Turn right in front of the train station and walk south along Bahnhofstrasse for about 700 meters, then you are at Postplatz, from there turn left into the city center, at the end of which is the cathedral.

Visit, of course, because one day you'll start talking to someone about what UNESCO World Heritage Sites actually are in Germany and which ones you've already seen, and then you'll remember this spectacular building, whose history goes back almost 1000 years.

When you leave the Imperial Cathedral, you inevitably look at the town hall: the opposite of church and secular power has rarely been experienced so clearly in the past centuries.

With the nearby Judenhof, Speyer has recently added a second UNESCO World Heritage Site. Information on this can be found at www.schumstaedte.de.

In a completely different way you can deal with history in the Technikmuseum Speyer, the museum is located within walking distance from the city center.

And the "Sea Life Speyer" is not far either.

If you think you've really walked enough, you can take the bus from Domplatz back to the train station, including lines 564, 565 and 568. The journey takes just nine minutes.

The souvenir

Manfred Koehler

Head of department of the Rhein-Main editorial team of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

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Florian Balke

Culture editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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In Speyer, people are proud of their pretzels.

The biggest festival of all is the Brezelfest, which lasts from July 7th to 12th this year. The city's marketing even goes so far as to claim, "Speyer without a pretzel?

It's like Palatinate without wine!” The Frankfurter, who is also familiar with pretzels, remains calm despite so much self-praise about the intricate baked goods and says to himself: Well, you can try it.

Palatinate wine is of course also suitable as a souvenir and has the advantage of being able to be stored for longer.

There are plenty of shops with regional specialties in the pedestrian zone.

The Travel Reading

The Schlegel sisters from London are on their way through their father's German homeland to stop in Heidelberg when they hear that Speyer has a mighty cathedral from ancient times.

When they visit, they are so repelled by the frescoes painted by Johann Baptist Schraudolph at the request of Ludwig I of Bavaria that they quickly drive back with the Wilcox couple, whom they save from the atrocity.

Back in England, the chance encounter has far-reaching consequences, from a broken engagement to an unexpected marriage, manslaughter and child.

What effects visits to Speyer have and how things that belong together come together is told in EM Forster's "Wiedersehen in Howard's End", published in 1910 and filmed in 1992 with Emma Thompson.

The novel with the motto "Only connect" is available from Fischer for 15 euros.

Off to Speyer.

You have to make connections.