Bamberg

Bamberg is first mentioned in 902. In 1007 Emperor Henry II made it the seat of its own diocese, and the cathedral that stands on the hill today replaced earlier buildings that burned down; the page of the Bamberg tourist office dates the building to 1002 to 1012. Bamberg lost its independence in 1802 and became part of Bavaria in 1803. It was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.

The old town is easiest to understand as three districts. The Bergstadt is the hill town with the cathedral and the former abbey. The Inselstadt is the island between two arms of the Regnitz, with the pedestrian zone and Klein Venedig. The Gärtnerstadt is the old quarter of market gardeners. The Welterbe-Besuchszentrum at Untere Mühlbrücke 5 explains all three with models, films and a city model; entry is free and it is open daily from 10:00 to 18:00.

Bamberg is known for Rauchbier, the smoked beer. Schlenkerla, in the Dominikanerstraße, is the house most visitors are sent to: the building is first documented in 1405 as the Haus zum blauen Löwen, the family now running it is the sixth generation of its owners, and the Rauchbier is served from oak casks. English-language pages are available on its site. Wikipedia counts 11 breweries in the city, and the tourist office points to brewery taverns and beer cellars as part of how the city socialises.

The Franconian Brewery Museum is on the Michaelsberg site; check its opening hours before a visit. If you do not drink alcohol you lose very little: the same taverns serve food, and the Hain park, the river banks and the old town are the usual places to meet.

The Sandkerwa is the city's big folk festival, organised by the Bürgerverein 4. Distrikt; its 76th edition is listed for 20 to 24 August 2026, and the houses of Klein Venedig are decorated and lit for it. The Bamberger Symphoniker have played in the Joseph-Keilberth-Saal of the Konzerthalle since 1993, and their U30 programme sells single tickets for 15 EUR to anyone under 30.

In autumn the city's Interkulturelle Wochen, titled "Die Welt zuhause in Bamberg" in 2026, list more than 40 events, and the city also holds a diversity day on the Maxplatz. Those are the easiest places to meet people from outside the university.

Bamberg has bus lines only; the tram that ran from 1897 to 1922 is long gone. The semester ticket is your student ID card and covers all bus and rail within the city and the Landkreis, plus regional lines such as Bamberg to Oberhaid and Bamberg to Strullendorf, Hirschaid and Buttenheim.

The town is on the main ICE lines between Munich and Nuremberg and Berlin or Hamburg, per Wikipedia, and Nuremberg is about 63 km away by rail. Nuremberg Airport is the nearest major airport. Munich and Nuremberg are also where you will need to go for consulates, as the sections for each country below explain.

Wikipedia lists Bosch, Wieland Electric, RZB and the river port operator bayernhafen among the city's employers, and the tourist trade is large: the city and district report 1.2 million overnight stays in a 2024 report. The university offers career days for students and a Career Center at the WIAI faculty, with a job board and internship programme.

If you study information systems or economics, the university's own career pages are a better first stop than a general job site. Rules on working hours for international students are in the first-weeks section below.

The university is spread through the old town and the districts around it rather than on one green-field campus. The central address is Kapuzinerstraße 16; the Welcome Center for international master's students is at Kapuzinerstraße 25; the WIAI faculty sits on the ERBA site. The library has six locations, and the ERBA library is open around the clock. A room-search tool shows free seminar rooms when study spaces are full.

Each faculty has its own Fachschaft, run by students, and the university has a Language Center (Sprachenzentrum) with German as a foreign language, culture courses, a language tandem programme and a theatre group for international students. For exchange students the International Office also runs a three-week preparation programme with an intensive German course before lectures start.

The university has no dorms of its own and advises starting the search as early as possible, once you hold your admission letter. The Studierendenwerk is the largest local provider, with six dorms and 1,010 rooms, plus one dorm under renovation; the dorms are at Balthasargäßchen, Coburger Straße, Hornthalstraße, Judenstraße and Pestalozzistraße. Other providers named by the university are the Collegium Oecumenicum, the Joseph-Stiftung, the Baugenossenschaft Bamberg and Stadtbau Bamberg.

Contracts start on 1 October or 1 April and last at least a semester. Applications to the Studierendenwerk go only through its online portal, you upload ID and your enrolment certificate or admission letter, and the page tells you to expect a wait, especially for the winter semester. Applications expire after two and a half years. The allocation aims for a mix of German and international students, and exchange students follow special rules set by their university. Ask the Studierendenwerk or the dorm page for current rents before you commit.

If you are an international master's student and cannot find a room, the Welcome Center can answer questions but cannot promise a room. It also runs an online workshop on living in Bamberg on 3 December 2026.

The Studierendenwerk runs two canteens: the Mensa Austraße at Austraße 37 in the old town and the Mensa Feldkirchenstraße at Feldkirchenstraße 21. Both serve lunch from 11:30, meal service runs until 14:15, and hours are shorter in the lecture-free period. Card prices are lower than cash by 10 percent. Cafeterias at Markusplatz and ERBA serve one hot meal Monday to Thursday.

University sport has its own halls at Feldkirchenstraße and in the Volkspark. For winter semester 2026/27 booking ran from 1 to 16 October, with courses from 12 October 2026 to 5 February 2027, so in a normal year book in the first days of the booking window. Evenings mostly happen in the brewery taverns and beer cellars, at the Tuesday evenings of the student churches, and at events of groups such as AEGEE and the Fachschaften.