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Breakfast today was as yesterday, plus: a whole giant cooked fish, about a metre long - it looked smoked - smaller fish fillet slices, a chunk of roast pork with carving utensils, olives and peppers stuffed with feta, and biscuits and chocolates! The food here really is astonishing. I think it's the result of staying in a hotel with a very fancy restaurant attached; we get the choicest leftovers from the food cooked the night before.
Back to yesterday: After our short tea break, Jenny and Gert took us by car up to the Käppele, the church they got married in, up on the hillside overlooking the Main River and the town. The roof was interestingly shaped, with roof tiles curved gracefully over multiple eastern European style domed spires. The view from the surrounding courtyard was amazing, across the river to the town far below. The interior was dark and the paintings dulled by the years. The wood carving on the pew end sections was detailed and intricate.
We have a 3:40 train trip ahead of us, which gives me time to catch up on the diary.
Once we left the Käppele, Gert drove us over to Festung Marienburg, the castle of the prince-bishops of Würzburg, overlooking the Main, before the Residenz was built down in the town itself. It was accessed via a steep, narrow, one-way road etched into the hillside and with a steep drop on the left side as we climbed the hill. After parking on a cobbled square outside, we walked into the fortress via a steep cobbled carriage tunnel which turned 90 degrees inside so you couldn't see both ends at once - probably some sort of security arrangement. This led into an outer walled courtyard containing carriagehouses and stables, enough for a dozen or so carriages.
A walk through a gatehouse led to a small intermediate courtyard which contained a large pool with a wide shallowly sloped ramp leading down into it. Gert said it was for bathing horses, but there was no water in it at the moment.
Which reminds me of some conversation earlier when we were talking about fountains. I asked why so few of the fountains seemed to be working, was it to save water? Jenny said no, it was a maintenance expense problem. Most public fountains in Germany have fallen into disrepair since so much money is being funnelled into developing infrastructure in the east after reunification. The few fountains that are working are mostly because nearby shops or businesses have pooled together to pay for repairs and maintenance. Interesting.
But on to the third, innermost courtyard of Festung Marienburg, accessed through another gated portal in the walls. This was a large space containing a tall
cylindrical watchtower, some nine or ten storeys high, and about ten metres in diameter, of cemented irregular stone blocks, capped by a conical tiled
roof, and overgrown with ivy for about the bottom third of its height. An open doorway led inside, but there was only a simple circular chamber with domed
ceiling about five metres above, with no obvious way to climb up to the watch windows below the roof outside.
Also in the courtyard was a short round building which turned out to be a wellhouse. The well inside was covered with a grille and I looked into it expecting a wooden covering or something obstructing anything interesting, but was stunned to behold the coolest well shaft I've ever looked into. The shaft was open below the metal bars and what's more, floodlit by a single light shining directly down from the centre of the grille. The shaft sank vertiginously directly downwards to a pool of water at the bottom, made tiny by the distance and rendered green by the reflection of the light from the slimy inside surface of the uneven rocks that had been used to construct and line the circular pit. It was eerily beautiful and instantly brought to mind visions inspired by the movie The Ring - one could imagine falling into this gaping hole in the Earth, perhaps bouncing off the sharp irregular rock walls a few times, before splashing into the dark, cold water at the bottom. It might be possible to climb back up, using the rock lining as slick hand and footholds, but it would be strenuous, difficult, and hair-raising work. After taking a couple of dizzying photos, I read the information plaque on the inside wall of the wellhouse, which was written in German and English. It said the well shaft was 100 metres deep and sank all the way down to the water table at the level of the Main River, which made it even more mind-boggling, given the view of the city and river far below us from our eyrie on the hillside above that we had had from outside the castle.
Behind the wellhouse was a fountain (not working) and a ceremonial pillar topped by a gilded statue of a woman holding up a star in one hand. Next to all this was a chapel, inside which was domed by a cupola above a floor made of about twenty mortuary slabs, deeply carved with likenesses of various prince-bishops of Würzburg. Access was restricted, so we couldn't get much further than just inside the door.
Out another gateway led to a garden area out the front of the castle, protected by walls down to the steep hillside below, but with expansive
views up and down the river and across it over the town far (~100 metres) below. A small formal garden was wedged between the inner and outer walls, but
the soil was bare. We asked a woman to take a photo of all four of us - there were a handful of tourists braving the cold, windy, and intermittently moist
weather, but the castle was mostly pretty empty. Unfortunately she had no experience with our sort of cameras and managed to completely fail to press the shutter
button even after multiple attempts, so we had to give that up.
Next, Jenny and Gert drove us up to another small castle back on the opposite side of the Main, overlooking the town from the north, from above more steep grape terraces. They said this was a prime spot for viewing New Year's Eve fireworks, but difficult because there was almost no parking and only a very tight space to turn a car around in at the top.
