region for its theatre projects, won the Cultural Prize in 1996 and the Cultural Promotion Prize in 2000. Fasching (Fastnacht) Fasching (Fastnacht, Fassenacht) is celebrated lustily in Rodgau. Said to be the Carnival's stronghold in Rodgau is Jügesheim (dialectal name: Giesem). Here, before the Town hall on 11 November, the opening of the “campaign” takes place, and on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday the opening of the “Town Hall storm”, the symbolic transfer of the town's administration to the fools. On the Thursday before Ash Wednesday the Carnival parade winds its way through Jügesheim's streets. The Carnival representatives, the Carnival Prince and Princess and the Child Prince and Princess, have in more recent times not always come from Jügesheim. Other constituent communities may now enter contestants. Sightseeing An historic town core is something that Rodgau, given the way it came into being, simply cannot offer. A lack of awareness of the worth of old buildings led, especially in the years after the Second World War, to the wholesale destruction of many timber-frame buildings in the old communities. Only in the early 1970s were historical buildings that were still standing systematically catalogued and ranked according to criteria for monumental protection. The five former village churches from the 13th to 19th centuries even today still mark the old village cores. In the 1990s, with the church parishes’, the municipality's and many volunteers’ support, they were renovated and also put back in their original states. The Gothic tower at the Matthias-Kirche (“Saint Matthew’s Church”) in Nieder-Roden is Rodgau's oldest preserved building. Within the churches themselves are found objects of importance to art history from various epochs. Particularly worthy of mention among these is the Late Gothic Marienaltar ("Mary’s Altar") in Nieder-Roden's Catholic Matthias-Kirche, which comes from the time about 1520, and is ascribed to the Riemenschneider school. Single timber-frame houses scattered about the municipal area from the 16th to 19th centuries have been restored and today adorn the old village cores. A few buildings, such as the bakehouse (Backes) in Dudenhofen have been built once again from old plans. The watertower in Jügesheim, opened in 1938 and operated until 1979 is said from its architectural uniqueness and bold static construction to be an industrial monument. It shows clear echoes of the expressionistic style of the 1920s. Three of the four railway station buildings on the former Rodgaubahn opened in 1896 are said to