Charlemagne's capital at the corner of three countries — a golden imperial chapel, hot sulphur springs and hard spiced Printen.
Germany's westernmost big city sits in a green bowl of hills where three countries meet: its own city limits run along both the Belgian and the Dutch border. The Romans came first, for sulphur springs that still run at 52 °C in the middle of town. Then came Charlemagne, the Frankish king crowned emperor in the year 800, who made Aachen his capital. About 263,700 people live here now (2025), and the octagonal chapel he built — dark stone, gold mosaic, Germany's first UNESCO World Heritage Site — still stands a few steps from the café tables on the Markt.
Aachen began with hot water. More than thirty sulphur springs rise through the rock here — 52 °C in the centre, over 70 °C in the Burtscheid district — and Roman soldiers piped them into bathhouses some 2,000 years ago. Medieval writers called it Aquisgrani, the waters of Grannus, after a Celtic god of healing. That warm water also helped draw Charlemagne, the Frankish king who conquered most of western Europe and was crowned emperor by the pope in Rome on Christmas Day, 800. Beside his palace he raised a chapel: an octagon 31 metres high, ringed by ancient columns shipped in from Rome and Ravenna and capped with a dome of gold mosaic. Nothing north of the Alps had been vaulted so high since Roman times. He was buried inside it in 814.
Because he lay here, kings wanted to be crowned here. Between 936 and 1531 — close to 600 years — some thirty German kings were crowned in that chapel, then climbed six worn steps to a plain marble chair in the upstairs gallery. The throne is startlingly bare: four slabs of marble held by bronze clamps, with faint scratched lines on one side that once served as a game board. Below, his bones lie in a chest of gold and silver finished in 1215, and every seven years the cathedral's oldest relics are shown to pilgrims.
The city still lives off that inheritance, and off its water. Every Ascension Day the Charlemagne Prize goes to whoever has done most for a united Europe, handed over in the Gothic town hall built on the foundation walls of Charlemagne's own great hall; winners since 1950 include Winston Churchill and, in 2023, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people. At the Elisenbrunnen, a columned hall of 1827, spring water pours from two lions' mouths at 52 °C and smells frankly of boiled eggs — signs warn that it is not drinking water. Bakeries sell Printen, hard dark gingerbread that took its present form around 1820, after Napoleon's blockade cut off cane sugar and honey and bakers switched to beet syrup.
The making of Aachen
Aachen Cathedral
Charlemagne's own chapel — a 31-metre octagon under a gold mosaic dome, and Germany's first UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Charlemagne
The Frankish king crowned emperor in 800, who ruled most of western Europe, made Aachen his capital and lies buried in the cathedral.
Throne of Charlemagne
Six worn steps and a bare marble seat in the upper gallery, where some thirty kings sat to begin their reign — guided tour only.
Elisenbrunnen & the hot springs
Sulphur water at 52 °C pours from two lions' mouths in a columned hall of 1827 — the springs the Romans came for, and yes, it smells of boiled eggs.
The Charlemagne Prize
Europe's best-known prize for uniting the continent, handed over each Ascension Day in the town hall built over Charlemagne's great hall.
Printen
Hard, dark, heavily spiced gingerbread, born when Napoleon's blockade pushed bakers onto beet syrup — protected by EU law since 1997.
.jpg?width=800)
The three-country point
Five kilometres south-west, on the highest hill in the European Netherlands, you can stand in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands at once — until just after the First World War there were four.
.jpg?width=800)