Medieval towns in Germany

If you look on the Half-Timbered Route website, you can find these towns.
https://www.deutsche-fachwerkstrasse.de/en/Homepage.html

Two Bavarian towns with medieval centers have been designated UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Bamberg
Regensburg
Burghausen (on the Salzach River near the Austrian border) is dominated by a medieval castle complex of the same name.

The survival of these places through the centuries (and WW II) might be due in part to their separation from the Munich area.

Nuremberg is in between Regensburg and Bamberg and a very nice place to visit in itself - with some surviving fortifications and a castle from medieval times - as well as a good base town for day trips to Bamberg (about 40-45 min. by direct regional express train) and Regensburg (65 min. by direct RE train.)

From Munich, you'd be nearly 3 hours away from Bamberg by RE train - or 2 hrs. using the more expensive high-speed train options. Munich > Regensburg is roughly 85-90 min. by regional train.

Cathy,
good suggestions from earlier posts.
Also, I recommend The Romantic Road that includes several Medieval towns that sustained little or no damage from bombing in WWII.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber is the most famous, but there are others. Check it out.
http://romanticroad.com

Also, on that road, consider Augsburg, founded over 2000 years ago by the Romans, Oberammergau where the Passion Play is performed, Garmish at the end in the Alps.

To add to the above list (limiting myself to a radius of about 100km around Munich), clockwise: Landshut, Straubing (NE), Wasserburg (E), Kufstein in Tyrol, Austria (SE), Landsberg am Lech (W), Kempten (SW), Neuburg a.d. Donau, Eichstätt (N).

Please be aware that Rothenburg was 40% destroyed in the war and rebuilt. It is not an original, pristine town like the guidebook would have you believe.

Two more I would suggest are Greding (https://www.greding.de/tourismus/) and Wasserberg am Inn (https://www.wasserburg.de/en/sightseeing/impressions)

Greding is really an overlooked gem of a town.

DJ

A lot of things have happen since the Middle Ages: the Thirty Years War, Baroque and Rococo remodeling, electricity and indoor plumbing, WWII, etc. All towns that look Medieval must have been altered. The purity of the Medieval look should be questioned.

Bamberg, Regensburg and even Rothenburg have claims to a substantial medieval past. All have been changed but are delightful for a visit to my mind.

If you go to Regensburg, then Straubing and Landshut mentioned by SLA are great day trips (or 2 day visits in our case).

Straubing is more interesting if you read about Agnes Bernauer. You can visit her chapel at St. Peter's on the edge of town. Her story is one of those great ones that gets left out of most history books?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Bernauer

Landshut has some wonderful, interesting facades on it's two main streets. It also has a nice walks up to a castle and another along its river front.

Regensburg and this part of Germany has become our favorite.

Is there any town that is truly medieval? Some ruined castles, that’s about it

Augsburg, Bad Tolz, Bamberg, Berchtesgaden, Füssen, Lindau, Nuremberg, Regensburg, Roth and the towns along the Romantic Road i.e., Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Dinkelsbühl.

So far no one has mentioned the best, IMO, medieval town in Bavaria, Nördlingen. Nördlingen is on the Romantic Road, and is described as the less touristy little sister of Rothenburg. It lacks a Christmas shop and a Crime and Punishment museum, but it has a mostly intact town wall with a Wehrgang you can walk on. It also has a 300 ft high church tower you can climb for a great view of the surrounding land.

Augsburg, Bad Tolz, Bamberg, Berchtesgaden, Füssen, Lindau, Nuremberg, Regensburg, Roth and the towns along the Romantic Road i.e., Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Dinkelsbühl.

Many of the towns and cities in this list had extensive war damage and rebuilding. Not just WW-II but in centuries of previous wars as well.

While some areas of original road layout remain there have been many changes since the middle ages. The Fuggerei in Augsburg for example has a bomb shelter (visitable and interesting but not Medieval) in the couryard.

If you do visit Nördlingen we happened on a combined museum devoted to the Ries Crater and the 30 Years War. It was a strange combination but very well done. I believe Nördlingen was captured twice in the war, first by the Hapsburg forces and then by the Protestants. We visited for 2 days. More than that we would need day trips to fill the time.