Bamberg Altes Rathaus

We visited the Altes Rathaus in Bamberg.

Getting There

From our base in Nuremberg, it was a short 45 minute train ride to Bamberg Germany. We probably traveled on a VGN Group Day Pass.

This is very similar to the Deutsche Bahn Regional Passes, such as the Bayern Ticket. The primary difference is that VGN is specific to Franconia, which in our current day and age is the Northern Part of Bavaria.

It’s a fantastic ticket deal, good for the entire day or weekend until 3am, and includes all forms of transit all the way down to and including local transit, only excluding the high-speed inter-city trains. But you only lose a few minutes by riding the included regional trains.

And you can avoid having to cart around a pocket full of cash by buying the ticket from the DB Navigator App; just show the conductor the QR code on your smart phone.

History

It was common in city states in late Medieval Times, as the Merchant Middle Class gained wealth and power, for secular guilds to come to a representative power-sharing arrangement with the local ruler.

But the Prince-Bishop in Bamberg was unwilling to provide land on which to build a town hall, and this is the presumptive reason why Altes Rathaus was built on an island in the middle of the Left Arm of the Regnitz River.

Inside Altes Rathaus, there is a small but interesting porcelain museum as well as Rococo Hall.