Hildesheim is a mid-sized city in Lower Saxony whose two Romanesque churches — St. Michael's and the Cathedral of the Assumption — are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Both date to around 1000 AD and contain remarkable art, including the famous Bernward Doors and the Bernward Column in the cathedral.
The city centre was heavily bombed in 1945 but the historic market square has been faithfully reconstructed, with its distinctive half-timbered Knochenhaueramtshaus (Butchers' Guild Hall). In the cathedral cloister, a thousand-year-old rose bush — said to be the oldest in the world — still blooms each May. The Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum holds one of Germany's finest Egyptian antiquities collections, a further reason to spend more than a passing hour in the city.