The medieval market square is one of the main attractions for every holidaymaker on the Moselle valley. The centuries-old half-timbered houses, the Renaissance town hall (1608), the graceful St. Michael's Fountain (1606) and the picturesque "Spitzhäuschen" (pointed house builded in 1416) are a reflection of lively medieval poetry.
Town Hall on the Market Square
In 1291, at the instigation of the Archbishop of Trier, Boemund I. Bernkastel received municipal rights. Probably the first town hall was built shortly afterwards. Today's town hall façade is a magnificent work of the German late Renaissance by the Trier sculptor R. H. Hoffmann (built in 1608).
Hoffmann's patron and patron was the then Archbishop Lothar von Metternich (1599 - 1623), whose coat of arms adorns the town hall bay besides the Kurtric cross and the Bernkasteler coat of arms. The oriel rests on a basalt column and carries a stone figure of the Salvator mundi, the Redeemer of the World with the globe, on the baroque curved roof.
On the left corner pillar of the façade on the ground floor is still visible the pillory on which the perpetrators were bound to the public pillory with chains and handcuffs.