In the middle ages a town needed a fortified wall to survive over a long period of time, as central government was non-existent or weak and therefore safety from invasions was not otherwise likely.
This system was of course vulnerable to sieges, where invaders sat outside your walls and tried to starve you out, but otherwise it worked. Until the late 1600's when cannons became large enough, and prevalent enough to blast through many of these stone fortifications. Thus the walled town became obsolete, and in the early 1800’s many towns tore down their old walls and towers and used the stones for building materials.
Most of Aachen's town fortifications also befell this same fate, but there are five towers and two gates from the old town wall remaining. This is the larger of the two, Ponttor, which was built in the early 1600’s. Traffic no longer runs through the tower, but next to it, but people can still walk through the tower and under the current street level.
I was out this way in town buying some train tickets, next weekend my wife and I are going to check another country off our list, as we’re planning to visit Luxembourg. It should be very nice, and will bring our total number of countries visited in the last 12 months to 12! Not bad at all.
Please note I am not a historian but generally I think those dates about town fortifications are correct, if you want to correct me, feel free.
cool shot! works really well in black and white!
also, i actually just got back from a weekend in Luxembourg... really cool there! i'm sure you'll really enjoy it :)
August 18th, 2010
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also, i actually just got back from a weekend in Luxembourg... really cool there! i'm sure you'll really enjoy it :)