thread of the lace town, wherever you go.