Worms, Germany

Worms sits on the Rhine in Rhineland-Palatinate, where roughly 84,000 residents live in one of Germany's oldest cities, founded by the Celts around 5,000 BC. The Romanesque Worms Cathedral, consecrated in 1018, rises with four round towers at its center. In 1521 the Diet of Worms heard Martin Luther refuse to recant his theses, a turning point in the Reformation. Worms also holds Germany's oldest Jewish community, dating to 1034, and the rebuilt 1175 Synagogue stands on its original site, where the 11th-century Worms Mahzor, the oldest Jewish illuminated manuscript, was once used.