DM and MM's Germany 2007 Diary

Day 8 - Bamberg to Regensburg

Saturday, 28 April, 2007

06:34

We're up early this morning because we need to have breakfast and check out by 08:30 in order to catch our train to Regensburg.

For dinner last night we ordered a serve of jalapeño poppers for a starter, then I got fajitas con carne and Michelle got a veg burrito. As usual, it was all very filling and we struggled to get through it. A couple more tables of people came in while we were eating; thankfully neither of them started smoking. We noticed that we had managed to choose the only table in the entire, quite large, establishment without an ashtray on it, amidst a sea of tables with. We figured our one table was the entire non-smoking section.

After eating we picked up my tripod from the hotel and went for a twilight stroll to find and capture interesting photos in the evening light. We stopped on the other side of the small bridge right next to our hotel, near Geyerswörth Castle, to admire the view of the Alte Rathaus and the cloudy evening sky beyond, but it was too early for sunset light in the clouds, so we took a walk over to the Obere Brücke and Untere Brücke for some glowing shots of Klein Venedig and Kloster St Michael up on the hill. I took a lot of photos at multiple exposures for later combination into HDR images at home, since most scenes had an extreme range of light intensities. This set a record for most photos in a day so far: 371.

We returned to Geyerswörth for shots of the Rathaus in the fading light, but the clouds never really went that wonderful shade of pink as they thinned out and dissipated against the purpling sky. While setting up there, an old couple came up and asked Michelle in German if they could sit in the bench she was sitting on. It took another go, slowly with gestures, before we understood them, but we were happy to share the gorgeous ("schöne!") view with them.

Once we decided the best light was over, we walked up the hill to Domplatz for some shots of the Dom against a deep blue late twilight sky, with the moon a bit over three-quarters full looming above its spires. An organ was playing inside, loud enough to be heard drifting across the platz. It was a magical moment and scene. Done there, we meandered home again, pausing to shoot some night scenes in the winding narrow streets.

And now it's time to pack our bags this morning and head off to our next stop: Regensburg.

21:45 Room 43, Hotel Kaiserhof am Dom, Regensburg

And we thought the view from our room in Bamberg couldn't be beaten! Despite having our hotel apologise for not having a cathedral-view room available when I booked by e-mail, they have given us Room 43 on the south-east corner of the fourteenth century building, with a window facing east directly at the face of the monstrous Dom. The window is tall, a good two metres or so, and you have to have your face within 50 cm of it to see all the Dom, from its base four storeys below in the platz to its towering filigree spires soaring high above. Our window provides pretty much the best view we can manage to find anywhere in the entire town of Regensburg.

We arrived in town after an early breakfast back at Hotel Brudermühle in Bamberg, checking out, at which the woman gave us a couple of apples wrapped in serviettes for the road ("für Ihrer Reise"), followed by a 20 minute walk to the bahnhof to catch our train to Nuremburg, where we got a connection to Regensburg. The first train was a regional express, meaning no reserved seats. We managed to find a pair of seats facing forwards on the shady side of the train before the rest filled up with travellers, possibly heading into town (Nuremburg) for a Saturday of shopping or somesuch. While crossing between platforms at Bamberg to use the WC before our train arrived, I managed to ask an old lady if she needed help with carrying her luggage up the stairs, remembering to put my verb at the end: Kann ich Sie helfen? She turned it down saying (I think) that it was light.

Our connection at Nuremberg was to a Eurocity Express, which was actually going to Vienna and Budapest. But we got off at Regensburg, after a bit of an adventure getting on when it seemed everyone got on the wrong end of the carriage and had to do a double-shuffle up the narrow aisle with multiple large pieces of baggage to get to their seats. We had seats facing each other next to the aisle. Although a nice train, it wasn't as nice as the ICEs we got from Berlin and Dresden. As we approached Regensburg, we were greeted by our first sight of the Danube River, following along the left side of the tracks. It was kind of brown, not blue at all. I guess you have to see it in Vienna for that.

After Michelle stopped for a toilet break at the station, we walked north into Regensburg's Altstadt area and around the immense cathedral to our hotel and its stunning view. Despite it being before 12:00, we were allowed to check in immediately and dumped our bags before taking to the streets. Our first order of business was to find some food. We walked down some likely looking pedestrian streets, more or less at random, until we found a delightfully aromatic place selling Persian dried fruits, where I bought 100 grams each of dried pear and mango. It was €5.20, but I didn't have any coins handy so offered a €20 note. The guy asked if I had the 20 cents, but I showed him my wallet and said I only had a €5 note. He said that would do, so I thanked him and left, impressed by the friendliness. Michelle told me that a few minutes earlier when she had got a take-away coffee from another shop nearby that she'd handed over €2, and the woman had said it was €2.05, but not to worry about the five cents. Michelle had paid it anyway, finding an extra 5 cent coin. Very generous, the locals here.

We were now within sight of a bridge which we later learnt was the Steinerne Brücke, an 850-year-old fortified bridge, and an important historical crossing point of the Danube. We wandered over to gaze at the views east and west along the Danube, with the city and cathedral behind us to the south. The bridge was very busy with foot traffic going to and fro to the far bank and the occasional taxi; private traffic was banned from the bridge. (Speaking of taxis, I should mention that many of the drivers we saw were women - something extremely unusual back home, so notable to us.)

We headed back into town, turning past the Historische Wurstküche, a sausage establishment in what looked like an ugly old medieval block of blackened stone by the river. It was churning out delicious smelling cooking smoke and packing the customers into the rafters (figuratively, since the customers were all seated outside). A few turns took us past the Porta Praetoria, a Roman-era gate in a wall built in 179 A.D., which I have to say was nowhere near a impressive as the Lonely Planet had led us to believe, at least visually.

From there, we rounded the block to approach the Dom. After some exterior shots we went in and were blown away by the most impressive of the many church interiors we've seen so far on this trip. This was the first to have stained glass window, and what windows they were. On all four walls, in glorious multicolours, metres high, and spanning the length and breadth of the vast building whose interior was otherwise dark and cavernous. I spent some time with the mini-tripod setting up some long exposures and HDR sequences, which will hopefully turn out well and at least attempt to do justice to the place. Before we left, we went down into the crypt, where bishops of Regensburg are commemorated since some obscenely ancient year in the 700s to the present and where several are laid to rest.

We then headed south-west, taking a zig-zag path among residential lanes to emerge at Emmeramsplatz, where we first took a look in the Basilika St Emmeram, which was stunning in its own way, simply because of how mind-bogglingly obviously ancient the place was. The Dom may have been old, but this place was a whole new level. It's clear that none of the cities we've visited up to now hold a candle to how unimaginably ancient the buildings are here in Regensburg. Presumably there's been a town here for much longer than any of the other places, which were probably only settled relatively recently, maybe just 1200 years ago or something. The Basilica held the bones of not one, not two, but three saints, and we saw the reliquaries of Saints Emmeram, Wolfgang, and Ramwold. Astounding stuff. It was so old that several floor stones originally deeply engraved with reliefs and inscriptions had been worn so smooth by millions of feet as to be completely illegible in places. Others were slightly less worn, in less trafficked parts of the church.

But again I'm too tired to finish this off today, and will do so tomorrow.

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