Nordingen, Romantic Road

This is a town as old as time —or at the very least, the location certainly is. The town itself was built in a crater formed by a meteorite striking at 43,496mi/h (70,000km/h) about 15 million years ago. The crater is 15mi (25km) wide, and the town sits within its depression.

A climb to the top of St George’s Cathedral clock tower presents an aerial view of the town, the crater and the fully preserved town wall. The 15th-century Cathedral was built out of rock known as suevite. This type of rock is typically formed during an impact event, such as an asteroid crashing. The clock tower is 300ft (90m) tall and affectionately named “Daniel” by the locals.

Inside a 16th-century barn is the Rieskrater Museum. Opened in 1990, the museum focuses on meteors and their collision with Earth. Part of its collection is a moon rock on loan from NASA, obtained by the Apollo 16 crew. The rock was in exchange for using the Nördlingen crater to train the Apollo 14 astronauts for the 1971 mission.

In the old locomotive sheds at Nördlingen Station is the Bavarian Railway Museum, home to more than 100 railway vehicles. From the mid-1800s, Nördlingen was on a major railway route that ran south-north for approximately 352mi (566km). Nördlingen’s depot was built in 1851 and was used by steam locomotives until 1966, when diesel locomotives and rail buses replaced them. In 1985, the depot was converted into a museum, and amongst other rail vehicles, it houses the No. 3673 Pacific locomotive of the Bavarian State Railways. Built in 1918, the Pacific design featured a new wheel arrangement known as 4-6-2, meaning four small wheels followed by six large wheels, then two small wheels again. The Pacific became an important design in Europe in the early 20th century for express passenger work, and it dominated throughout Western Europe until the mid-20th century, when it was replaced by diesel and electric locomotives.