Document Neupfarrplatz

In 1995, the city of Regensburg dug up the Neupfarrplatz, a large square in the Altstadt, to install electrical outlets for the annual Christmas Market. Archaelogists expected to find relics of the city's 2,000-year history, but they discovered far more than that. Over the next three years, the city's rewiring project became a major archaeological dig that yielded well-preserved ruins of:

• Castra Regina, the Roman military camp founded by emperor Marcus Aurelius in 179 AD.

• Regensburg's medieval Jewish Quarter, which had been torn down and replaced by a church after the town council expelled the Jews in 1519.

Today, the excavations have been preserved as a city-owned museum called Document Neupfarrplatz. When you visit the museum, you'll walk among ancient foundations that are preserved where they were discovered after being buried for 500 to 1,800 years.