The most famous landmark in Basel, with its strategic location on the Rhine, is the Münster, built from red sandstone in Romanesque and Gothic styles, which was originally a Catholic cathedral and now a reformed Protestant church.

Picturesque Petite France in Strasbourg, with its half-timbered houses and baroque sandstone buildings, was so named in the Middle Ages because of the numerous women there engaged in the occupation known as the ‘French business’!

The historic city centre in Speyer is dominated by its Romanesque cathedral, the Imperial Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption and St Stephen, commissioned by Conrad II, on which work began in 1030.

Breisach, in the Rhine Valley is built on a hill and sometimes becomes an island before the river was straightened in the 19th-century. As well as its 13th-century Romanesque St Stephansmünster cathedral, it also has a 17th-century fortress.  

Mannheim, located at the confluence of the Rhine and Neckar Rivers, has a historic water tower, the Wasserturm, set in a large park, which acts as the centrepiece for the city’s annual Christmas Market.