☰Old Town Hall

Built up over more than a century, the Altes Rathaus is a brick-Gothic landmark with stepped gables, ornamental friezes and the painted coats-of-arms of the local princes. The earliest wing (1410) faces Schmiedestrasse; the later market-side wing rests on the foundations of the 13th-century trade hall. The building was nearly demolished in 1844 but saved by a citizens' campaign led by the neo-Gothic architect Conrad Wilhelm Hase, who then restored the medieval facades. Look for the carved "Luderziehen" frieze — a medieval finger-pulling tug-of-war still played in southern Germany as Fingerhakeln.