Regensburg

Celtic settlers called the place Radasbona, and the Romans built a fort here around AD 90. In 179, under Marcus Aurelius, they founded Castra Regina, "the fortress by the River Regen", for the Legio III Italica at the Danube's northernmost point; its walls still shape the core of the old town. From about 530 the Agilolfing dukes made it the capital of Bavaria, which it remained until the thirteenth century. Saint Boniface re-established its bishopric in 739; after 843 it was the seat of Louis the German, and in 845 fourteen Bohemian princes were baptised here, beginning the Christianisation of the Czechs.

The Stone Bridge, built between 1135 and 1146, opened trade routes between northern Europe and Venice and began a golden age of wealthy merchant families. Regensburg became a Free Imperial City in 1245, adopted the Reformation in 1542, and from 1663 to 1806 hosted the Perpetual Diet of the Holy Roman Empire. The city itself, its Catholic bishop and three abbeys were five separate states of the Empire within one town. Its Jewish community, one of the largest in southern Germany, was expelled in 1519 and its synagogue destroyed. In 1803 the city passed to Carl von Dalberg's Principality of Regensburg, was fought over by Napoleon in 1809, and became part of Bavaria in 1810.

Under the Nazis the synagogue was destroyed on Kristallnacht and more than 200 Jews deported in 1942. Allied bombers struck the Messerschmitt aircraft works in 1943 and the oil refinery in 1945, but the medieval centre suffered little, and slow post-war recovery spared it from redevelopment. From 1945 to 1949 the city held Germany's largest displaced persons camp. Siemens, a new university and, from 1986, BMW transformed the economy, and in 2006 the old town and Stadtamhof became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Regensburg's culture is rooted in its church music and its long history. The Regensburger Domspatzen, the cathedral choir, sing the liturgy at St. Peter's and tour internationally, and a college of Catholic church music has worked in the city since 1874. The Thurn und Taxis family, once hereditary postmasters of the Empire, still own their palace at St. Emmeram's, where the Schlossfestspiele bring star performers to the courtyard each July. The Theater Regensburg, founded in 1804, runs five stages, and summer brings the Bavarian Jazz Weekend, while an international short-film week runs every March.

Bavarian dialect is a point of pride. The first dictionary of any German dialect, Johann Ludwig Prasch's Glossarium Bavaricum, was published here in 1689, the Bauerntheater has staged plays in Bavarian for more than 90 years, and a comedy about a crash course in the dialect has been performed hundreds of times at the Turmtheater. Don John of Austria was born here in 1547, Johannes Kepler is remembered in a memorial house, and Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, taught at the university.

The city's calendar is full of festivals: the Dult in spring and autumn, the medieval Spectaculum by the Stone Bridge, the Bürgerfest every second year and Christmas markets in December. Memorials and Stolpersteine recall the victims of Nazism, and Jahn Regensburg in football and the Legionäre in baseball, playing at Germany's largest baseball stadium, draw loyal crowds.

About 178,600 people lived in Regensburg in 2023, making it Bavaria's fourth-largest city and one of the fastest-growing in Germany. The population passed 100,000 in 1945 with the arrival of Germans expelled from Central and Eastern Europe; today just over a fifth of residents are foreign nationals, many from Ukraine, the Middle East and south-eastern Europe. In 2020 about 48 per cent were Catholic and about 12 per cent Protestant.

The economy is among Germany's most dynamic. BMW builds cars at a large plant here, and Continental, Infineon, Osram, Siemens, Krones and Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen are major employers, joined by a biotech cluster in the BioPark and a growing IT sector. The University of Regensburg, the University of Applied Sciences and one of Europe's most modern university hospitals add thousands of jobs and students, and tourism has grown strongly since the World Heritage listing.

The old town is lived in as well as visited. The city is divided into 18 boroughs, from historic Stadtamhof to the former workers' district of the Ganghofersiedlung, linked to the centre by buses.

Regensburg eats the food of Old Bavaria. The Historische Wurstkuchl beside the Stone Bridge stands where a building has stood since the twelfth century, and since 1806 its speciality has been small charcoal-grilled sausages, served in portions of six, eight or ten with sauerkraut and mustard. Händlmaier's, the typical local sweet mustard, is the classic partner for white sausages and a popular thing to take home.

Beyond the sausages, menus offer the Bavarian staples: Schweinsbraten, roast pork, and Schweinshaxe, roast knuckle, with bread or potato dumplings and red cabbage or sauerkraut; Leberkäse, a smooth baked meatloaf eaten in thick slices in a roll; the white veal-and-pork Weisswurst, traditionally eaten before noon with a pretzel; and Obatzda, a spread of ripe soft cheese, butter, onion and paprika. Kaiserschmarrn and Dampfnudeln are the sweet dishes.

Beer is brewed and drunk locally. Kneitinger's brewery tavern on Arnulfsplatz, the courtyard of the old Bischofshof brewery by the cathedral, and the riverside beer gardens of the Spitalgarten and the Alte Linde are the classic places to drink Regensburg beer — pale Helles, wheat Weissbier and dark Dunkel — under the trees by the Danube.