"The Town With A Heart " a Bad Neustadt an der Saale Travel Page by weed6886

The legend goes like this: in the year 790, Karl the Great was standing on top of the Salzburg with his wife Fastrada. He looked into a field with a stream running through it, and promised to build her a city there shaped like a heart as a sign of his love.

Nobody seems to be sure how true the story is. The city wall, which is still completely intact, is shaped like a heart, with the Hohntor forming the bottom of the "heart." There is a path along the entire city wall, which is about 2km long. At one time, the main trade route from Rome to Hamburg once passed through the city. Now, Bad Neustadt is a quiet town which makes a good starting point for exploring the surrounding countryside, espescially the Rhön nature preserve.

I've been looking for quite some time now on how to get a picture of the heart shaped old town. The Salzburg, where Karl the Great supposedly made his promise (seen in the background on this picture) is completly forested. All that can be seen from there are trees. The zoning office in Bad Neustadt (near the church) has a scale model made of white plastic of the old city. It has seen better days, the Hohntor has fallen over, and the display is filled with dust. All I could find was this postcard. So here is the only picture on my VT pages that I didn't take myself, I'm sorry!