Donauquelle: the great Danube river starts here.

The start of the great Danube, which flows over 2,700 kilometers, through 10 countries, before to flows into the Black Sea, can be found in the small german town of Donaueschingen.

Donaueschingen is a pretty old town, located about an hour and a half drive from Stuttgart and its most famous tourist attraction is the Donauquelle, the source of the Danube, “Donau” in German, marked by a charming small blue pool of water. The basin is framed by wrought iron fence and a group of allegorical statues sculpted by Adolf Heer in 1895. The figures represents the Baar, a Germany’s great central plateau, like a mother showing her daughter, the Danube, the way out into the world.

The Danube river officially begins at the meeting point of two streams, the Breg and the Brigach. It was not easy locating the real source of the river: the Breg, the larger of the two streams that feeds the river, originates in the town of Furtwangen, which claims that this makes it the true site of the Danube’s origin. But Donaueschingen has been really regarded as the source of the Danube since the times of the Roman Empire, and in 1981 the German government recognized the pool in Donaueschingen the sole official designation of Donauquelle.