A Walk Through Tübingen, the University Town in Swabia

Whenever I move somewhere new, I walk it. Not with a plan — just out of the door to find the shops, the landmarks, the cheap eateries, the supermarket. Google Maps is there for the moment I go too far and lose my nerve on the way home. When I am visiting a town rather than living in it, the habit is the same, except that I end up asking people instead of my phone.

That is roughly how I spent a week in Tübingen, a small town in southern Germany an easy hop from Stuttgart, in the old Schwaben region. It is a university town above all else, and exchange students arrive every year in numbers.

Why I came back

I had been once before, in 2013, when a close friend was working there. That visit left me with one very specific memory: the finest dumplings with mushroom sauce I have eaten, in a restaurant called Neckarmüller. So when a conference brought me back, the dumplings were, I admit, a large part of my motivation.

Then I opened the door of my hotel room and laughed out loud. The window looked straight down at the Neckarmüller, its terrace over the river. I had not planned it. I took it as a good omen.

Walking without a map

The conference schedule was punishing, but none of us wanted to leave without seeing the town. My colleagues and I set off on foot, asking directions and recommendations as we went. None of us had data on our phones while roaming, so we relied on a little homework and a lot of local patience.

We were staying close to the centre, which meant the old town was a short walk away. The Altstadt is remarkably intact. You go slowly, because the lanes are narrow and cobbled and the houses on either side are several centuries old, and because there is no reason to hurry.

A local sent us towards the farmers' market and, in the same breath, pointed out the way to the castle. We wandered a while, and I stopped to buy a postcard, which is my usual souvenir. It was a sunny Saturday morning, the sort that makes a walk feel like the whole point of the trip.

Schloss Hohentübingen

After asking once more — we were committed to the no-map method — we reached the castle. Schloss Hohentübingen now belongs to the university and holds an archaeological and historical museum. It also gives you the town at your feet.

What I had not expected was the science. Friedrich Miescher, who came from Basel, first extracted and identified nucleic acid while working here, around 1869. It is one of those achievements that quietly underpins everything that followed. The walls carry inscriptions in his memory, including a marker showing where his laboratory stood. Much later, in 1953, Watson and Crick worked out the double helix at Cambridge, and there is a coloured replica of the structure in the town that honours all of them together.

Inside the museum is a horse figurine about 32,000 years old. I had come for dumplings and ended up looking at the Upper Palaeolithic.

Coming back for the light

We returned to the castle in the evening to watch the sun go down. We sat on a bench, talking, doing nothing in particular, and it was the most restful hour of the week. If we had lived there, I think we would have done it every weekend.

The sculpture that swallows tourists

On another day, near the Institute of Microbiology and Virology, we came across a piece of public art that stopped all of us. It is called Pi-Chacán, a symbol of rebirth, made in 2001 by the Peruvian artist Fernando de la Jara.

Later we found news reports online about a visitor who climbed inside it and could not get out again. Firefighters had to come and free him. I have thought about that man more often than I should.

The verdict on the food

We had a good, busy week. In fairness, none of us thought much of the food in general — it was fine, it was filling, it was not the reason to come. But those dumplings, at the restaurant I could see from my window, were as good as I remembered. That is the thing about a town you return to: you go back for one dish and come away with a castle, a helix and a story about a stuck tourist.

Have you spent time in southern Germany? I would like to know what you ate and where you walked.