Gaily colored half-timber buildings, a dominant hilltop castle and a picturesque location the road to Darmstadt, Heppenheim an der Bergstrasse is quintessential German and just off the beaten path for international travelers.

Many of these beautiful restored or preserved city centers dot Germany and France’s Alsace region, with a little research any Germany trip to a travel center like Frankfurt can include a day out to see a relic of the Holy Roman Empire in tourist-friendly form. What makes them standout individually are their unique histories and the stories to be learned from them while enjoying the ambience and local beer. (If you’re not enjoying the regional beers you’re doing Germany wrong. Go home, you’re sober.)

What made this one worth my time was a personal connection. My family came from the region in 1752, trading the Holy Roman Empire for Maryland.

I don’t know much about the early Krigbaum history other than our name is a corruption of a proper Hessian one and there are a half-dozen ways to spell it, each more correct than the last. My ancestors from here were farmers in the hills of Klein Gumpen, which is nearby and fell under the jurisdiction of Heppenheim’s Starkenburg Castle.

I wanted to know about the land they came from and learn of its history through its preserved buildings and local museums. History’s broad strokes are easy to find in books or online, but trying to feel out the details sometimes can only be learned by going to the place itself.

Today we see a peaceful, colorful town that would look at home in any number of Disney classics, but it’s been warred over and put to the torch many times over. It makes sense that my ancestors would leave this area for Fredericksburg, Maryland. It was almost as Deutsch-speaking but 100% less likely to be razed in yet another continental war or battle between archbishops.

The Bergstrasse is a trade route dating from the Roman Empire and Heppenheim was planted on it sometime before its earliest documented mention in 755. This was a reoccurring theme throughout my visit to Hesse- few places had solid foundation dates, just the earliest recorded mention, as if it had always been there.

The short version of its history is that Heppenheim was gifted to Lorsch Abbey by Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne in 1073. The archbishop occasionally had to face internal wars against other archbishops within the empire to maintain control. It lost one of these wars in 1254 and became vassal to the archbishop of Mainz, with Lorsch’s holdings renamed “Amt Starkenburg.”

Starkenburg is the castle overlooking Heppenheim, which was built in 1065 to protect abbey holdings in the area. The castle was tested many times over during the Thirty Years war as Der Bergstrasse was also great for moving troops. Heppenheim was captured by the Spanish, Swedish and French before the Archbishop of Mainz took it back and faced another French siege. Unable to take the castle, they settled for burning down Heppenheim in 1693. Five buildings were left standing.

Today’s Altstadt Heppenheim is a world to itself inside an otherwise modern town. Carefully hemmed in with blocks of original houses like walls, it has that strange feeling of a preserved yet living place. Half-timber houses older than the United States have TV antennas and insulated windows. A few cars are on the cobblestone streets and a little graffiti reminds you to just say no to Nazism, but the big picture is still undeniably traditional and the ambience pleasantly old.

Like any of these old towns, the most enjoyable part for me as a photographer was just walking the streets and taking pictures, both of details and of scenes.

I grabbed a local map with points of interest and tried to shoot them all, such as the oldest building, #14 Kleine Bach (1430), and to check out the town museum. There are not a lot of museums or homes to come inside, but the exteriors are worth seeing.

One place not on the map was Zum Kellermeister, a wine cellar just off the main plaza. It’s a Roman wine cellar built the same year William the Bastard became William the Conqueror (1066) and today a local family winery runs it. They don’t sell bottles of the wine; you can only drink glasses there, enjoying the cellar, the company and the Riesling. I met Alex, the family’s fourth-generation wine maker and talked a little, he was a pleasant host.

The ruins of Starkenburg Castle can be accessed by car or foot; I walked a winding dirt path around the hill to get to the top, which is preferable both for exercise and the view of the old town surrounded by the new, seemingly clustered around its cathedral.

Starkenburg itself is small and medieval castles like it are a common sight in this part of Germany. Once made of many feuding states, it seemed like if you had a hill then you put a castle on that hill. A rather unconvincing castle tower and hostel was added to the site in the 1920s, but otherwise the old ruins are original and can be freely roamed.

I stayed at the Goldener Engel, the 1782 inn beside the Rathaus, city hall, in the little market plaza, which was reasonably priced despite the prime location. I spent 144 Euros for a two-night stay. It was cozy, but had a simple buffet breakfast and suited my needs.

I stayed for two full days and left early on a Monday morning. Heppenheim itself can be enjoyed in a day, though given the finicky weather two days is safer in case one is a bust.

For photography I recommend getting up early before the stores open and people come out to get ‘clean’ pictures with minimal interference then to go through again later in the day if you want people shots. Personally I like to get historic places without people because the building, the place, is permanent, the people are temporary.

I visited during spring, which in Germany is a wonderful period. It can be sweltering hot, just chilly enough for a jacket and/or raining the whole time. Brace yourself for the bipolar weather when you go.

Heppenheim can be taken as part of a trip to Frankfurt and the area between the two is full of other preserved or beautiful places. During my trip I also visited Idstein, Edstein and the famously named, Castle Frankenstein (Another story in itself). The Krigbaum homeland, Klein Gumpen, was on my itinerary, but unless your ancestors are from there, or you like wheat and dairy cows (Hi Wisconsin!) it’s probably not worth the bus trip.

One place worth seeing while in Heppenheim is Lorsch. It’s the next town over so I took the train. It has a small preserved city square too, but its real jewels are the ruins of Lorsch Abbey, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. It has a good museum and the Konigshalle (King’s Hall) built in 875 is still fully intact.

Recommended soundtrack: Spice and Wolf and Spice and Wolf II.