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🎨 Culture

Regensburg for Culture Lovers — 3 Days of Danube School Painting, Imperial Halls & Asam Baroque

City galleries, a princely palace, underground archaeology and a 1804 municipal stage inside Germany's most complete medieval townscape.

📍 Regensburg, Germany 📅 3-day itinerary

Regensburg holds Albrecht Altdorfer's Danube School panels, the Reichssaal where the Imperial Diet sat for 143 years, and Asam brothers' stucco — plus a working four-venue theatre and a state history museum on the Danube quay.

Visual Arts & Architecture

09:00
🖼️ Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie

Bavaria's largest collection of art from Germany's historic eastern territories: some 4,000 paintings and works by Lovis Corinth, Käthe Kollwitz and Oskar Kokoschka, in a 1970 pavilion set in the Stadtpark. Tue–Sun 10:00–17:00.

⏱ 2-3 hours 💶 €10 adults, €8 reduced
Wednesday afternoons are quietest; the sculpture terrace behind the café is free to enter without a ticket.
12:00
🕳️ document Neupfarrplatz

Underground archaeology beneath the square: excavated cellars of the medieval Jewish quarter razed in 1519, Roman barracks foundations and a WWII air-raid bunker. Access only by 45-minute guided tour, booked at the Tabak Götz kiosk.

⏱ 1.5 hours 💶 €5 per person
Tours are German-only most days — ask for the printed English text sheet at the kiosk when you buy.
14:30
👑 Schloss St. Emmeram (Thurn und Taxis Palace)

The princely Thurn und Taxis residence built into a former Benedictine abbey: mirrored ballroom, throne room and a Romanesque cloister with 13th-century tracery. Interiors open only on timed 45-minute tours.

⏱ 2 hours 💶 €13.50 palace tour, €18 combined with Kreuzgang
17:00
⚖️ Altes Rathaus & Reichssaal

The Gothic Reichssaal hosted the Perpetual Imperial Diet from 1663 to 1806 beneath a painted timber ceiling of 1408; the same route drops into the medieval torture chamber below. Document Reichstag tours run roughly hourly.

⏱ 1.5 hours
English tours are usually at 14:00 and 15:30 — for a late slot take the German tour and read the wall panels.

Performing Arts & Museums

10:00
🏛️ Museum der Bayerischen Geschichte

Opened 2019 on the Danube waterfront, the Bavarian state history museum covers 1800 to reunification through 2,500 objects, a working period cinema and a 100-metre panorama screen of the 20th century. Tue–Sun 09:00–18:00.

⏱ 2 hours 💶 €5 adults, under-18s free
Start on the upper floor and walk backwards in time — the crowds all move the other way from the entrance ramp.
13:00
🎨 Städtische Galerie im Leeren Beutel

The municipal gallery fills a granary of about 1600 with classical modernism — the Wolfgang-Bergmann collection, Otto Dix, Fritz Winter — plus rotating shows of contemporary artists from eastern Bavaria across vaulted floors.

⏱ 1 hour
15:00
🗿 Historisches Museum Regensburg

Around eighty rooms in a former Minorite friary trace the city from Roman Castra Regina through the free imperial era; the Albrecht Altdorfer panels of the Danube School are the collection's centre of gravity.

⏱ 2 hours 💶 €5 adults, €2.50 reduced
18:00
🎭 Theater Regensburg (Theater am Bismarckplatz)

Built 1804, one of Germany's oldest continuously working municipal theatres, staging opera, ballet, spoken drama and the Philharmonisches Orchester Regensburg across four houses including the Velodrom and Turmtheater.

Same-day Restkarten go on sale at the box office an hour before curtain, often for €10–15.

Local Culture & Neighbourhood Life

09:30
Basilika St. Emmeram

Abbey church of the monastery founded in the 8th century: a Romanesque triple-nave basilica reworked in the 1730s with stucco and frescoes by Cosmas Damian and Egid Quirin Asam, above the crypt of St Wolfgang.

⏱ 2 hours 💶 Free; donation box for the crypt
The freestanding bell tower in the courtyard is among the oldest in Germany — walk round the east end to see it clear of the roofline.
12:30
🎬 Stadtamhof & Andreasstadel

Over the Danube, the once-independent island town of Stadtamhof keeps a low baroque streetscape; the Andreasstadel salt warehouse now houses an arthouse cinema, photography rooms and rehearsal studios.

⏱ 1.5 hours
14:30
🔭 Kepler-Gedächtnishaus

Johannes Kepler died in this merchant's house in November 1630; five furnished period rooms show his instruments, first editions and a model of the Keplerian telescope, run as a branch of the city museums.

⏱ 2 hours 💶 €2.50, free with Historisches Museum ticket
17:30
🎸 Alte Mälzerei

A 19th-century malthouse south of the station running as a volunteer-programmed socio-cultural centre since the 1980s: indie and jazz concerts, poetry slams, club nights and summer courtyard cinema.

Check the paper programme by the gate — small-room gigs often sell only at the door for around €15.

📍 Route map

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