About Clare B. Dunkle
Unique Features of European Cities

Aside from their narrow streets and wide market squares, old European cities share some other features that we don’t see in America. For one thing, they now hold hundreds of years’ worth of obsolete but very picturesque buildings. This tall watchtower stood at one time on the medieval city wall. Now it is just another odd building in the middle of a very busy city.

Because space downtown is hard to come by, old buildings serve new purposes.

Old stone buildings are hard to remodel. The new tenants make do with what they have. This owner has contrived a very unusual cat door.

Although most Europeans do not consider themselves religious, the common holidays usually have religious significance. Here is a Corpus Christi procession in Saarbruecken, Germany.

Lovely old shrines are everywhere in the part of Germany where we lived. They appear by the roadside or in the middle of town. Many old roads have a shrine every mile or two, and even small towns may have several. Such shrines as this one mark the intersection of two old roads: a true “cross-roads” cross.

Cities and towns all over Germany hold festivals throughout the year, but the most important are the Christmas markets. Tourists come from all over Europe to go to the biggest ones, and every little town has one, too. It's nothing for locals to go to six or seven Christmas markets in the month of December. This one is in downtown Frankfurt.

All photographs copyright 2004 by Joseph R. Dunkle