Greifswald, Germany

Greifswald is a town of roughly 59,000 residents on the Baltic Sea at the mouth of the Ryck river in Western Pomerania, about 30 kilometres east of Rostock. Cistercian monks from Eldena Abbey founded the settlement in 1199, and it received its town charter in 1250. The University of Greifswald, established in 1456, ranks among the oldest in northern Europe and counts five Nobel affiliates among its academics. The 1263 Brick Gothic Saint Nicholas' Cathedral rises to a 100-metre tower, while Caspar David Friedrich's 1832 paintings of the Eldena Abbey ruins brought the town renown in Romantic art. Greifswald also sits on the German section of a 1426 Hanseatic League trade route.