2946 GERMANY (Baden-Württemberg) - Heidelberg Castle

A former residence of the Electorate of the Palatinate, and home to one of the most reputable universities in Europe, Heidelberg is also a popular tourist destination due to its romantic cityscape, including Heidelberg Castle, the Philosophers' Walk, and the baroque style Old Town. Even if the Heidelberg Castle has only been partially rebuilt since its demolition in the 17th and 18th centuries, its ruins are among the most important Renaissance structures north of the Alps. It is located 80m up the northern part of the Königstuhl hillside, and thereby dominates the view of the old downtown.

2914 GERMANY (Baden-Württemberg) - Church of Our Lady in Karlsruhe

Located in southwest Germany, near the border with France, Karlsruhe owes its existence to the Karlsruhe Palace, built in 1715. The city was planned with the palace tower at the center and 32 streets radiating out from it like the spokes of a wheel, or the ribs of a folding fan, so that one nickname for Karlsruhe in German is the "fan city" (Fächerstadt). As a result, the more you move away from the city's center, in any direction, the buildings are newer.

2485 GERMANY / SWITZERLAND / AUSTRIA - The map of Lake Constance

Lake Constance (German: Bodensee) is a lake on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps, in  Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and consists of three bodies of water: the Obersee (Upper Lake), the Untersee (Lower Lake), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine (Seerhein). The Rhine flows into it from the south, with its original course forming the Austro-Swiss frontier. Located at an altitude of 395m, it is 63km long, and at its widest point, nearly 14km.  The greatest depth is 252m.

2297 GERMANY (Baden-Württemberg) - Teck ducal castle

Located immediately to the north of the Swabian Jura and south of the town of Kirchheim unter Teck, Burg Teck takes its name from the ridge, the Teckberg (776m), which it crowned. The duchy of Teck was acquired early in the 11th century by Berthold, count of Zähringen, whose great-grandson Adalbert, styled himself Duke of Teck. In 1381 it passed to Württemberg. The title, which had lapsed with the extinction of the Zähringen line in 1439, was revived in 1495 by the King Maximilian I, who bestowed it upon the dukes of Württemberg.

2096 GERMANY (Baden-Württemberg) - The Gardens and Palace of Schwetzingen

Situated in Schwetzingen, roughly equidistant from the electors' seats at Heidelberg and Mannheim, Schwetzingen Palace was the summer residence of the Electors Palatine Charles III Philip and Charles IV Theodore (of the House of Wittelsbach), and is most notable for its spacious and ornate gardens. In the gardens complex is also a mosque-style building, erected in 1779-1791 by a French architect. After many years of restoration, now is fully restored and open to the public.

1786 GERMANY (Baden-Württemberg) - Women with Bollenhut

A Bollenhut is a formal headdress worn since about c.1750 by Protestant women as part of their local costume (Tracht) in three neighbouring villages of Gutach, Kirnbach and Hornberg-Reichenbach, in Black Forest (a great forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg, in southwestern Germany, bounded by the Rhine valley to the west and south). With its woollen pompoms, the picturesque-looking red Bollenhut has become a symbol of the Black Forest as a whole, despite its very local origins. The red pom-poms and white brim of the Bollenhut also is said to have inspired the top layer of the Black Forest Cake.

1414 GERMANY (Baden-Württemberg) - "Baroque in Bloom" at Ludwigsburg Palace

Located in Ludwigsburg, at about 12km north of Stuttgart city centre, near the river Neckar, Ludwigsburg Palace (Schloss Ludwigsburg) is one of the country's largest Baroque palaces and features an enormous garden in that style. From the 18th century to 1918 it was the principal royal palace of the dukedom that became in 1806 the Kingdom of Württemberg. It wasn't destroyed during WWII, so today, the palace and its surrounding gardens are in a state similar to their appearance around 1800. It contains three museums (Baroque Gallery, Porcelain Museum, and Baroque Fashion Museum), and its theatre (Europe's oldest preserved theatre) and its stage machinery from 1758 are still operational. The continuous garden show "Baroque in Bloom" (Blühendes Barock), that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, opened in 1953.

0784 GERMANY (Baden-Württemberg) - Monastic Island of Reichenau (UNESCO WHS)

Reichenau, called Augia Dives in medieval Latin manuscripts, is an island upon the Untersee (Lower Lake) of the Bodensee (Lake Constance), a lake on the Rhine, situated between Germany, Switzerland and Austria, near the Alps. The island is connected to the mainland by a causeway completed in 1838, interrupted between the site of the former castle Schopflen and the eastern end of island by the 10m-wide Bruckgraben, a waterway which is spanned by a low road bridge that allows passage of ordinary boats. It was declared a World Heritage Site in 2000 because of its monastery, the Benedictine Abbey of Reichenau.

0751 GERMANY (Baden-Württemberg) - The Historical Merchants Hall in Freiburg im Breisgau

Founded in 1120 as a free market town on the western edge of the Black Forest, in the Upper Rhine Plain, on the Dreisam river, at the foot of the hill Schlossberg, Freiburg reached in 14th century one of the richest cities in Europe, due the silver mines in Mount Schauinsland. In order to protect its welfare and facilitate the commerce, it entered into an alliance alongside with Basel, Colmar, and Breisach, known as the Genossenschaft des Rappenpfennigs (Rappenpfennig Collective), which lasted until the end of the 16th century, even if meanwhile the veins of silver were dwindling.

0687 GERMANY (Baden-Württemberg) - The Swabian-Alemannic Fasnet in Freiburg

Fasnet (Fasnacht) is a carnival celebrated in the towns and villages of the Alpine areas of Austria, Southern Germany, the Black Forest, the area around Lake Constance, and in German-speaking France and Switzerland, wherever Alemannic tribes had settled. It is more a pagan affair, in which the old traditions of driving out winter have mingled with the pre-Lenten celebrations. The celebrants dress as spirits, demons, and witches, wearing heavy wooden masks, intricately carved and handed down from generation to generation. Recurring over and over are representations of the Wise Fool with smooth, serene, pale faces, scary witches with grotesque features and animal masks of all kinds, and masks of mythological characters that figure in local lore and history. The Zünfte (craftsmen's guilds) first began this custom. Today, only the name Narrenzunft (fools' guild), used for the clubs organizing the festivities, reminds us of this historical background.