Bavaria · Old Town
Dinkelsbühl
A self-guided walking tour of the Dinkelsbühl Old Town, every street in one day.
Every street on the menu.
Every street in the Old Town of Dinkelsbühl is a line of dots you collect by walking it. I have been lying in one of them for six hundred years and I am still not finished.
At a glance
Plan your walk.
- Distance
- 15.4 km
- Time
- about 4.5 hours
- Streets
- 70
- Steps
- 8 streets with steps
- Start point
- Münster St. Georg
- Phone needed while walking
- no
- Works offline
- yes
- Expires
- never
The Old Town
Every street, drawn.
Every lane inside that line is a course. The circles are fruit.
Landmarks
What I would eat first.
Landmarks are fruit. The bigger the sight, the bigger the bonus.
Münster St. Georg 1,500 points
A hall church tall enough to keep its own weather. Walk round it and read the tracery: 26 windows, no two alike, and one of them is the most appetising thing in town. I have tasted most of the town. I am not saying which one.
Deutschordensschloss 500 points
Four wings around one courtyard, far too fancy for the quiet lane it sits on. Up the stairs, past a coat of arms, something small and frilly as a cream cake is waiting at the top. The people working downstairs pass it every day. I am not telling you what it is.
Museum 3. Dimension 500 points
By the Nördlinger Tor, the town mill dressed itself up as a fortress, and now its front rooms hold pictures that refuse to stay flat. Bring both eyes. I am a rock: I have had three dimensions all along, and nobody built me a museum.
St. Paul 500 points
On the Nördlinger Straße stands a church in sober classical dress, younger than most of the houses around it. The ground under it is much older and knows more. Old ground is my favourite course. What it knows, I am not telling you.
Bäuerlinsturm 250 points
Down by the river, a slim tower wears a wooden hat that sticks out over its walls, like a muffin over the edge of its tin. Somebody kept house up there with two jobs, and one of them smelled. I am not telling you which.
Faulturm 250 points
A tall tower with a pointed hat stands over a pond, admiring itself. Its name sounds like an insult: lazy, or rotten. I have been called worse, and I have been lying here longer. Why it got that name, I am not saying.
Schweinemarkt 250 points
The square still answers to Pig Market, and it has grown far too pretty for the name. I only see cobbles, which for me is a buffet. Somebody else saw a great deal more here. I am not saying who.
Segringer Tor 250 points
This gate wears a domed hat that none of the town's other gates would be seen in. Under the arch, steps go down into the old moat. A gate with a pantry, as far as I am concerned. Why it dresses so differently, I am not telling you.
Eating
Actual food.
Dinkelsbühl's own dish swims. The country around the wall is one of Bavaria's big carp regions, and the kitchen is Franconian: dumplings, wood-oven bread, sausages cooked in a sour stock. Carp from September to April, dumplings all year.
Meat and fish
Dinkelsbühler Karpfen
A carp with the town in its name. Early in the 20th century a farming official born in the town raised a fast-growing strain out of the old local breed. It still needs three summers to reach a 1.5 kg table fish. Eat it in the months with an r, September to April, baked or cooked blue. Three summers to grow one lunch.
Come at the end of October or early November for the town's Fischernte week, with a display on the Marktplatz.
Sources: GenussErbe Bayern
Blaue Zipfel
Raw Franconian Bratwürste, cooked in a stock of vinegar, onions and spices. They come out a little sour and bluish, which gives them the name. In Franconia you eat them straight from the stock, with a slice of wood-oven bread. Blue sounds like a warning. It is a recipe.
Sources: GenussErbe Bayern
Dinkelsbühler Schneckennudel
The town's festive pastry: about 100 g of dough, rolled so the top looks like a snail shell, mostly eaten with coffee or tea. It belongs to the Kinderzeche in July, when it also comes warm. Some bakeries now sell it all year, others only for about two weeks in July. Dinkelsbühlers who moved away have it posted to them at Kinderzeche time. A snail that travels by post. Faster than the original.
Ask the bakery what is in the dough. The register does not say, which is why it sits here and not with the vegetarian dishes.
