Every year, in cities and towns all around the world, an International Tourist Guide Day takes place. This year, from 21 to 23 February, 2003, it was devoted to the theme of water. The Association of Nuremberg Tour Guides, Verein der Gästeführer Nürnbergs, offered free walking tours on the history of water in Nuremberg, in 18 languages, including, of course, English.

Nuremberg has much to offer to anyone interested in the "role" of water in the past and in the present. One immediately thinks, for example, of the River Pegnitz with its many functions: a source of water, a transport route, a solution for waste disposal problems, a backdrop for entertainment, a means of generating power, a setting for leisure activities etc. Yes indeed, with more than 950 years of changing attitudes toward water and health there is much to learn.

And where did fresh water come from for cooking and drinking? Nuremberg’s many wells and springs offer plentiful material for reflection and discussion. One can take a walk through the subterranean tunnels that lead through the red standstone on which Nuremberg castle is perched and which supplied parts of the city with drinkable water; one can stand in front of the Schöner Brunnen and study how water was piped over a great distance to the centre of the city and, having done that, one can admire the forty sculptures that adorn the fountain and which tell us so much about the medieval world view; one can peer in amazement into the depths of the "Tiefer Brunnen" that supplied the castle with water. And those interested in Nuremberg’s feats in the field of technology can return to the Pegnitz and try to imagine the noise and activity in and around the many mills – hammer mills, grain mills, cloth mills, paper mills – that once lined the river.