Worn out, and with no other obvious sightseeing options, we agreed to a cup of tea and a bit of a rest at Jenny and Gert's place. As they drove us past the riverbank, a scenic village or two, and some fields of crops, I asked Jenny about the vast fields of yellow flowers we'd seen everywhere. She said they were grown for oil, both for food and for conversion into biodiesel fuel. She said farmers were now growing lots of it because of government subsidies and said she couldn't remember what it was called in English, but said a German word that sounded a bit like "rapeseed" - "canola?" I said, and she said yes, that was it.
Jenny and Gert's place was a nice but fairly small unit in a 1960's era building in the vilage of Waldbüttelbrun, 10 kilometres outside Würzburg.
They made us coffee for Michelle and peppermint tea for me, and switched on to the only English language channel they got, CNN International, which began
with an extended live coverage of Queen Elizabeth II arriving at the White House. We had our first real conversation with anyone other than ourselves for
over two weeks, making various comments about how bored the Queen must get at all these official functions.
Around 18:00 we were getting hungry, so we went out to a small Italian restaurant in the village. Michelle got gnocchi gorgonzola, while I had another go at a diavolo pizza. When it arrived (after a long wait) I commented that it wasn't as spicy as I was used to and Jenny said that she should have told me to ask for extra spicy if I wanted that. It was still pretty good though. This time they let us split the bill, then we drove back to our hotel where they gave us our laundry back, not only cleaned and dried, but ironed too! We said our goodbyes until next time we see them when they move to Australia for their retirement soon.
We weren't done for the day yet though, having planned an outing to take some night photos again - this time down by the Main River. We picked up a
hot chocolate for Michelle and gelato for me from the same Italian place across the road from our hotel where Michelle had got a drink the night before,
forcing the guy to dirty up the coffee machine he'd just cleaned and polished for the night - he was cheerful and very friendly though. Rain continued to
spit as we made our way down to the Alte Brucke, or as Jenny more descriptively called it, the Bridge of the Saints, as lining its sides were buttressing
semicircular extensions centred on large statues of various saints. Atop the hill over the river were the Käppele and Festung Marienburg, both floodlit and
looking charming in the dimming twilight, with their light reflected off the Main below.
Unfortunately, the rain was light but persisted enough to limit photography to some quick handheld snaps for some time. After a while I took the plunge and did an HDR sequence, huddled under an umbrella with Michelle clicking the shutter as I lifted the brolly quickly only for enough time for each exposure. My camera still got wetter than I'd have liked, but didn't suffer any damage. But then shortly after, the rain stopped! I got some magical shots of night lights reflected off wet, glistening cobblestones, and took a few more HDR sequences for good measure, including some more as we walked home and passed some interesting sights, including the church and Falkenhaus in the Marktplatz.
We're now up to today, which has so far involved getting up, having breakfast (see earlier), and checking out of our hotel. The guy at reception apologised for a broken credit card machine and asked if we could possibly pay in cash. So we left our luggage, saying we'd pay when we came back to pick it up at about 12:00.
First stop was the Wilhelm Röntgen house, where the discoverer of x-rays worked and actually discovered them, in 1896. It turned out to be a building
still in use by the University of Würzburg, as we discovered when we walked inside to find lecture theatres - one of which was being used from
the sound coming through the door - and offices of various professors. The museum consisted of two rooms in a corner of the building, and the corridor
immediately outside. The lights in the two rooms were off, and we had to seek out and find the switches to turn them on ourselves.
One room was viewable only through a locked glass door and contained a lab set up pretty much how it must have been in Röntgen's
day, with various glass cathode ray tubes and other Victorian era high-tech gadgetry scattered about the antique desks and tables. The second room
held exhibit cases containing more Crookes tubes and so on, plus old glass plates showing x-rays of hands and other paraphernalia. A large wardrobe-sized
wooden box stood against one wall, with two giant insulated electrodes protruding ominously from the top, one labelled Kathode and the other
Antikathode. I figured it must have been for tasking chest x-rays or something, requiring the victimpatient to step inside,
close the door, and hope the doctor knew what he was doing with this newfangled electricity stuff. The corridor outside had wall displays
including Röntgen's various diplomas and Ph.D. in original, plus a copy of his Nobel Prize citation.
As we browsed the small collection, a few staff and students wandered by, probably wondering that anyone had actually come in to look at this stuff.
From Röntgen's lab, we went out to the shopping district to let Michelle browse around a bit. On the way, we used up the most of the rest of our phone card to call her parents and just say hi. I got a bratwurst at the stand that Gert had said yesterday had the best bratwurst in Würzburg - it was indeed pretty good. Michelle tried to take a photo of me buying it, but the woman in the stall panicked and shouted that she didn't want us taking photos. Since the Marktplatz led down to the Alte Brücke, I went to take some daylight photos there while Michelle continued shopping for a while.