Sources: GenussErbe Bayern
Vegetarian
Fränkische Mehlklöße
Dumplings of flour, eggs and salt, from a dough like Swabian Spätzle, only runnier. They come with roasts and vegetables, beans for one, or sweet with preserved fruit such as pears. Leftovers are sliced and fried the next day as Kloßbröckchen. A dumpling with a second life.
They often sit beside a roast. Order them with vegetables or with the pears.
Sources: GenussErbe Bayern
Fränkische rohe Klöße (Kniedla)
Potato dumplings made from raw potatoes, loose or firm depending on the region. Tear one apart before you eat it, so more sauce clings. They used to be called green dumplings, because cold ones turned dark green. So, eat them hot.
They usually come with a roast and its sauce. Ask for a sauce without meat.
Sources: GenussErbe Bayern
Fränkisches Holzofenbrot mit Quark
Franconian wood-oven bread, eaten the traditional way with Quark or weißer Käs, the white cheese. It is what the threshers were given at harvest. For a slice of that, I would have threshed too.
Sources: GenussErbe Bayern
Vegan
Two, because the register names only these two Middle Franconian foods as plant only. For the dumplings and pastries it does not say what fat or egg goes in, and I do not guess.
Fränkisches Holzofenbrot
Rye flour, water and salt. The sourdough is led through three or four stages over about 24 hours, then the loaf bakes for over an hour in a wood oven whose floor is the heat: the wood burns right on it and the embers are raked out. Franconia has baked it like this for several hundred years. Three ingredients, one day, one fire. Bread does not get much plainer.
Sources: GenussErbe Bayern
Merkendorfer Sauerkraut
Merkendorf in Landkreis Ansbach calls itself the Krautstadt, cabbage town, and has grown cabbage since the Thirty Years' War, about twenty varieties of it. From planting to sauerkraut, 80 percent of the work is done by hand, and the sauerkraut gets only a little salt. Cabbage, salt and a great many hands.
Sources: GenussErbe Bayern
Afternoon coffee
KaffeeRösterei Maaßen where locals go
Nördlinger Straße 7
A family roastery in the Old Town since 2016. It roasts small 10 kg batches in a classic drum roaster, up to 20 minutes each, and sorts every batch by hand. You taste the coffees and espressos in the shop and take home the ones you like. Twenty minutes a roast. I have blinked for longer.
- Monclosed
- Tue09:00–18:00
- Wed09:00–18:00
- Thu09:00–18:00
- Fri09:00–18:00
- Sat09:00–16:00
- Sunclosed
Go on a Friday or Saturday to watch the roaster at work in the shop.
No guide has reviewed it yet. It is here because it is owner-run, not expensive and rated 4.0 or better by its guests.
Dinner
Ehemalige Sparkasse come for the one thing: the country butcher's roast beef
Schrannengasse 1
This was once the savings bank. Today it cooks with the season under the motto Heimat, mostly from regional produce, and the roast beef comes from the Kirchdörfer country butcher. The deposits go on the plate now.
- Mon12:00–22:00
- Tue12:00–22:00
- Wed12:00–22:00
- Thu12:00–22:00
- Fri12:00–22:00
- Sat12:00–22:00
- Sun12:00–22:00
Sources: Guide MICHELIN, Schlemmer Atlas (Busche Verlag), Falstaff
Goldner Hirsch where locals go
Weinmarkt 6
Zwiebelrostbraten, Käsespätzle or a Vesper (a cold supper plate), Franconian Bratwurst and Schnitzel, Schäufele (roast pork shoulder) at the weekend. The kitchen takes no break between lunch and dinner. Neither do I.
- Monclosed
- Tueclosed
- Wed11:30–22:00
- Thu11:30–22:00
- Fri11:30–22:00
- Sat11:30–22:00
- Sun11:30–22:00
Order by 21:00. The kitchen closes an hour before the house does.
No guide has reviewed it yet. It is here because it is owner-run, not expensive and rated 4.0 or better by its guests.
Checked 14 October 2026.
With kids
Short legs, big appetite.
