Have you ever asked which are the best places to visit in Memmingen Germany? In this article, you will explore the top 10 things to do in Memmingen. Memmingen is an independent city in the Bavarian administrative region of Swabia, which offers everybody many beautiful sights to view and visit.
It is the centrally located regional center and the school, administrative and commercial center in the Donau-Iller region. In the west, the urban area borders on the Iller, the river bordering Baden-Württemberg, and is surrounded to the north, east, and south by the district of Unterallgäu.
The historic district town offers numerous historic attractions such as gates and towers. There is an adventure rally for families. The 12 articles – one of the first human rights declarations in Europe – were codified here almost 500 years ago.
Turn right from Bahnhofstrasse onto Maximilianstrasse and after about 350 meters cross Kramerstrasse. From here it goes straight ahead until you discover the legendary, listed building with the eye-catching mural on the right-hand side. If you are planning to visit Bavaria Region check the articles here. Let’s have a look below to see which places you have to visit in Memmingen Germany.
1. The Parish of St. Martin
St. Martin is one of the landmarks of Memmingen. The three-aisled late Gothic town church, begun in its present form around 1325 and completed around 1500, is located in a primordial cell of Memmingen’s old town. It houses many works of art, including the late Gothic choir stalls, which are over 500 years old.
2. Hexenturm
Also called Adulter’s Tower. Dating from the 12th century. Last of what used to be three prison towers on the city wall. When you stand in front of the witch tower in Memmingen, it looks cute with the little house that nestles against the city wall and looks like someone actually lives in it. In fact, it is the oldest of the three former prison towers. The previous name in the vernacular adulterer’s tower does not bode well either.
3. One of the best places to visit is Memmingen Town Hall
The town hall next door has adapted to building styles over the course of history. At the end of the 15th century it was built as a Gothic gabled house, 100 years later it got a Renaissance face. It was given bay windows and hoods in the Rococo period. The large guild closes off the square on the east side. The guild of the city’s nobility, which ruled the imperial city until 1347, had its headquarters here.
4. Ivo Strigel
The masterpiece of the church was created by a team from the carving school of Ivo Strigel in the early 16th century. The portraits that adorn the cheeks of the seats are a stroke of genius: Memmingen citizens look from the mayor to the church steward, the schoolmaster, the Antonier preceptor to Bernhard Strigel sometimes dignified, sometimes mischievous, sometimes slyly in the face.
5. The Stadtbach in Memmingen
In the Middle Ages, craftsmen who depended on the water as a driving force, for cooling or for watering their goods settled on the Memminger Stadtbach: millers, potters, blacksmiths, butchers, and tanners.
For the sake of hygiene, the leisurely flowing brook had to be drained and cleaned once a year – after all, brooks in the Middle Ages carried all sorts of little appetizing things with them. The annual ritual was the starting point for a boisterous celebration: Fisherman’s Day. A fixture in Memmingen’s festival calendar since 1900.
6. Memmingen Weinmarkt
At the Weinmarkt, once the place of the guilds, the half-timbered gable of the weavers’ guild still towers, the largest of the Memmingen craftsmen’s guilds in the Middle Ages. The stone gable at the opposite end of the square belongs to the former Kramerzunfthaus.
The farmers went on the barricades in 1525 and formulated the “Twelve Articles” which became the manifesto of the peasant movement. If you are going to see Memmingen add Weinmarkt as one of the most beautiful places to visit in Memmingen.
7. The Schrannenplatz
The next stop on the city tour of the sights in Memmingen is Schrannenplatz. In the 15th century it was the center of the city’s grain trade: three granaries, the Kornhaus, Haberhaus, and Gerstenstadel received grain. In its place today – after the demolition of the Schrannenhalle in the 1950s – is the publishing house of the Memminger Zeitung. The beauty of the post-war building is debatable. A jewel of the Middle Ages is just around the corner in the former tanning district, through which many small streams flowed at the time.
8. Fuggerbau
The Obere Bachgasse and the Rossmarkt lead to the Fuggerbau, the end of the 16th century. The commercial branch of the Augsburg Fugger. But its great hour came 100 years later – at the time of the Thirty Years’ War, which hit the city hard.
In 1630 none other than the imperial general Wallenstein moved into quarters in the Fugger building for several months until he found out about his dismissal. Two years later, his opponent, the Swedish king Gustav Adolf, moved into Memmingen.
9. Wallenstein Festival Memmingen
An absolute highlight is the Wallenstein Festival every four years. Then, for a week, Memmingen was transformed into the camp of General Wallenstein, who in the summer of 1630 made the imperial city the center of world history.
Wallenstein and his entourage arrive at noblemen, soldiers, cuirassiers, musketeers, pikemen, and Gallas dragoons. Followed by women and children, sutlers, whores and thieves, beggars and marauders, the war victims who spread more fear and terror than the actual soldiers. 4,500 people from Memmingen are there in costumes and uniforms that are faithfully reproduced.
10. Visit Strigel Museum
The Strigel Museum commemorates the city’s most famous family of artists. Three generations of Strigels – sculptors, painters, and all typical representatives of the late Gothic in Swabia – were based in Memmingen. This is one of the most beautiful historic attractions in Memmingen Germany.
Places to visit near Memmingen
- Memmingen Parish of St. Martin
- Hexenturm
- Memmingen Town Hall
- Ivo Strigel
- The Stadtbach
- Weinmarkt
- The Schrannenplatz
- Fuggerbau
- Memmingen Wallenstein Festival
- Memmingen Strigel Museum