Sigmaringen

We came to Sigmaringen because we saw photos online of a magnificent castle on the banks of the Danube. The castle has a long history dating back to the Middle Ages, but it acquired its current appearance later, after several renovations.


This is one of the residences of the Hohenzollern dynasty; the castle houses a museum where you can see the interiors, weapon collections, paintings, and historical artifacts—though we didn’t visit it.

An interesting fact: during World War II, the castle played an unexpected role. In 1944–1945, it housed the government of Philippe Pétain’s regime (the so-called Vichy government), the collaborationist government of France formed after the defeat in the war against Nazi Germany.

We parked here at 48.088528, 9.208972; there’s a restaurant there where we had lunch, and there’s a nice playground. After that, we took a walk along the Danube promenade, which offers beautiful views of the castle. The best viewpoint is called Aussichtspunkt auf dem Mühlberg and is located here at 48.089389, 9.216389.




After that, we crossed the bridge and took a walk through the old town. 












Here, at 48.086972, 9.213889, we went through a small rose garden and returned to the car via a different bridge. The rose garden has a display stand with old photographs of the city; it’s quite interesting because there used to be a marsh in this spot.