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We got to our docking spot in Hassfurt early enough to spend an hour and a half or so in town before the tour of Bamberg (which we would reach by bus). We walked into town. It’s basically one main street and a few side streets. Our first stop was the grocery store since as I mentioned it’s always fun to see what they have. We ran into a few other folks from the boat in the store and it was kind of like going to the local market and running into neighbors.
We headed down the main street, pretty much walking from one old guard/watch tower at one end to the one at the other. We found a few interesting shops and bought some wind up dinosaurs. The Rathaus in town (the new one) had a rabbit/hare logo. We didn’t figure out what the significance was but it did seem to be the city logo. The old Rathaus was the most interesting building in town. Tall with orange stripes and either a bunch of chimneys or some kind of ornamentation.
We sampled a pretzel croissant which was pretty good. Then visited a fabric store. Or at least it claimed it was. It had about 6 bolts of cloth (one of which was pink Hello Kitty). It didn’t have much else, other than fairly surly sales people so we moved on.
Back behind the main street we found a nice city flower garden. It had 3 or 4 signs with various textures for kids to feel and compare which was a pretty cool idea.
We came up to a large Catholic church in town and could see from the outside that the stained glass was interesting. An abstract pattern. Using a method I learned from my travels with Les, I applied the “lets see if the door is unlocked” algorithm, followed by the “let’s see if anyone kicks us out” algorithm. The first returned ‘true’ and the second returned ‘false’ so we had a look around. It was very pretty inside and the abstract stained glass was quite amazing and I got a nice picture of it. Plus a bonus picture of a nice circular stairway.
On the way back to the ship we passed the other Catholic church (or at least a 2nd one). It was also pretty good sized. Which made we wonder how a town this small could support two big churches like this. But who knows. There may have been more population nearby. It was a bigger church than the other and in fact had a reasonably good sized pipe organ that would have embarrassed the guy from Texas in Rothenburg if he’d seen it.
As we were leaving the church, a (I think) homeless man was going in, and he very graciously held the door for Marion and allowed her to get a picture of the door. We headed back to the boat and got there just as it started to rain. Good timing.
We had lunch then boarded the coaches for the ride into Bamberg. The homeless man from the church was there on a bench and recognized us as we walked by. We don’t *think* he’s stalking us…
Not quite the scenery of the Romantic Road on the way to Bamberg. Much more of a suburban feel – big box stores, car dealerships and the like. Although it was a nice change from medieval and baroque.
Our guide was an art student who has lived in Bamberg for a few years. She was our favorite guide so far. Informative and not repetitive. Bamberg was created sometime around 1000 and got put on the map because King Henry and his wife decided to sponsor a bishop which somehow that I can’t remember makes it an official city. The city became a center of Franconia and became the seat of the holy roman emperor. And became dubbed the Rome of Franconia. In fact it’s situated on seven hills like Rome (and for good measure they put a church on each hill).
Our first stop was the Green Market where 5 days a week the local farmers have booths of fresh fruits and vegetables. The market square also has a very large and pretty church.
We headed up the hill towards the main cathedral but the first stop was at the city hall, which is situated on an island in the middle of the river. The reason is my favorite story of the trip so far. The area was controlled by the bishop, in much the same way as the bishop of Wurzburg controlled that area. The people wanted to build a city hall and in effect organize themselves into a power block. The wily bishop said sure (see, I’m a gracious guy), but, not on any of my land. The bishop, being a clever guy, knew that all the land in the area was owned by him. Therefore there would be no place for them to build. But the people found a loophole. He didn’t own the river. So they built their town hall *in* the river. Score one for the peasants!
My favorite part of this story is one, who doesn’t love when the little people get over on the ‘man’ like this, but two, it must have taken them a long time to build this building. So they find this loophole. There’s the big a-ha moment. Bishop looks a fool. All is right with the world. But now they spend the next however many years continuing to rub his nose in it while they build it. And it sits there mocking him from then on. I have to think there were some repercussions.
The building itself is very elaborately painted and quite pretty. In what is apparently a common thing, the artist painted himself into the painting along with his name and the year it was painted. But he added an additional twist. There’s a 3-dimensional leg coming out of the wall on the body of the artist, to draw attention to that particular part of the wall. Artists…
The old town is very pretty, much like the other towns we’ve visited. More of a Rothenburg level than the earlier ones (i.e. more interesting). We passed a bakery where the guide told us that there is a special croissant they make in Bamburg that is 65% butter. That sounded promising and we tried it later. But sadly, it wasn’t any better than the ‘standard’ one we got in Hassfurt. We also walked past the brewery where they make the ‘smoky beer’ that Bamburg is famous for. Depending on who you ask it takes like an ashtray or bacon. Our new friend John liked it a lot. His wife, not so much. We didn’t try it. But we did buy Daniel a bottle to try.