Before long it was time to head back and pick up our bags. I got €300 out of an ATM to cover the hotel bill and provide us with some more cash. We stopped at a bakery to get a bread roll and nußschnecke for Michelle, and I got a slice of mandarin cheesecake that looked interesting. Michelle also got a coffee from a barista she'd spotted the day before.
At the hotel, we picked up our bags, paid the bill, and left for the station and our train to Cologne.
I discovered on the train to Köln from the Lonely Planet that the city also known as Cologne is actually the origin of the famous
Eau de Cologne. I'd somehow always thought that it had come from France somewhere, and the match to the city name was mere coincidence.
We arrived in this multi-famous city and our first task was to find accommodation. The Lonely Planet was dire in its comments about finding a cheap room in Cologne, stating that the frequent trade fairs (mostly at this time of year) regularly tripled the already steep room rates. So when we found the one spare room at this place for a measly €130 a night, we snaffled it. This is not by any means a fancy hotel; this is by far the smallest room we've stayed in - a quarter or maybe even less than the size of the one in Dresden. There is barely enough room to walk around the bed and the bathroom is a very tight squeeze. What's more, they only accept cash as payment, which is a bit weird.
We went for a walk, of course across to the other side of the station to get a close look at the cathedral, which is the main reason we've come here. Words utterly fail to do the building justice, as it towers above everything in sight in soaring and graceful spires and buttresses of dark gothic stone.
After a few snaps, we walked down, Hohestraße and Michelle looked in some of the shops along this long, narrow stretch of upmarket and modern
pedestrian mall. On the way I found an Indian restaurant in a local guide and map booklet that the hotel had given us, not far from the south end of the
mall. But before we got there, we spotted a Lego shop! We had to go in - it was amazing. You could buy cupfuls of assorted bricks, scooped from
canisters set into the wall. There was an assemble-your-own minifig area, with bins full of legs, bodies, and hair and accessories. And all over
were Lego products I'd never seen before nor even knew existed, like fridge magnets (we bought a set of eight), keyrings, salt and pepper shakers,
clothes, pens, notepads, etc, etc. Rummaging through the minifig bins, I found some interesting heads and torsos, and there were grey hair pieces too,
which I needed more of. So I picked and assembled at random, ending up with a bunch of female figures with grey male hair. The sign said
"6 kaufen, 5 zahlen" - "buy 6, pay for 5" - so I made up six figures and got them for €9.95. Michelle also bought some souvenirs for her
nephews.
The Indian place was called the Taj Mahal (original name..) and was apparently the first Indian restaurant in Cologne, opening in 1979. We ordered samosas, a dahl masala, and the cook's specialty: taj murgh masala - a curry made very much in the style of chicken tikka with an additional almondy sauce. It was all very nice and good to have something different to eat. After initial stumbling in German, the waiter was delighted to switch to English as soon as he worked us out. I suspect German was his third language.
After dinner, we walked back along Hohestraße to the cathedral, planning to take twilight photos. Unfortunately, it began raining shortly before we got there and we took shelter from the water and the strong wind under a shop front awning. The rain was more annoying than troublesome, but it was being whipped up by a diabolically gusty wind which whirled and blew up the long wind tunnel produced by the narrow street and looming buildings. We reached the square in from of the cathedral and the wind was swirling everywhere. People were running to and fro across the square, many getting their umbrellas turned inside out and having difficulty walking into the strong wind. I took a couple of hand held photos from shelter, but declared the conditions impossible for tripod and said we should give up for the night.
As we were preparing to brave the conditions to race back to our hotel, the angry sky unleashed a heavy downpour and we were forced to wait a few minutes
until it passed. With the rain eased a bit, we dashed across the open square to the shelter of the Hauptbahnhof, which was warm and inviting. Once inside
shelter, the weather didn't look half as bad, so we decided to browse the many open shops in the station for a little while to see if it would improve
further. Michelle found a costume jewellery place and purchased a couple of inexpensive bracelets. By the time we walked back to the exit facing the cathedral,
the rain had stopped and the ground was half-dried already. The light was getting beautiful and the sky was the deep blue of clear sky rather than the
grey of cloud. It looked so good that we ventured out...
Big mistake.
The clouds had been blown clear away by the howling gale that still ripped the air in flurries in the swirling chaotic open space around the cathedral. I set up the tripod and fired off a couple of extremely quick HDR sequences, hanging to it for dear life to prevent it being blown over (or away!). I doubt the shots will amount to much because of the vibration caused by the wind. This token defiance of the raw and furious elements accomplished, we really truly gave it up for dead and packed up and fled as quickly as we possibly could.
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