This guide covers the northern half of Nuremberg's old town, the Sebald side of the river Pegnitz: the Imperial Castle on its sandstone rock, St Sebald's Church below it, the Hauptmarkt with the Frauenkirche, the Schöner Brunnen fountain and the Fleischbrücke bridge. They sit on one slope that runs from the river up to the castle, so you can see all five in a single walk and follow the story of the city from its first written mention to its post-war rebuilding.
The Imperial Castle (Kaiserburg)
The castle is the reason Nuremberg exists. The first written record of the place is a document issued by King Henry III in 1050, which names it "Norenberc". What you see today is really three complexes on one ridge: the Imperial Castle proper, the remains of the Burgraves' Castle, which was destroyed in 1420 and sold to the city in 1427, and a set of buildings put up by the city itself, such as the Luginsland tower of 1377, built so that the town could keep an eye on the burgraves next door.
For centuries the German kings and emperors stayed here when they came to Nuremberg; Frederick II alone came at least 16 times. The Golden Bull of 1356 named Nuremberg as the place where each newly elected ruler should hold his first Imperial Diet. The castle was badly damaged in 1944 and 1945, and only the Imperial Chapel and the Sinwell Tower came through entirely intact. Today the Palas hosts the permanent exhibition "Emperor – Empire – City", and the former granary of 1494–1495, the Imperial Stables, is a youth hostel.
- The round Sinwell Tower, the main keep from the second half of the 13th century; "sinwell" is Middle High German for perfectly round.
- The Deep Well, whose shaft reaches water at a depth of about 50 metres, and the Romanesque double chapel of around 1200, with one chapel stacked on top of the other.
- The Pentagonal Tower above the northern rock face, one of the oldest buildings on the castle rock, and the Heathens' Tower beside the chapel, named after the "heathen" images removed from it when the castle was restored for Charles V.
St Sebald's Church (Sebalduskirche)
St Sebald's is the older of the two great parish churches of the old town. Work began in 1225 and the building was finished by the 1270s as a Romanesque basilica with a choir at each end. Between 1358 and 1379 the eastern end was replaced by a tall Gothic hall choir, and the towers were raised in the 14th and 15th centuries. The church was seriously damaged in the Second World War and restored afterwards. Johann Pachelbel, the composer of the famous Canon, was its organist from 1695 to 1706.
- The bronze shrine of St Sebaldus in the choir, made by Peter Vischer the Elder and his sons between 1508 and 1519, which houses the saint's relics under a bronze Gothic canopy.
- The contrast between the low Romanesque nave in the west and the high, light Gothic choir in the east, which shows the two building periods side by side.
Hauptmarkt and the Frauenkirche
The main market square has a dark origin. In the 12th century this marshy ground by the Pegnitz was settled by Jews, and the Jewish quarter ended up in the middle of the walled town. In 1349 a pogrom, carried out with the consent of Emperor Charles IV, killed nearly 600 Jews and destroyed the quarter. The cleared land became the market square, and in 1352 work started on the Frauenkirche on the east side, on the site of the destroyed synagogue. In 1933 the Nazis renamed the square Adolf-Hitler-Platz and used it for party rally marches.
The Frauenkirche was built on Charles IV's initiative, probably to a design by Peter Parler, and was almost completely destroyed in the Second World War; only the nave walls and the facade survived, and repairs were finished by 1953. Today the square holds a weekly market, and each Advent it hosts the Christkindlesmarkt, the city's famous Christmas market.
- The Männleinlaufen clock on the Frauenkirche facade, installed between 1506 and 1509 in memory of the Golden Bull: at midday a bell starts the show, trumpeters and a drummer play, and the prince-electors walk in procession around the seated emperor.
The Schöner Brunnen (Beautiful Fountain)
The "Beautiful Fountain" stands at the corner of the Hauptmarkt, next to the town hall. It was made between 1385 and 1396, usually credited to Heinrich Beheim, and rises about 19 metres like a Gothic church spire. Its forty painted figures form a picture of the medieval world order in four tiers: philosophy and the seven liberal arts at the bottom, then the four evangelists and four Church Fathers, then the seven prince-electors with the Nine Worthies, and at the top Moses with seven prophets.
What you see is not the original. The fountain has been restored and copied several times since the 1820s and was rebuilt in its present form in 1912, while the surviving stone original is kept in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. During the Second World War it was encased in concrete and came through the air raids. The wrought-iron grille around it was forged in 1587 by Paulus Kuhn, a locksmith from Augsburg.
- The rings in the grille: two of them turn. Legend says Kuhn's apprentice secretly worked a ring into the grille before leaving town, and turning it is said to bring the blessing of children. Most visitors spin the brass ring, though many Nurembergers say the iron ring on the north-east side is the real one.
The Fleischbrücke
The Fleischbrücke (Meat Bridge) crosses the Pegnitz a few steps south of the Hauptmarkt. Built between 1596 and 1598, it is a single flat stone arch with a clear span of 27 metres, which made it the largest masonry bridge arch in Germany at the time. Its abutments stand on some 2,000 wooden piles, many driven in at an angle to take the thrust of the shallow arch. A similar technique had been used slightly earlier on the Rialto Bridge in Venice, but recent research stresses how different and original the Nuremberg design is. The bridge survived the Second World War almost unscathed.
- The portal of 1599 at the north end, with its stone ox and a Latin inscription that jokes, roughly, that everything has a beginning and grows, but the ox you see here was never a calf.
How to see them in one walk
Start at the Fleischbrücke and look at the river from the middle of the arch, then walk north under the ox portal to the Hauptmarkt. Spend some time at the Schöner Brunnen and, if you are there around midday, watch the Männleinlaufen on the Frauenkirche. From the square, head up past the town hall to St Sebald's Church, then keep climbing the old streets to the Imperial Castle. Finish on the castle terraces, where the whole old town lies below you, with the towers of St Lorenz on the far side of the river.
See Nuremberg with World City Trail
Our Nuremberg scavenger hunt turns the old town into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops, from the Opera House to the Imperial Castle, and all five places in this guide are among them: the Fleischbrücke, the Hauptmarkt, the Schöner Brunnen, St Sebald's Church and the castle itself. On the way it also passes St Lorenz, the Handwerkerhof crafts courtyard and Albrecht Dürer's House.
If you prefer a different format, there is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Nuremberg.
Play the Nuremberg scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Nuremberg →
Play the outdoor escape game in Nuremberg →
Facts checked in October 2026.