Büdingen?

I hope Chani chimes in on this one. Has to be my favorite of all. Massive red sandstone walls, all original, huge bollwork towers, and the town is pretty much only fachwerk houses. It has never been burned down by the Swedes in the 30 year war nor bombed in WWII. You will find no tourist buses, though the occasional German group comes through or a student group. No souvenir stands, but the tourist info folks are really helpful and friendly. The Houson museum is interesting, even if it is all in German. Great models of the city going back to the Celts. There are some lovely gasthouses there, and I would dearly love to spend a weekend in the town. Near-by Glauberg has a lot of Celtic stuff, and might be worth visiting as they just opened a new museum there, featuring all the fantastic finds from this area. Gelnhausen and Butzbach are also near, and have lovely old town squares.

LOVED IT !!!! Everything Jo said and more. The only downside for me was that it was a day trip and I would have liked to see more.

Thanks Both!! Many thanks. We will do that area proud. Now we are debating a stay at the Schloss (€125, above our budget for this trip, and some TA folk were less than overwhelmed) or down the road but near the autobahn, or in or near Ascaffenburg. We'll work it out - we will really hit several bits of the Fachwerkstrasse. Thanks again...

I think there are some other nice guest houses in Büdingen, rather than the Schloss. I have read the reviews too and they are less than remarkable. We did a tour there not too long ago, and the feeling I got, was that the townspeople are less than thrilled with what the Schloss owners are doing or not doing in town. There was another guesthouse, right along the wall, about 100 meters from the Schloss, but darn if I can remember the name. Looked lovely. They had a terrace and summer garden and a good looking menu last week when I was there.

Jo... are you thinking of the Fuestenhof ? I love Buedingen... my parents were married at the town hall and my brother was born there... I cant' wait to go back.

There is a fairly large guesthouse right when you come into the Jerusalem Gate, located on the left hand side of the road. The one I was talking about is located closer to the Mill Gate, the Schloss and the Lückischer Haus. It is called Hotel Restaurant Schlossstuben. http://www.hotel-schlossstuben.de/ Here is the website for the Fürstenhof: http://www.fuerstenhof-buedingen.de/ Another good one might be Hotel Bleffe. Have eaten here about 3-4 times now. http://www.bleffe.net/ A little film about Büdingen. In German, but you get to see the highlights of the town. http://www.buedingen-touristik.de/de/reisefuehrer/buedingen-der-film.html I recently did an English tour there with a couple of friends and thought it was absolutely worth the 41 euro. We got to go into 3 of the towers, including the Hexen Turm, go to the top of them, and the guide was simply fascinating. You need to book it ahead of time though. Ask for Heide-Diana Massakas. She does an outstanding job as well as made us laugh. Our 90 min. tour ended up being well over 2 hours.