Discover Aachen by Hire Car
Aachen is the westernmost city in Germany. The North Rhine-Westphalian spa city with 250,000 inhabitants can look back on a long history.
Settlement here dates back as far as the Stone Age. Celts had settled here and Romans had maintained an outpost against Germania here.
Sights in Aachen
The city came to cultural flower under the first German emperors – Charlemagne is particularly prominent here, crowned German emperor in the city in 800. Subsequently, Aachen was long the coronation city of the German emperors.
The city owes its character to this. Today, many remnants of this time can still be found in the cityscape. Remains of the imperial palace, chapels, residences, parts of the city wall and more. The city’s landmark is Aachen Cathedral, the core of which is an octagonal domed building.
Today, this structure houses Charlemagne’s marble throne, a golden shrine containing his bones, and the most important church treasure north of the Alps. The cathedral and its treasure became a German cultural monument in 1978 and has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Leisure activities in Aachen
In addition to the many testimonies of the past, the city centre invites you to linger with a wide range of gastronomy and shopping opportunities. Due to the location at the foot of the Eifel, the weather here is also mild for a long time: there are even light foehn layers here more often, which already prompted the ancient Romans to build baths here.
Aachen, located in the border triangle of Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, is ideal for excursions into the culturally and scenically charming surroundings. With a wide range of hire cars available, you are independent of national rail connections in this border area.
A particularly worthwhile excursion destination: the German-Belgian Hohe Venn Nature Park in the Eifel, 30 km away. Covering an area of 2,700 km², you will find a diverse landscape: high moors and limestone cliffs, criss-crossed by streams and rivers.