The streets here are full of dots to collect, and a child on a hunt forgets to be tired. Here is a short loop for the smallest walkers.
- The loop
- Münster St. Georg, Faulturm, Segringer Tor, Schweinemarkt, and back to the start
- Distance
- 1.5 km
- Time
- about 30 minutes of walking at a child's pace (3 km/h)
- Steps
- no streets with steps on the loop
- Playgrounds
- 1 near the loop
- Public toilets
- 7 near the loop, 1 with a changing table
- Drinking water
- 2 near the loop
- Ice cream
- 2 near the loop
Near the loop means within 150 m of it, counted from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Name origin
Why it is called Dinkelsbühl.
Dinkelsbühl is Thingolt's hill: "bühl" is the rolling ground, and Thingolt, says the town's own history, was the royal steward who ran the king's land around it. The Bavarian history house leaves the first half open between a personal name and a court place, a "Ding". On paper the name turns up in 1188 as "burgum tinkelspuhel". The spelt came later, when the arms read the name as grain, and the grain grew a founding legend of its own, kept at St. Paul. I read everything as grain, so I understand.
Sources: Stadt Dinkelsbühl, Stadtgeschichte Teil I; Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte, Bayerns Gemeinden: Große Kreisstadt Dinkelsbühl, Wappen; Stadt Dinkelsbühl, Historical Overview
Why here
Somebody stood here and decided.
On a gentle slope west of the Wörnitz, by a ford. Near the crossing, two great old roads met: the trade and pilgrim road from Würzburg to Augsburg, on its way to Italy, and an east-west road from the Middle Rhine to the Danube. Crossroads make people stop, and people who stop get hungry. I respect that.
Sources: Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Denkmalliste Dinkelsbühl (Baudenkmäler), Ensemble Altstadt Dinkelsbühl, Nr. E-5-71-136-1, Stand 22.09.2026, p. 1; Stadt Dinkelsbühl, Stadtgeschichte Teil I
Why then
When the first stone went down.
Around 1170/80, when the Staufer emperor Friedrich I, Barbarossa, raised the place to a town, most likely to guard the crossing of two imperial roads at the river. In 1188 it appears on paper as a "burgus", in a marriage contract: Barbarossa hands it to his son Konrad for a planned wedding. A town that starts life as a wedding present. I hope somebody brought cake.
Sources: Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Denkmalliste Dinkelsbühl (Baudenkmäler), Ensemble Altstadt Dinkelsbühl, Nr. E-5-71-136-1, Stand 22.09.2026, p. 1; Stadt Dinkelsbühl, Stadtgeschichte Teil I
Who ruled
Everyone who thought they owned this.
I outlasted all of them. It is the one thing I am good at.
- 1188–1274
A Staufer royal town. Barbarossa raised it, and in 1188 it went into his son Konrad's marriage contract. When the Staufer line was gone, King Rudolf I of Habsburg brought Dinkelsbühl back to the Empire in 1274.
Sources: Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Denkmalliste Dinkelsbühl (Baudenkmäler), Ensemble Altstadt Dinkelsbühl, Nr. E-5-71-136-1, Stand 22.09.2026, p. 1; Stadt Dinkelsbühl, Stadtgeschichte Teil I
- 1274–1802
A Free Imperial City, answering only to the emperor. It was granted Ulm's town law in 1305, and in 1401 it took the office of the Amtmann, the official set over it, in pledge. In 1387 the craft guilds won their seats on the council, six guilds now governed alongside the old families, and Dinkelsbühl became a little republic of its own. That lasted until 1802. Craftsmen on the council. If any of them baked, they had my vote.
Sources: Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Denkmalliste Dinkelsbühl (Baudenkmäler), Ensemble Altstadt Dinkelsbühl, Nr. E-5-71-136-1, Stand 22.09.2026, p. 1; Stadt Dinkelsbühl, Stadtgeschichte Teil I; Stadt Dinkelsbühl, Historical Overview
- 1802–
Bavaria, with a detour. In 1802 the town fell to the Electorate of Bavaria, in 1804 it was swapped to the Prussian principality of Ansbach, and in 1806 Prussia handed it on to the new Kingdom of Bavaria. Passed around like the last sandwich. Then in 1826 King Ludwig I forbade tearing down the town walls and towers, and that is why the ring is still whole.
