Landshut, Germany

Landshut is a city of about 73,000 residents on the Isar river in Lower Bavaria, founded in 1204 by Duke Louis I. Trausnitz Castle, built the same year on a 500-metre hill, overlooks the medieval Old Town below. The 1389 St. Martin's Church rises with the tallest brick tower in the world at 130.6 metres, while the 1542 Landshut Residence became the first Renaissance palace north of the Alps. Every four years the Landshut Wedding festival re-enacts the 1475 marriage of George the Rich to Jadwiga Jagiellon, drawing roughly half a million visitors to relive a 15th-century spectacle.