Are you interested in learning a bit more about Kaiserslautern and its history? Then you have to go on the Underground Kaiserslautern tour put on by the city! It’s a great way to learn more about history, the Lauter River, how the city used to be, and just a great history tour. If you’re into history, here’s what you can expect!
Getting Started
The Underground Kaiserslautern Tour starts with an email or phone call. The Kaiserslautern Tourist office has the contact and schedule information here. The price is €7 per adult and €6 for students and children. I reserved 2 spots via email and they replied in just one day. It was easy!
We showed up to the tourist office about 15 minutes early and parked in the theater parking garage. I went in and paid at the tourist desk in the corner of the building. We paid by card and got 2 tickets. It couldn’t be easier. We waited outside until the tour started. We then walked over to the front door of the palace and the tour started!
The Underground History
The tour history encompasses 2 main castles. There’s the original palace during the reign of Frederick Barbarossa from about 800 years ago. The second was the Casimir Castle built by Prince Johann Casimir about 400 years ago. The current Count Palatine Hall is made from the remaining stones of the Casimir Castle. There are even a few stone coffins outside the buildings and rectangles of location of other coffins all around the plaza in front of the current building.
You enter a great room and the tour guide explains the history of the area, a few notable people, talks about Kaiserslautern’s sister city’s in the United States, and then finally some tapestries depicting scenes from medieval Ktown playing a ball game.
The Underground Kaiserslautern Tour
Then, the underground portion started! We went through a hall and then down the stairs into the basement of the building. There we see some an original excavated skeleton, original fortress wall, old maps with current landmarks to compare and contrast locations, and recreations of what the area may have looked like. It’s amazing to see how there was a small river and ponds all around downtown that are now roads and plazas. The Lauter river now just runs through the sewers and returns above ground again north of town.
You move through several rooms all with a mix of history between the Barbarossa and Casimir times. The tour guide does well at adding appropriate context and history about each room and what may have been happening at the time. Kaiserslautern is the crossroad between France and the Rhein river. The area has had the unfortunate luck of being along the path of many armies and has been razed a few times in its history.
The Escape Passage
The last portion of the tour is going through the escape tunnel which doubled as a beer storage area, a bomb shelter, and obviously an escape or exit from the castle and apparently a beer garden was at the mouth of the exit for several years in the plaza! The part of the tour was a lot of fun going through the narrow passage.
I really do recommend anyone to do this tour. It’s a really fun 1.5 hours to spend on a Saturday. It’s family fun, history fun, it’s just a great walking tour to discover a little more about this adoptive town for the KMC.
The tour didn’t appear wheelchair accessible. The tour office will have more information on how you could the tour if you don’t walk well so just call. Just be ready to walk up and down stairs, narrow passages, and stepping over rocks and rocky paths.