Bamburg, Germany — Fürth, Germany
Our ship arrived in the very industrial docks of Bamburg at about 8 a.m. and we boarded buses for the city centre at about 9. It was another very grey day, but the historical area of Bamburg really is lovely. The old town is built on an island, so there are numerous bridges, and very nice vistas along the river. With our guide, Barbara, we walked through the old market area, where vendors were just setting up as we headed out, and stopped at the ancient city hall, which is decorated with beautiful frescoes. The story goes that the Prince Bishop owned all the land on the island and refused to let the city hall be built there. Someone noticed a sandbar in the river, and that is where the city hall was constructed on a base of pylons buried in the sand. Kitty-corner to the city hall is a blue house with white decorations in the rococo style which I thought was really lovely. As in the other cities we have visited, bicycles have the rule of the road, and we several times had to get out of the way of on-coming cyclists, especially when we were on the bridge. By the way, although our guide Barbara had grown up in neighbouring Passau, she is completely fluent in English, with not even a hint of a German accent. From there we headed to the cathedral, which meant climbing about 40 stairs. This year is the 1000th anniversary of the building of the cathedral, though the original cathedral burnt to the ground about 175 years later. However, this cathedral was constructed on the design of the original one, with the choir facing west rather than east, as was the case in the first St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It is Romanesque in style, so not as light an airy as the one we saw in Regensburg two days ago. The only tomb of a pope outside of Italy is in this Cathedral, that of Pope Clement II. There is a large statue of a horseman, believed to be King Stephen of Hungary, who according to legend rode right into the cathedral when he came looking to marry the emperor's sister, Gisela. It is a very impressive cathedral, and it would have been nice to have more time in it. From there we went to see the half timbered building that housed the Prince Bishop, and which was used as the setting for several scenes in the 'Three Musketeers' a few years ago. Our final stop was in the nearby Rose Garden, laid out in the 18th century, which overlooks the Old Town. There are over 4500 rose bushes in the garden, with many still in bloom despite the lateness of the season. A lot of the rose varieties had German names and weren't ones I recognized. We did some shopping on the way back to the bus, and enjoyed walking in the market. I bought a Springerle mold, and I am hoping to learn how to make cookies with the mold at a class on Saturday. There was a stall selling all types of brushes and I was able to find a small flexible bottle brush, which I've had trouble finding in Canada. Numerous stalls sold fruits and vegetables, mostly local, and I saw some interesting displays of mushrooms, like Chanterelles. The flower stalls really caught my eye, as they had colourful displays with reasonable prices. I bought a single rose for our room for 1 Euro. We had a lecturer come on board to talk to us about the European Union this afternoon, giving the origins of the concept right back to the Greeks. The ship finally left the Main-Danube Canal and is now traveling along the Main River. We have been warned to be very wary of low bridges if we go out on the sundeck. However, it actually got foggier as the day went on, and the forecast for tomorrow isn't very promising, with showers and a high in the single digits forecast.
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