Heiliggeistkirche (Church of the Holy Spirit), Heidelberg

With public spectacles of punishment a thing of the past, crowds now gather over beer and coffee at the focal Market Square, or Marktplatz. At its core stands the 15th-century Gothic Church of the Holy Spirit, featuring a Baroque mansard roof that ingeniously accommodates traders' stalls between its buttresses, continuing a medieval tradition once widespread across the land.

An intriguing aspect of this grand church is its longstanding shared use by Catholics and Protestants, a tradition dating back centuries, even after its official conversion to Protestantism in 1936. The gargoyles on its southern side (where Hauptstrasse meets Marktplatz) are strikingly grotesque, yet the tower rewards climbers with fantastic city views, while the glorious organ steals the show during concerts.

History hasn't been very kind to this venerable edifice. Plundered by the Catholic League during the tumultuous Thirty Years' War, it lost its greatest treasure—the Bibliotheca Palatina, then Germany's largest library—loaded onto 500 carts and taken to the Vatican, with only a fraction ever returning. Then, in the late 17th century, marauding French troops ravaged the church once more, leaving many tombs in ruins; only the 15th-century tomb of Elector Ruprecht III and his wife, Elisabeth von Hohenzollern, stands intact. Amidst the chaos, the lone survivor was the House of the Knight across the square.