DM and MM's Germany 2007 Diary

Day 7 - Bamberg

Friday, 27 April, 2007

09:02

We've just had breakfast in the buffet downstairs. It looked a sparser selection at first, but had many more options for assembling your own bowl of muesli and fruit, with individual bowls of nuts, dried fruits, several types of seeds, cherries, strawberries, plum pieces, and so on, including one bowl of something that looked like dried cherries, but turned out to be sour olives (probably not for the muesli). But it was only after having a bowl of muesli that we realised the buffet extended into the next room, where there was a vast selection of cheeses (ten different types!), cold meats, prawns, more fresh fruit, and yoghurts. We spent a leisurely time eating our fill, secure in the knowledge that we can take it easy, sightseeing-wise, today.

For yesterday, after checking into our hotel, we launched ourselves on a no-holds-barred walking tour of the lovely town of Bamberg. The first thing we did was walk north from Schranne, then east across the Obere Brucke, the bridge passing through the Alte Rathaus on the River Regnitz. The Rathaus presents a stunningly fresco-painted exterior on both sides, sitting picturesquely astride the bridge in the middle of the river. Passing through the tunnel through the Rathaus, we continued over the remainder of the bridge to the Obstmarkt area, then turned left to walk up Am Kranen along the river, admiring the view across the water and up the hill to the steeples of the Dom and St Michael's Monastery above.

We continued north up Kapuzinerstraße, then turned left into Fischerei, which was quiet lane flanked by old half-timbered residences. We crossed the river again to the west side on Markusbrücke and walked south along the bank opposite the picturesque Klein Venedig, a small version of Venice, with colourful houses right against the water, barber poles, and moored boats.

14:39

We are just having a break in our room as a brief respite from the heat of the day and the constant sightseeing. Back to yesterday:

After seeing Little Venice, we turned up Kasenstraße to Obere Sandstraße, which showed why it had that name, as it was in the middle of being dug up and below the cobblestones was a thick layer of hard-packed yellow sand (actually, I have no idea if "Sand" means the same thing in German at all, but it makes a nice story).

We wanted to get to the Rosengarten, a garden partway up the hill that apparently affords a great view over Bamberg. We climbed the stairs at the end of a narrow lane of Obere Sandstraße to emerge in Ottoplatz right next to the Rosengarten, but several metres below it at the bottom of a sheer wall with no apparent way up. Looking south at the wall before us, sloping streets led up to the right and left. We chose the right, heading west up a pedestrian way: Aufseßstraße. While walking up, a group of boys about 12 years old asked us where the Rosengarten was (in German). I explained we spoke English and didn't really know, but we were trying to get there ourselves. They seemed satisfied enough and raced ahead of us. I didn't realise until a bit later when I looked at our map that we'd actually walked quite some way away from it.

We turned south on Michaelsbergerstraße towards Jakobsplatz and the large church of St Jakob, which we popped inside for a look at. From there, we continued up Obere Karolinenstraße to Storchsgasse, which we took north to the monastery of St Michael. Storchsgasse was a tiny, narrow laneway between beautifully painted picture-postcard houses that were clearly several hundred years old. Kloster St Michael was another beast altogether. An imposing edifice of stone, accessed by a cobbled coach gatehouse archway which led into an impressive sloped courtyard containing a fountain with various statues on it, three sides of cloisters (now run as an aged care facility), and the astoundingly towering church of St Michael looming enormously over the courtyard from the very highest spot on the hill.

We explored inside the church, noting the detailed paintings of hundreds of plants and herbs on the ceiling. Apparently almost 600 of them, and all used by the monks who lived here for various medicinal purposes (there were also long plots of many of them still growing just outside in the courtyard). The massive church rewarded exploration with the discovery of the tomb of St Otto ensconced behind the altar - apparently Otto is big here in Bamberg because we later noticed small statues, reliefs, and shrines to him all over town.

Out of the blissful cool of the church and back into the hot sun, we walked around it to the north and east to the monastery gardens, commanding a stunning view from the hilltop out over the river and red tile rooves of Bamberg below. I asked a couple of women there to take a photo of us and we spoke a few words back and forth in halting German, until the woman switched to a word or two in English. Then when they spoke to each other I noticed it was in French! So then we both ditched our German and spoke English and both parties were much relieved.

They took the steps straight down the hill back to town, but we retraced our path through the courtyard and back out to Michaelsbergstraße, which we walked down to the intersection with Aufseßstraße again and then back down to Obere Karolinenstraße, whch we took east as far as Domstraße, where we turned into its narrow, house-lined way. We walked under an archway, through a building, and emerged in the amazing Old Court, a square surrounded by what looked to be the most ancient buildings we'd seen so far. They must have been quite literally medieval. A turn between two of the buildings led us smack into the Dom, which we walked along the north side of to the entrance at the eastern end.

The inside was, if anything, even more impressively enormous than the outside, consisting of a couple of long aisles down the sides, which were mostly separated from the main central aisle, only having access from about halfway along. There was a chapel under the new altar, viewable through barred windows at floor level along the outer aisle. The ceiling soared overhead and numerous statues of angels and saints decorated various places. Quite amazing.

