Discover Ingolstadt: City History, Museums and Routes

Ingolstadt offers a range of ways to shape your stay: city history, literature, Audi, and a walking and cycling trail through parks and the Danube floodplains. If you are looking for a hotel in Ingolstadt, it helps to consider the focus of your trip. The places and topics below can help you decide whether you would rather explore historical collections and buildings or plan a route around the city.

City History in Collections and Buildings

Ingolstadt’s expanded city wall once encompassed more than 80 towers in total, earning the city the nickname “The City of a Hundred Towers” (Latin: ad centum turres). At the Ingolstadt City Museum, a city model from 1571 illustrates the city in the late Middle Ages. Also on display are the Ingolstadt amber necklace, an amber find from the Bronze Age, and the horse of Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus, shown as a trophy of victory from the Thirty Years’ War. The collection thus brings together several historical themes: a Bronze Age find, a city model, and an object from the period of the Thirty Years’ War.

Another destination for architecture enthusiasts is the New Castle, also known as the Neue Veste. It is located at Paradeplatz 4, southeast of Ingolstadt’s Old Town, and is considered a pioneering example of modern castle architecture in Germany. When planning your trip, you can therefore take different aspects of the city’s history into account: its former fortifications, the objects on display in the museum, and a building that represents modern castle architecture.

Literature and Audi as Further Points of Interest

The Marieluise-Fleißer-Haus is a museum dedicated to the life and work of the writer. It is housed in a carefully restored late-medieval town house with a former smithy. Another way to explore Fleißer’s writing is the Marieluise-Fleißer Walk: it links historic locations with various texts by the author, which can be read aloud at each location or viewed on a display. The house and the walk offer different perspectives: the museum focuses on her life and work in a historic building, while the walk connects locations with texts.

At the Audi museum mobile, more than 100 cars and bicycles, along with multimedia presentations, illustrate Audi’s history and long tradition. Audi’s factory tours in Ingolstadt, by contrast, offer insights into modern automobile production at the company’s local site. These present two distinct topics: the brand’s history at the museum and present-day production on the factory tours.

Explore the City on Foot or by Bike

The Biotope Discovery Trail is an approximately eleven-kilometre walking and cycling route through Klenzepark, Luitpoldpark, the western Danube floodplains and the Glacis grounds. Eighteen information panels explain important biotope types found in the city. The route thus offers a different focus from museums and buildings: it passes through various parts of the city and combines the journey with information about biotope types.

The first section starts at Rathausplatz, passes through Klenzepark and Luitpoldpark and along the Danube, crosses the Glacis Bridge and goes through Künettegraben before returning to Rathausplatz. The second section follows the Danube to the Ingolstadt weir, then continues via Fohlenweide and the Moosgärten allotment gardens, past Westfriedhof cemetery and through Künettegraben back to the starting point. If you include this route in your day’s plans, bear in mind its approximate total length of eleven kilometres. As the city may revise the route, it is a good idea to check it again before setting out.

For the general travel overview: Ingolstadt.