Miltenberg: Extra notes

It may seem obvious, but I’ve come to realize that one of the things this blog should be used for is to give extra information about the places I film for my Destination series. For those who like the video and perhaps feel that one day they should visit. So here are my extra notes to accompany my video of Miltenberg. And what a beautiful place it is, too.

Miltenberg: the classic view.

This, of course, despite the fact that it started raining while I was there — not much, but some of the rain is visible in the video. But at least the light was nice and even: no deep shadows, and no wishing I could afford a new camera with useful things like dynamic range stretch. (I’m still looking, by the way, for somebody foolish enough to pay me to make videos.)

In the video, I mention that the historic centre is in the shape of a narrow wedge. Basically, the river Main flows head on towards the Odenwald, and when it reaches it, makes a sharp right turn; and that’s where Miltenberg is built. Here’s what it looks like if you take a map of the town and draw a line around the historic centre:

What’s long, thin and about 700 years old?

It’s a long way from one end to the other (although you don’t have to go all the way to the Mainz Gate at the extreme western end unless you really want to). It is, though, for the most part, flat, except for the path up to the castle (which is seriously not wheelchair-accessible).

For those reliant on public transportation, Miltenberg is best reached from Aschaffenburg (which is itself easy to get to from Frankfurt), with slow RB trains departing every hour and faster RE trains every two hours.

It’s a fair distance from any autobahn, but there are good roads from the A3 near Aschaffenburg.

The Lilli Chapeau Theatre really is the smallest in the world, at least according to the Guinness Book of Records (and they should know). The story behind it is quite sweet: Lilli Chapeau was a member of a company of street performers which once stopped at Miltenberg. She fell in love with, and later married, a local, but found it hard to settle down and lead a conventional life. So he basically converted a room into a tiny theatre and founded a theatre company with one actor (Chapeau), and one other person (himself) doing all the rest. The theatre is only open from October to April: during the summer months, Chapeau performs at their new project, an open-air theatre in nearby Kleinheubach (with twice the number of seats) where she shares the bill with a string of horses.

Finally, afficionados of German post-war comedy films may recognize Miltenberg as one of the locations used for filming the 1958 classic The Spessart Inn (original title Das Wirtshaus im Spessart).