Nowhere is this more evident than at the Fuggerei, the oldest “social settlement” in the world. Admittedly, you rarely find low-income housing on a tourist’s “must-see” list. In Augsburg, it’s a prime attraction. Of course, this settlement dates from the 16th century, a gift of the wealthy Fugger brothers.

 

 

The Fuggerei, with its 148 apartments, offered citizens life-long housing for the equivalent of a dollar a year – as long as they were poor, married, Catholic and born in Augsburg. To stay, they had to commit to daily prayers. Today, if you meet those guidelines – and are retired – you are eligible to live there. The rent hasn’t changed. And you still have to pray.

 

 

Surrounded by walls and gates, the Fuggerei is a medieval town within a town, its tiny apartments painstakingly restored after World War II. The original doorbells are still there: not buttons but chains with metal hand-grips – each one different in shape so that residents could find the right home in the darkness. Flowers pour from window boxes down pastel walls. The red, ceramic roofs are stained green by moss.

 

Sightseers mingle with residents on the cobblestone main streets, around fountains and statues and in the surrounding cobweb of alleys and passageways. Courtyards lure the curious and fatigued, where only rustling leaves break the silence. No cars are allowed. Only the clothing suggests it’s the present.
Augsburg was nearly 1600 years old by the time the Fuggerei was built.

 

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