Reutlingen is a fair-sized town near Tübingen, about 10-15 minutes away by train. For all that it’s that close, Chris and I have rarely gone there over the past few years.

But last week Chris and I had to go there for some paperwork things, and as we were killing time between appointments we walked by the Tübingen Tor, the “Tübingen Gate”. It’s the yellow tower and archway on the left in the photo below:

Tübingen Tor and nearby buildings, Reutlingen

In the Middle Ages, the road through the Tübingen Tor would have led from Reutlingen to Tübingen. Back during that period, the medieval towns all had gates like this to allow access through the wall around the city. This Tübingen Tor in Reutlingen is one of the few to survive today, actually. While there are plaques in Tübingen  that mark the site of the 4 (or 5) gates in the Tübingen city wall, all the Tore (“gates”) in Tübingen were deliberately taken down by the city back in the 1800s to allow the roads to widen. Which always strikes me as funny, as the streets in Tübingen’s old city center are anything but wide by modern North American standards.

BTW, the photo is a “panorama sweep”, a camera feature on my smart phone that I usually don’t actually use as it’s designed, but here you see just a plain “sweep” scene across the plaza.