Back outside, we took a path south to Vorderer Bach, leading to Pfahlplatz. There was a chocolate shop there, just packing up for the day at 17:30. Michelle wandered in to browse and the lady packing up tables outside said it was okay. We proceeded to attempt to question her to find out if she had any plain chocolate amidst the vast selection of truffles and pralines, since Michelle just wanted pure unadulterated chocolate. After unsuccessfully trying to ask for chocolate without ("ohne") praline, truffle, etc. and having the woman indicate a selection with praline, truffle, etc., I looked up the word for "plain" in my phrasebook ("ebene"), and asked if she had any ebene schokolade. She took a second to get my pronunciation and then looked rather puzzled. I realised then that saying "plain chocolate" may not be the correct German idiom and I may have been implying something along the lines of "boring chocolate". Having tested the poor woman's patience long enough, Michelle settled for picking a couple of walnut pralines, while I picked a couple of orange marzipan chocolates for myself. We ate them slowly, sitting on a seat in the platz, watching the lady finish packing away the tables of chocolates outside her shop.

We continued on down Judenstraße to Concordiastraße, then hung a left down a tiny alley and across a bridge back to the island in the middle of the river, and turned north again up Geyerswörthstraß to return to our hotel via the Geyerswörth garden and another footbridge. We rested briefly, then emerged again to explore the main shopping drag of Grüner Markt over in the Inselstadt area north-east of our hotel, across the river. Most shops were closed or closing at the time, and we found precious little in the way of places to get dinner, so we returned and stopped in at Restaurant Eulenspiegel in Obstmarkt to have dinner. Michelle ordered from the Spargelkarte: asparagus with broccoli, cauliflower, and potato, but asked for no hollandaise sauce. I ordered a regional speciality of Franconia (this area of northern Bavaria): a Frankisches Jägerbraten mit Kemmelklos - roast pork in a mushroom sauce with a Frankish dumpling, which was a large ball apparently made of flour batter and including unidentifiable striations of brown and green through it. Delicious!

We returned to our hotel briefly, then re-emerged again to take some early twilight photos, but didn't venture or stay out long, as we planned to get an early night and do night photography tomorrow.

Which brings us back to today. We got up before 07:00 and Michelle had a shower while I did stretching exercises, then we went down to the breakfast buffet described earlier.

After breakfast, we emerged with the plan to browse shops and let Michelle do some souvenir shopping. But with most shops opening at 10:00, we had some time to kill, so we launched into a round of sightseeing, tackling areas to the south that we hadn't covered yesterday. We began by walking south-west to the parish church "Zu unsere Lieben Frau" on Unterer Kaulberg, which was quite large and again ornately decorated inside. I fear difficulty in separating all the church interior shots I've taken.

We continued up the hill to the Karmelite monastery and its church for a quick look inside, then retraced our steps back to the Schulplatz and took the narrow winding street of Hölle down past the back of the parish church and over to Eisgrube, which took us around the church of St Stephan. Inside it was much more modern looking than the outside or any other church we've seen so far. The walls and ceiling were stark white, which we guessed was a prelude to a new paint job. From there, we walked back downhill to Schimmelsgasse, across to Sonnenplatz, and finally back to Schranne to refresh ourselves in our room before our assault on the shops.

22:15

We're retiring for the night after another busy day, though not quite so busy as previous days. We set out in the morning about 10:30 again to hit the shopping district. I wandered around and took photos while Michelle browsed in various shops. I found several copies of Rick Archbold's Hindenburg: An Illustrated History book that I'd been seeking for years, for only €12.95 too, but in German. It was tempting, but the thought of lugging a hefty and large hardback book all over Germany swayed me against it.

I explored the inside of St Martin's church on Grüner Markt and took several shots of the fruit and veg stalls in Maximiliansplatz, each with lots of Spargel. We got a sparkling apple juice each at a stall there to help stave off the heat of another hot day, then saw to some lunch. I got a slice of ham and salami pizza from a place that was doing great guns handing out slices as fast as they could make them to eager waiting queues of people, so I figured it must be good, and it was. In the vicinity of the place on Franz-Ludwig-Straße, every second person who walked past was noshing on a slice from the same pizza place. Michelle got a couple of bread rolls from a nearby bakery to go with the apple she had earlier from the fruit stalls (and I'd had a pear too). One was a "power bread" stick containing fruit and nuts, the other a pumpkin seed roll. Then not long after Michelle got a pretzel-like straight thing for further sustenance through the afternoon. I got a chocolate-covered shortbread triangle which had an almond filling. Sated on food and shopping, we retired to our room for a two-hour rest break out of the heat of the early afternoon.

We emerged at 16:30, keen to visit the Rosengarten in the afternoon light, before it closed at 18:00. Michelle wanted to go via Grünhundbrunnen ("Green dog street"!) to buy a scarf she'd seen at a shop there yesterday. Having bought that, we proceeded up Residenzstraße to Domplatz and the Residenz. We entered the Residenz courtyard and emerged through to the Rosengarten, bare of flowers as the roses had only recently begun putting out new spring growth, but still picturesque with some tulips up in flanking beds, statues scattered amongst all, and a glorious view out to the north-east across the Regnitz River and over the red-tiled rooftops of the historical town. We lingered to bask in the view and left only a minute or so before 18:00 when it closed.

We went in search of Carmelita's, a Mexican restaurant we'd found in our Lonely Planet, and had an early dinner, entering to a deserted restaurant and two staff members who looked as though we had come in to ask for directions rather than eat at such an ungodly early hour. Once they realised we actually wanted food, all was well though.

But now my photos have downloaded successfully to iPod and I'm going to turn in, completely exhausted.

[ < < previous | index | next >> ]