The Narrowest Street in the World and a Prussian Prince

Week Two in Reutlingen

After the exciting jet lag recovery, soccer game watching, and chocolate croissant eating events of the first week, I spent most of week two familiarizing myself with my new hometown. We found the real grocery store, which was exciting. More exciting was our tour of the Stadtmitte with a native Reutlingener, including a visit to the narrowest street in the world: Spreuerhofstraße!

To further aquaint ourselves with Reutlingen, we also went to the Heimat Museum, which is devoted to the city and some of the surrounding area. It has artifacts from the Middle Ages through WWII, including everything from original stonework from the Marienkirche (local cathedral) to a complete room from a traditional guild hall. The sword used for executing thieves was intimidating, but the little textile shop room from the early 20th century was really charming.

The most important thing I have learned from the tour and the museum: Reutlingen was an imperial city. This meant, back in the days of the Holy Roman Empire, that Reutlingen had market privileges, trade privileges, and self-governance. You can see evidence of this everywhere in the town. The manhole covers in the Stadmitte feature the imperial eagle, as does the facade of every major building built before the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire by Napolean (that cad). The Marienkirche even has the imperial eagle in some of its tile work. To this day, the mayor of Reutlingen still has to swear every year in a formal ceremony to serve the citizens of the city, which is cool. (I would also like to take this moment to point out the history I’m learning- Look mom, education!)

The most scenic event of the week however was our visit to Burg Hohenzollern, an honest-to-goodness castle that is still owned by actual royals. The journey there was nice, but the footpath up to the castle was steep. And long.

Once you’ve made it up the stairs, you’re rewarded with a castle, and some really gorgeous views.

This castle was part of the ancestral lands owned by Kaiser Wilhelm II, also known as the guy who was technically in charge of Germany during the first world war. The castle itself is fairly new, only dating back to the 1800’s. (Insert comment about the lack of years of American history here!) They have some excellent artifacts from the family on display, who became the rulers of much of the lands we now call Germany in the Middle Ages and hung on through WWI.

No members of the Hohenzollern family have really lived there since the early 1900’s. But, they do occasionally visit. We just happened to be there at the same time as Georg Friedrich, who is the current Prince of Prussia. I was unaware that any German noble titles still existed to be granted, especially the ones belonging to the now-defunct monarchy, but my ignorance has now been remedied.

The Prince very kindly offered to take a picture with us- that is, the group of around 70 international students from Reutlingen University. I do not have access to this picture, but somewhere there exists actual photographic evidence that I was within ten feet of royalty. Maybe Georg Friedrich has an Istagram? I shall investigate, and leave you with another beautiful view of the Schwabian Alps.