Hanau

Hanau is a 96,492 inhabitants city in the semicircle of the river Kinzig and by river Main, in the eastern part of Hesse, Germany, being very close to Bavaria. Hanau is an important transport center as well as being a center of precious metal working with many goldsmiths and home to Heraeus (one of the largest family-owned companies in Germany). The city is known for being the birthplace of the Brothers Grimm (Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm) and Franciscus Sylvius.

How do I arrive to Hanau?

  Hanau is very well connected with other cities in Hesse and other states due to its proximity to Frankfurt am Main.

• Train: there are often trains to important destinations within Hesse like Offenbach am Main (aprox. 10 minutes), Gelnhausen and Seligenstadt (aprox. 15 minutes), Frankfurt am Main (aprox. 30 minutes), Fulda (aprox. 45 minutes) or Darmstadt (aprox. 55 minutes). There are also trains to destinations in other federal states such as Aschaffenburg (aprox. 25 minutes) and Würzburg (aprox. 1 hour 15 minutes) in Bavaria. 
• Bus: there are buses to many cities in Hesse and neighbouring states.
• Car: having a car many destinations can be reached easily such as Offenbach am Main (aprox. 20 minutes), Gelnhausen and Seligenstadt (aprox. 20 minutes), Bad Orb (aprox. 25 minutes), Frankfurt am Main (aprox. 30 minutes), Darmstadt (aprox. 35 minutes), Wiesbaden (aprox. 40 minutes), Gießen (aprox. 45 minutes), Bensheim (aprox. 50 minutes) or Fulda (aprox. 50 minutes). It can also be reached Aschaffenburg (aprox. 20 minutes) and Würzburg (aprox. 1 hour) in Bavaria. 

History

Hanau was first mentioned in 1143, with a castle that belonged to a noble family since the 13th century and became a town in 1303. The first town walls were built in the 14th century (shortly after outgrowing them) and the second were built in the 16th century (enclosing the medieval castle, the medieval town of Hanau and the Vorstadt). At the end of the 16th century, Count Philipp Ludwig II attracted Protestant refugees from the Netherlands and France because of high economic interest for him (bringing high-class trade, knowledge of jewellery and other production of luxury items), who formed their own community (Neustadt Hanau), taking more than 200 years to amalgamate both. The new citizens formed the major economic and political power within the County of Hanau, playing a leading role in the succession of Count Fredrik Casimir of Hanau Lichtenberg to form the County of Hanau-Münzenberg. When the last Count of Hanau died in 1736, Johann Reinhard III of Hanau-Lichtenberg, the county was inherited by the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (although dynastic troubles lead the creation of a separate state until 1786). During the 1820s the administrations of both towns were merged and the pre-industrial workshops Hanau became a nucleus of a heavy industrialisation during the 19th century, supported an important railway interchange. It was a center of the German democratic movement, being annexed to Prussia in 1866 and remaining part of Prussia until 1945. During World War II, the Jewish population were persecuted and most of the city (around the 87% of the city and 98% of its Altstadt) destroyed by British airstrikes in March 1945. In 2010, Hanau started a huge building project to completely redesign the inner city and in 2020 it took place the Hanau shootings, a far-right terrorist attack.

What can I visit in Hanau?

  Hanau used to have a wonderful Altstadt that was destroyed during WW2 (around 98% of it). Luckily some buildings were rebuilt and it can be enjoyed how they were before the war 

These are Hanau's main attractions:

• Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus (11-17 Tue-Sun; 3€/ 2€  adults/ reduced): museum, located in the building of the Old Town Hall of Hanau (a half-timbered building that comes from the late Gothic and early Renaissance periods, dated to 1538), that is used to show the tradition of goldsmithing in Hanau (that goes back to the beginning of the 17th century), being the seat of a leading institution for training goldsmiths and the German Society for Goldsmithing too. The building came useless when both towns of Hanau merged and since the early 20th century it was used as a museum, with many pieces donated by the goldsmith Ebbe Weiss-Weingart.
  
