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Region

Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhine castles, Roman Trier and Gutenberg's Mainz.

215 museums
All museums ↓
📷 de:Benutzer:Smalltown Boy · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Rhineland-Palatinate follows the Rhine and the Moselle through vineyards and castle-crowned valleys. Trier is Germany's oldest city, and Mainz gave the world the printing press.

Places in Rhineland-Palatinate

★ Has its own city story

The story of Rhineland-Palatinate

Trier was founded by the Romans, and the Porta Nigra gate, the baths and Constantine's throne hall still stand; the Rheinisches Landesmuseum shows their mosaics and a famous hoard of Roman gold coins. In Mainz, the Gutenberg Museum shows original Gutenberg Bibles. Between Bingen and Koblenz, the Upper Middle Rhine Valley is a UNESCO landscape of castles, vineyards and the Loreley rock, and the Marksburg is the only hilltop castle there that was never destroyed. Speyer has its huge Romanesque cathedral and the Technik Museum with a real Soviet space shuttle. Worms, Speyer and Mainz share a UNESCO title for their medieval Jewish heritage. Food here goes with wine: Riesling from the Moselle, Saumagen (stuffed pig's stomach, a Palatinate favourite), and in autumn onion tart with young, still-fermenting wine. In September the Wurstmarkt in Bad Dürkheim is one of the biggest wine festivals in the world, and from spring to autumn 'Rhine in Flames' lights up the castles with fireworks.

  • 16 BCaround this year the Romans found Augusta Treverorum, today's Trier
  • 2002the Upper Middle Rhine Valley joins the UNESCO World Heritage list
  • 2021the medieval Jewish sites of Speyer, Worms and Mainz join the UNESCO list

Rhineland-Palatinate through time

The big moments, and where to see them today.

  1. around 310Emperor Constantine builds a huge throne hall in Trier. It still stands today.See it: Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier →
  2. around 1455Johannes Gutenberg finishes printing his Bible in Mainz.See it: Gutenberg Museum →
  3. 1521At the Diet of Worms, Martin Luther refuses to take back his writings before the emperor.See it: Museum of the City of Worms
  4. 1818Karl Marx is born in a house in Trier.See it: Karl Marx House

What to do in Rhineland-Palatinate

  1. 01

    Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier →

    Roman mosaics, tombstones and the largest hoard of Roman gold coins ever found.

    Trier2 hours
  2. 02

    Gutenberg Museum →

    Original Gutenberg Bibles and a working copy of his press.

    Mainz1 to 2 hours
  3. 03

    Marksburg

    The only hilltop castle on the Middle Rhine that was never destroyed.

    Braubach1 hour
  4. 04

    Technik Museum Speyer →

    The Soviet space shuttle Buran, planes, ships and a submarine.

    Speyerhalf a day
Getting there

Getting to Rhineland-Palatinate

From the airport to the city centre by public transport, then the trains and local lines to the museums.

Arriving by plane

FRA
Frankfurt AirportFrankfurt am Main · Frankfurt · Mainz · Wiesbaden
MUC
Munich AirportMünchen · Munich · Freising · Landshut
BER
Berlin Brandenburg AirportBerlin · Potsdam
HAM
Hamburg AirportHamburg · Lübeck · Kiel
DUS
Düsseldorf AirportDüsseldorf · Essen · Duisburg · Krefeld
CGN
Cologne Bonn AirportKöln · Cologne · Bonn
STR
Stuttgart AirportStuttgart · Esslingen · Tübingen

Getting around Rhineland-Palatinate

Lines and timetables change. Check the operator’s website before you travel.

On the map

Hidden story

Gold under the car park

A digger in Trier found 2,650 gold coins hidden for 1,800 years.

Read the storyClose

In 1993, a digger was working on a building site for a car park in Trier. Suddenly gold coins poured out of the earth. Someone had hidden them in a bronze pot around the year 196, perhaps in times of war. There were 2,650 coins, more than 18 kilograms of gold – the largest hoard of Roman gold coins ever found. Some had already been carried off with the earth, but most came back, and today they shine in a vault-like room of the museum.

See it: Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier