Frankfurt (Oder), Germany

Frankfurt (Oder) sits on the Oder River at the Polish border, roughly 80 kilometers east of Berlin and home to about 58,000 residents. Chartered in 1253, the town joined the Hanseatic League in 1368 and opened Viadrina University in 1506, where Ulrich von Hutten, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and the brothers Humboldt studied before the institution reopened in 1991 as the Europa-Universität Viadrina. A bridge links the city to its Polish twin town of Słubice, while the Kleist Museum honors the playwright Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811). St. Mary's Church holds a Bible printed locally in 1523, and beneath the streets the older layers of the medieval settlement still await fuller excavation.