The name "bottle" does not come from its bulky shape with a taper to the top, vaguely related to a bottle-like drinking vessel. Rather, a pilgrim's bottle is sculpted in the upper part of the tower and set into the wall as a sandstone slab. The tower embodies the type of Romanesque residential tower. Its wall thickness of up to four meters impressively underlines the defensive character of the building, which was constructed around 1080. Access was once only possible using a ladder. This external access is still visible today. The Flaschenturm houses a 120 square meter 360 degree panorama of sights in central Germany. The 20-metre-wide and six-metre-high panorama spans an arc over places and landscapes and an area of 560 kilometers in length.