Contact Admin. Bingen was the starting point for the Via Ausonia , a Roman military road that linked the town with Trier. Bingen is well known for, among other things, the story about the Mouse Tower , in which allegedly the Bishop of Mainz Hatto was eaten by mice.
It was also the birthplace of Saint Hildegard von Bingen , an important polymath , abbess , mystic and musician , one of the most influential medieval composers and one of the earliest Western composers whose music is widely preserved and performed. Bingen am Rhein was also the birthplace of the celebrated poet Stefan George , along with many other influential figures.
Bingen is situated just southeast of the Rhine knee by the Bingen Forest Binger Wald — actually a low mountain range , which rises west of the town.
Rising to the north on the other side of the Rhine is the Rheingau range, the Taunus 's southwesternmost outcrop. In Bingen the river Nahe empties into the Rhine Gorge.
The Rochusberg mountain is nearly completely surrounded by the town site. Even before the Romans came, people lived here, because the location favoured transport confluence of the Nahe and Rhine, and the Rhine's entry into the gorge , a Celtic Gaulish settlement by the name of Binge — meaning "rift". They changed the location's name to Bingium. There the Romans erected a wooden bridge across the Nahe and constructed a bridgehead castrum. A Roman Mithraic monument, which included a mutilated sculpture representing the nativity of Mithra from a rock, was discovered in Bingen; one of its inscriptions is dated The presbyter Aetherius of Bingen founded sometime between and a firmly Christian community.
