Aalbäumle

Aalen lies where the upper Kocher leaves the eastern Swabian Alb, in a broad valley known as the Aalener Bucht. The town grew beside an old Roman fort and became a free imperial city in the 14th century. After a great fire in 1634 it rebuilt its council house and main church, traces of which still stand today. In the 19th century Aalen became the administrative seat of Württemberg and later a university town with around six thousand students. The surrounding hills belong to the Albvorland, the Albuch and the Härtsfeld, giving the city a varied landscape of meadows, woods and vineyards. Geologists know Aalen as the place that gave its name to the Aalenian stage of the Middle Jurassic. The Swiss expert Karl Mayer-Eymar defined this rock layer in 1864, and in 1962 an international colloquium confirmed the term. The city’s underground shows all three groups of the South German Jura: white in the south, brown in the centre and black near Wasseralfingen. Fossil-rich clays and sandstones appear on the hills around Dewangen and Fachsenfeld. Until 1939 iron ore was mined on the Braunenberg. The old town clusters around a market square 430 metres above sea level. The Kocher flows through the heart of the city, joined by the Aal stream. The river passes under bridges that carry the streets of Unterkochen and Wasseralfingen before leaving the municipal boundary. From the market square paths climb gently to the vineyards on the valley sides, where views open across the Swabian Alb. In the west the Sandberg and Schnaitberg expose iron sandstone, while the eastern districts rest on layers rich in fossils. The city’s varied relief creates different microclimates, with more sunshine than the German average but also more rainy days.