Marktplatz and Town Hall

The Marktplatz is the pedestrianised heart of Schweinfurt, surrounded by solid bourgeois commercial buildings and anchored by the Renaissance town hall (Rathaus), built 1570–72. Daily market stalls set up here selling fruit, vegetables, cheese, and flowers; on weekends the square fills with people sitting outside the surrounding cafes.

The Rathaus is one of the more handsome Renaissance civic buildings in Franconia and survived the WWII bombing intact. Inside there are occasional exhibitions open to the public. The square is pleasant to walk through at any time of day; the surrounding streets have the best concentration of the old town's shops and cafes.

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A story
Schweinfurt's Rathaus is a Renaissance building from the late 16th century, built when the city was a prosperous Free Imperial City and able to commission architecture to match its status. Schweinfurt was bombed heavily in October 1943 during two Allied raids targeting the ball-bearing factories that supplied the German war machine — roughly a third of the city was destroyed. The Rathaus survived.

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