Rastatt, Germany

Rastatt sits on the Murg river in Baden-Württemberg, about 30 kilometers southwest of Karlsruhe, and is home to roughly 52,000 residents. The city's centerpiece is Rastatt Palace, completed in 1707 by architect Rossi and modeled on Versailles as the first baroque residence on the Upper Rhine. The 1714 Treaty of Rastatt ended the War of the Spanish Succession between France and Austria, and the smaller 1730 Favorite Palace, a hunting lodge by Rossi, lies three kilometers to the northeast. A later fortress became the site of the German revolutionaries' last stand in 1849, a story now detailed at the 2003 Memorial to the Freedom Movements in German History.