European Heritage Day and other Mannheim, Germany General Tips

Favorite Thing: For several years now, on the second Sunday in September the European Heritage Day is held. In Germany it is called "Day of the open memorial". On this day, many memorials, old towers, crypts in churches etc are open for the public, even though they are usually closed. There are guided tours sometimes, or you are given a leaflet and can walk around on your own. Unfortunately it's all in German, but when you climb up an old watch tower from 1250, you don't need any explanations to realize that
- people back then were smaller than we are now - after you've banged your head for the
second time you're sure to know this
- the inside of an old tower is narrow, dirty and full of cobwebs
- being on duty here must have been pretty boring
- but the soldiers up there had a wonderful view. That was the whole purpose of a watch tower, they had to be able to watch out for enemies.

You can check out the program for 2006 here:http://tag-des-offenen-denkmals.de/


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