The world's first television tower would be interesting enough, but the 217-meter-tall Fernsehturm Stuttgart has the added attraction of an observation deck and restaurant, with sweeping views that reach across the city and Neckar Valley into the Swabian countryside, as far as the Black Forest and the Odenwald.
The tower opened in 1956 and soon became a prototype for such structures as far away as Johannesburg and Wuhan, China.
Stuttgart engineer Fritz Leonhardt proposed the innovative concrete construction, with the suggestion that it could become a tourist attraction, as well as a transmission tower, and it quickly became one of the city's most visited spots
