Stadtmauer (City Walls)

Complete 15th-century circuit of medieval walls with towers and moat

Nuremberg is one of the best-preserved walled cities in Germany. The complete circuit of 15th-century walls — roughly 5 km around — still stands with its 80 towers and three main gates, the moat mostly dry but the earthworks intact. You can walk the full perimeter on the footpath that runs around the outside of the walls, or climb into several of the towers for views over the old city.

The most photogenic section is the northwestern stretch between the Kaiserburg and the White Tower, where the walls are backed by the Craftsmen's Courtyard (Handwerkerhof). The walls are free to view at any time; individual towers have small admission charges.

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A story
Nuremberg's walls were rebuilt in stone from the 12th through 15th centuries. After 1945, when Allied bombing reduced most of the old city to rubble, the walls survived remarkably intact — they had been built to withstand exactly this kind of catastrophe, and four centuries of engineering held against modern explosives better than the houses within.