[rerx]

I disagree on your 14th century building picture being "nothing special" to Europeans. All the major German cities that I've lived in were bombed to ashes in WW2. Most buildings are post war construction. Picturesque towns like Tübingen with conserved old buildings are an exception in Germany and attract local tourism for this reason. Split is a UNESCO world heritage site and pulls in tourists from all over the world.

[zwieback]

Cities were bombed to smithereens but a lot of smaller towns in the countryside were spared. My Dad grew up in Berlin during WWII but my mom just a bit north in Mecklenburg, big difference between their wartime experience.

[lqet]

While that is true, all towns and villages under 80,000 inhabitants in my area (100 km around the village where I grew up) had historic centers with (at least) dozens of buildings that looked like my example from above, and were spared in WWII. These old half-timbered houses are so extremely common here that as a child I thought that all towns and villages looked like this.