Sources: Stadt Dinkelsbühl, Stadtgeschichte Teil II; Stadt Dinkelsbühl, Historical Overview; Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Denkmalliste Dinkelsbühl (Baudenkmäler), Ensemble Altstadt Dinkelsbühl, Nr. E-5-71-136-1, Stand 22.09.2026, p. 3
The emblem
What the shield means.
On red, three golden ears of grain side by side on a silver three-peaked mount. The ears are spelt, Dinkel, and the mount is the hill, so the shield spells out the name. The oldest seals, from 1334 and 1341, tried two ideas: an eagle growing out of a hill between ears of spelt, the eagle standing for the emperor's steward, and the ears alone on the mount, which people first called the citizens' sign. By the 19th century only the small shield with the ears was still in use. The town chose bread over bird. Correct.
Sources: Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte, Bayerns Gemeinden: Große Kreisstadt Dinkelsbühl, Wappen
Emblem: Public domain — official coat of arms (Wikimedia Commons)
Three facts
Three things I know about this place.
The wall ring is all still there: 2,500 metres of it, with four inner gates and 20 wall towers, its outer bailey walls and their towers included. Its curve gives the Old Town the outline of a shoe. The Bavarian monument office counts it, together with Rothenburg's, among the best-kept late medieval town walls in Germany. A shoe made of stone. I tried a bite. Tough.
Sources: Stadt Dinkelsbühl, Stadtgeschichte Teil I; Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Denkmalliste Dinkelsbühl (Baudenkmäler), Ensemble Altstadt Dinkelsbühl, Nr. E-5-71-136-1, Stand 22.09.2026, p. 2
The Wörnitztor, the eastern gate, still shows the town's oldest wall: big rough-faced blocks from the late Staufer wall of the 13th century. The tower was raised around 1400 and got its Renaissance gable storey around 1600. Three ages stacked like a layer cake, and the bottom layer is the crunchiest.
Sources: Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Denkmalliste Dinkelsbühl (Baudenkmäler), Wörnitztor, Nr. D-5-71-136-18, Stand 22.09.2026, p. 7; Stadt Dinkelsbühl, Stadtgeschichte Teil I
Every year the town holds the Kinderzeche, a children's and home-town festival that grew out of a school feast first recorded in 1629. Its play, performed since 1897, acts out a local legend in which the town's children save Dinkelsbühl in the Thirty Years' War by asking for peace. Since 2016 it has been on Germany's list of intangible cultural heritage. On the Tuesday, every child taking part gets a bag full of sweets. That is the scene I would rehearse.
Sources: Stadt Dinkelsbühl, Kinderzeche; bavarikon (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek), Inheriting Culture: „Kinderzeche“ historical festival play in Dinkelsbühl
Street words
What the names on the signs mean.
- Markt
- A market. The old imperial roads were widened for trading, so here a Markt is often a broad street rather than a square, and several are named for what they sold. I read them like a menu.
- Gasse
- A lane, narrower than a Straße. Inside the wall there are plenty of them. Narrow suits me. I eat lengthwise.
- Tor
- A gate. Four still stand in the wall: the Rothenburger, Nördlinger and Segringer Tor point down the road to the next place, and the Wörnitztor to the river.
- Weiher
- A pond. A whole chain of them lies in front of the wall. I do not eat ponds. I walk around them.
- Mauerweg
- A wall path: the lane that runs along the inside of the town wall. Follow it and the wall keeps you company the whole way.
The size of it
Walk it in a day: Dinkelsbühl in numbers.
Counted from the streets in the level itself, not from a guidebook.
- 70streets
- 764dots
- 12.6km of street
- 15.4km on foot
- 4.5hours at a stroll
Nearby
Old Towns close to this one.
The game
Your first city is free.
Cobble Gobble is a walking game for iPhone. Claim any city as your free one. Every other city is a one-time purchase you keep for good, Family Sharing included, and a city you own plays fully offline.