We passed the spot where the first synagogue in town had been built. The guide gave us a brief history of the Jews in Bamburg. And for the first time, really addressed the oppression but very sensitively. The Jews couldn’t be tradesmen because the guilds required swearing on a bible with a Christian prayer. So they were left with making a living in other ways. Money lending was an obvious choice since the church didn’t allow it.
I wasn’t aware of the guild issue, only the church ban on money lending. So it made a lot more sense. As she pointed out, there were 3 issues that caused the oppression. The guilds, the scapegoating that resulted from being money lenders and the general enviousness of a successful people. The Jews were run out of town twice over the years but came back. Losing and building a new synagogue each time. Ultimately most were killed in WWII by the Nazis but some still came back. The town was a refugee center after the war which drew Jews and other refugees to the area. So they are now on their third synagogue, a very modern looking affair (she showed us a picture).
As we left that area she showed us a gold plate in the road. This is a project by an artist named Gunther Demling. He places gold markers in towns all over Europe with the names of people killed by the Nazis (not just Jews), including when they were born and how they were killed if known. She said there were thousands of them now. What a great idea. Very moving and powerful if you ask me.
On up the hill we went to the cathedral. This cathedral is large with 4 towers and built in Gothic style. Next door is a smaller church built in Romanesque style and across the way is the “New Residence” (new, because it was built ‘only’ in 1697 vs the 1200’s or whatever) which was in Baroque style. So quite a mix. Unfortunately, there was an event of some kind and we couldn’t go in the cathedral. So we spent a fair amount of time standing outside it while the guide described various aspects and showed pictures.
But a funny moment while we stood around waiting for everyone to use the bathroom. There was a guy with his dog. A woman was doing the usual “oh, you’re such a pretty dog, you’re a good dog aren’t you” spiel. Her daughter, with that tired intonation of teenagers everywhere says “Mom. The dog speaks German. He can’t understand you”.
The last stop was the rose garden behind the New Residence. And it’s very beautiful. With a nice view of the city from the back. The sun had come out (finally) and it was nice to get some pictures in the light.
We were now on our own to wander town. We headed back to a shop with miniatures we saw near the smoky brewery. It turned out to be a major tourist shop with pretty much all the German trinkets – schnapps, miniatures, beer steins, cuckoo clocks, lederhosen, you name it. If you think Germany and souvenir, they had it. We were apparently not the only ones with the idea to go there since we saw probably half the tour there by the time we finished.
Marion found a paper store with some nice stuff. There were stores selling dirndls which were interesting. And some really amazing antique stores which unfortunately were closed. But from what we could see through the window they looked like museums.
We were also attempting to sample the bakeries but our luck was not good. We tried the butter croissants as I mentioned. But the real bad choice was a bread item that looked like a bun but had a filling in it that was just nasty. We think it was poppy seeds and something. But it tasted horrible. Like dirt only worse. Or lighter fluid.
The last area we wandered is called Little Venice. Which is pushing it but it’s a row of very quaint cottages once owned by fishermen along the Tauber River through town. They are very pretty and have a lovely view and are now one of the most expensive areas of town. When they were built, that wasn’t the case. They were immediately down river from the slaughterhouse, which used to empty in to the river. So you had the smell and the river filled with guts, making this the low rent district, hence the fishermen’s houses. But if you bought in 1300 and held onto it until now, it would have appreciated nicely.
We found our way back to the Green Market where we were meeting the buses. We had a bit of time so walked a bit through the produce market. We found these really cool tiny blueberries and I was going to take a picture of them when the guy running the stall stopped me and said no pictures (in German). Because…. why exactly? How am I impacting your business by taking a picture (in this public square)? But I didn’t take it. Asshole. Didn’t buy his damn blueberries either, which I had been considering. We have found the Germans to not be the friendliest of peoples so far. Maybe when you get to know them better.
We met up with the boat at an industrial dock, which was kind of interesting. We beat the boat there by about 5 minutes so we were sitting on a road next to a scrap metal yard and recycling yard with a big rolling crane. Again, kind of nice to see something other than medieval houses and castles.
6/30/14
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