The birthplace of German Art Nouveau
The royal connections of the Rhine-Main region reach as far as Darmstadt to the south of Frankfurt. Ernest Louis, the Grand Duke of Hesse and the grandson of Queen Victoria of England, married his second wife Princess Eleonore here in 1905. The city of Darmstadt gave the couple a 48-metre tall wedding tower to mark the occasion. This tower forms the core of the Mathildenhöhe, the birthplace of German Art Nouveau.
Darmstadt is now home to 150,000 people and many international companies and institutions, such as the European Space Agency and the Merck Group, a multinational manufacturer of chemicals and pharmaceuticals. A publicly funded international school was opened near Seeheim-Jugenheim in 2001.
Darmstadt’s inhabitants enjoy a wide range of leisure activities and a very high quality of life. The Odenwald mountain range is a great place for a trip, and the Bergstraße mountain road (one of the smallest wine-growing regions in Germany) has lots of wine festivals, culinary delights and hiking trails.