• Marienkirche: Lutheran church built in Gothic style in 1446 by Count Reinhard II of Hanau, oldest and largest Protestant church in Hanau. It served as a church and as a place of burial for many members of the Hanau aristocratic family. Although the church was badly damaged in World War II, it was able to be restored according to the historical model.
• Johanneskirche: Lutheran church from 1658 that was extended in the 18th century. It was destroyed in WW2, rebuilt after the war without the extension.
• Hanau City Palace Garden: garden, located behind the former Hanau City Palace, built for the Landgravine Maria von Hessen-Kassel in the 1760s, being one of the oldest English gardens on the European mainland. It has numerous very old trees as well as some works of art and monuments are particularly worth seeing. The last remaining buildings of the Hanau City Palace are the chancellery and the stables. It was first built in the 13th century for the Counts of Hanau and it resulted destroyed and demolished in World War 2.
  
• Mariae Namen Catholic Church: church built in the 19th century that was supposed to be a large, three-aisled basilica (a storm in 1848 destroyed the church and was rebuilt simplier) and that, after suffering important damage in WW2, was rebuilt in a simplified form.
  
• New Town Hall of Hanau: historic town hall of Hanau Neustadt (still serves as the town hall of Hanau today), built in1733 under Count Johann Reinhard III. Its façade is done in Franconian sandstone. After the destruction in WW2 the town hall was rebuilt. In front of it, in the middle of the square, it's located the Monument to Brothers Grimm.
  
• Wallonisch-Niederländische Kirche: double-church from 1597 built in the times of Count Philipp Ludwig II of Hanau-Münzenberg for religious refugees from France and the Spanish Netherlands, serving as a house of prayer for the Walloon-Dutch Calvinist refugees. After the Second World War, only the Dutch half was rebuilt (the outer walls of the Walloon half remained as a memorial).
• Friedenskirche: Neo-Gothic Lutheran church built in 1904 by river Main, in the formerly independent town of Kesselstadt. It survived the Second World War almost undamaged.
  
• Philippsruhe Palace: early 18th century Schloss built as a Baroque residence by Count Philipp Reinhard von Hanau-Münzenberg. The subsequent rulers rebuilt the palace according to personal preferences, most recently by Friedrich Wilhelm von Hessen-Rumpenheim in the years 1875 to 1880. The palace remained completely undamaged during WW2 but a fire in 1984 destroyed the historic dome and numerous works of art inside the palace. Today it can be visited within the palace Hanau History Museum (11-18 Tue-Sun; 4€/ 3€/ 1€  adults/ reduced/ people under 18), museum that shows the history of Hanau, as well as its most famous inhabitants (such as the Brothers Grimm). Various artistic works from the history of the city are displayed, as well as a paper theater museum with a paper theater works from the 19th century. The palace garden behind it has been home to several sculptures by renowned artists for several years.
• Wilhelmsbad Kurpark: spa gardens from the 18th century, created by the Counts of Hanau, who suspected a healing spring here and then built a spacious bathing and park area (however it quickly turned out that the water bubbling had no healing power). It has some interesting buildings such as artificial castle ruin on an island in the spa park, the Pyramid Wilhelmsbad or the Historisches Karussell Wilhelmsbad (a carousel that is the main attraction of the park). Within the park the visitor can reach the Hessian Puppet Museum (10-13 and 14-17 Tue-Fri, Sa, 10-17 Sat-Sun; 3€/ 2€  adults/ reduced), a museum that tells the story of the doll from antiquity to the present, containing some important and rare doll collections.
• Steinheim Palace-Museum (11-17 Sat-Sun; 3€/ 2€/ free  adults/ reduced/ people under 18): Schloss that was first built in the 12th century that was used as the former castle of the Electorate of Mainz, that bought it in 1425. Its museum shows the prehistory, early history and Roman era of today's Hanau as well as the history of the formerly independent town of Steinheim am Main.
  
• Großauheim Museum (11-17 Sat-Sun; 3€/ 2€/ free  adults/ reduced/ people under 18): museum focused on technical history and industrialization, mainly in the formerly independent town of Großauheim. Its highlight are several functioning steam engines and has local artwork too.

Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus

Philippsruhe Palace

Einhard-Basilika and Seligenstadt Abbey

 

 

On the other side of river Main there are some places that are worth a visit. One of them is Seligenstadt (21,267 inhabitants), a town that is considered one of oldest towns in Germany (having already great importance in Carolingian times), in the border between Hesse and Bavaria. The town preserved very well its Alstadt, with small roads and many timber framing buildings. The landmark in Seligenstadt is Einhard-Basilika (10-17 Tue-Sun from Mar to Oct; 10-16 Tue-Sun from Nov to Feb; 5€/ 3€  adults/ reduced), also known as the Basilica of Sts. Marcellinus und Petrus, a Catholic temple built by Einhard that was resconstructed in Baroque style and that has the relics of the martyrs Marcellinus and Peter. Although the building was heavily modified over the centuries, this is one of the largest basilicas with a basic Carolingean structure north of the Alps. Another interesting place is Seligenstadt Abbey (9:30-17:30 Tue-Sun from Mar to Oct; 9:30-16:30 Tue-Sun from Nov to Feb; 4€/ 2.50€  adults/ reduced), a Benedictine abbey, first built in the 9th century and with traces from the 11th century, whose most impressing parts date back to the Baroque period (including the library and the Prälatur with its Kaisersaal) and that was dissolved in 1803. Today it's home of a museum that shows exhibits on the history of the town and the abbey and has a Baroque garden too. The town has remainders of several wall sections and towers, the Palatium (remains of the façade of a palace, from the times of the emperors Friedrich Barbarossa or Friedrich II, used by the emperor as a weekend residence or a small hunting lodge) and a picturesque water tower, Wasserturm.

 

Gelnhausen

Driving east, towards Fulda, it can be visited Gelnhausen (23,202 inhabitants), a town with some half-timbered houses located in the German Fairy Tale Route, a touristic route that connects Hanau with Bremen. The landmark of the town is the Imperial Palace of Gerlnhausen (10-17 Tue-Sun from Mar to Oct; 10-16 Tue-Sun from Nov to Dec; 3.50€/ 2€  adults/ reduced), a Kaiserpfalz (the best preserved from its era) founded in 1170 by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa that enabled the expansion of imperial territory along an important long-distance highway, the Via Regia, that was damaged during the Thirty Years' War. The town has some important churches like Marienkirche (Lutheran church, one the most recognizable landmark of Gelnhausen, with both Romanesque and Gothic architecture elements) or St. Peter Catholic Church (church with origins in the early 13th century), as well as a well preserved Altstadt with nice houses like Gotisches Haus and the Romanisches Haus.

Bad Ort

To understand more about the history of the town and the whole area the visitor should have a look at Museum Gelnhausen (4€/ 3€/ free  adults/ reduced/ kids under 6). Driving 15 km to the east, it can be reached the spa town of Bad Orb (10,172 inhabitants). It's an important place for its health facilities and also has some timber-framed houses as well as remains of the medieval town wall and fortifications. Apart from all the spa resorts it has, there's a Kurpark for people to rest after the therapy. Its most important churches are St. Martin Catholic Church, Gothic church from the 14th century that suffered a fire in 1983, and Martin-Luther-Kirche, a Lutheran church built in Neo-Gothic style in 1902 that has an altar bible gifted by Empress Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. But probably the most fascinating sight for both old and young is Spessart-Wildpark Bad Orb, a park where watching animals from Spessart area (wolves, lynx, wild boar and bison or red deer) with hiking trails, a forest rope park for climbing, among other activities.

Jerusalem Gate

Another place that is nice to be visited from Gelnhausen is Büdingen (22,436 inhabitants), a town mainly known for its well-preserved, heavily fortified medieval town wall and half-timbered houses. The landmark of the town are its fortifications, among which highlight the Jerusalem Gate (gate that separated the suburb where religious dissenters lived since 1724). In town it can also be partially visited Büdingen Palace (8-12 and 15-20 Mon-Fri, 14-17 Sat-Sun; guided tours), a Schloss that was first built in the 12th century that belonged since the 13th century to the counts and princes of Ysenburg (still inhabited today by the princess of Ysenburg). The main churches in Büdingen are Marienkirche (a late-Gothic Lutheran church built in the 15th century that shows a wide variety of architectural styles, being the main church in town) and St. Remigius Lutheran Church (church with parts that date back to the Ottonian period). By the town walls it can be enjoyed a nice park, Kölsch Garden.

Where can I eat in Hanau?

Hanau has a wide culinary offer that goes from cheap places such the cafe Central (Am Markt 21), the Turkish bar City Pizza Kebap Haus (Frankfurter Landstraße 38) or Leidl's Fried Chicken (Otto-Wels-Straße 2); and other places with a higher prize like the restaurant Hanauer Bub (Am Tümpelgarten 21), the steakhaus Römerhof (Römerstraße 20) or Deins (Ulanenplatz 2).

Posted in: Europe,Germany,Hesse