Gera, Germany

Gera is a city of about 94,000 residents on the White Elster river in the German state of Thuringia, first mentioned in records from the year 995. The Old Town is anchored by the 1726 Salvatorikirche and the City Theatre built in 1885 and rebuilt in 1910, while the 1848 Hofwiesenpark occupies the site of a former cloth-workers' quarter. Beneath the streets, the Gera Caves comprise 230 interconnected beer cellars dug around 1450 roughly 12 meters below the old town. The 1972 Otto Dix House museum preserves the birthplace of painter Otto Dix, and the 1963 Sorge Dam impounds a 65-hectare reservoir nearby.