Final thoughts #3

Language

I forgot to include this until I was telling someone about the trip.

Germany is an easy country to travel in not only because the transport system is so good, but because many people have a smattering of English. I tried not to be lazy and use as much German as I could, but still, when I couldn't think of a German word, English usually got me by.

One thing made us laugh though--almost everyone said, "Have a nice day!" when we left them. It was as if they learned it in school. I rarely say that when I'm at home! But it was friendly.

Even the people who knew very little English said it--and then they giggled, as if they were proud of themselves and very happy to be able to use the phrase at last.

Technology

Thought I'd end this with a description of the technology I used while on the road.

* Kindle Fire HD 8.9"
* Blogger-Droid software, from Anders Hedstrom, available on Amazon Appstore
* Amazon Basics bluetooth keyboard (You could do without this if you just want to use the onscreen keyboard.)
* Canon Elph digital camera with SD card
* Airstash USB stick and app, available at Amazon, and on Airstash's website (Only takes SD cards, not Sony cards)

Without an SD slot, there's no way to easily get pix off the camera's card and onto the Fire. Enter Airstash. Take the card from the camera, put in the Airstash USB stick. Turn the stick on, and it generates its own wireless signal. Open the Airstash app on the Fire, which will show you what's on the SD card, arranged by date. Open the photo you want, then transfer pix from camera card to the Fire by clicking the + button. Pix show up in Photos on the Fire.

To get the photo into the blog, click on the Photos button in Blogger-Droid, find photo on Fire, click on it.

B-D is the only reliable program for the Fire that works with Blogspot/Blogger, at least that I could find in the Spring of 2013. It's rough, but it works.

I read about Airstash in the Wall Street Journal a year or more ago, in a Walt Mossberg review, just about the time I first got a tablet and realized I'd just as soon never again take a heavy laptop with me when traveling. It's terrific. You can't use the Fire's wifi to connect to the Internet while you're connected to the Airstash, but that's temporary.

All the above is light-weight and easy to carry around. And reliable, have never had any problems with either software or hardware, once I trained myself how to use them.

And, I think that's all, folks!

Final thoughts #2

5. And it is a city of texture.
* The wonderful pottery spheres created by a local artist are meant to have candles in them.
* The gorgeous inlaid wardrobe is centuries old.
* The figure on the door is from an old building, juxtaposed against other older pieces, and put in the entrance hall to a church.
* The charming kissing couple is in St Peter's, and was, for me at least, a welcome change from the heavily religious figures elsewhere.
* Most of the roofs are covered with tiles, of many different patterns.
* Some older ceilings have thick timber beams.
* Every now and again a shop will have a metal sign in front, like this Jonah and the very odd-looking whale, above a pub called, appropriately, Zum Walfisch, The Whale
* The thick wooden door with the wonderful fixtures is in an old church, and has been there for centuries. * The horizontal figure is the guardian of the portal in St. Jacob's, the Scottish church.
* The patterned stone floor is in a church. (There are lots of churches in Regensburg.)
* The hanging gable sort of room is on a building that has otherwise been modernized.
* We were walking down a street one evening and I noticed this wonderful shutter-holder, a helmeted head.
* There is a pipe organ in every church we visited, and I took pictures of several. This was one of the most elaborate.
* When the wall was was redone for this cafe, they left the stones of an original arch still visible.
* Same with the entrance to yet another church--they left part of the original arch visible so that modern visitors could see it.

And finally, the temporary textures against the ancient: the transient buildings of the Dult, with the ancient cathedral in the background.

Final thoughts #1

Home again, home again, jiggedy-jig. It's good to be back. I knew I was ready to be back when the tunes in my head switched from pop to 2/4 marches. I'm not sure which marches--those unidentifiable 2/4 marches you hear on the bagpipe all the time but can't put a name to--but I was singing them anyway.

So, miscellaneous random thoughts and pictures.

1. You have to be absolutely mad to drive in Regensburg, at least in the main part of the old town. It was crowded enough when we were there; I can't imagine it in high tourist season. The cobblestone streets don't have lines. You share the streets with tourists, bicyclists (though not nearly as many as in Amsterdam), buses large and small, wheelchairs, and baby carriages. Lots of baby carriages. Which brings me to:

2. Regensburg is a very modern city, with lots of young people, with or without baby carriages, and lots of old people. The city is not entombed in its past, it simply lives with it. Things are being fixed and reconstructed and built all the time, but it is very modern. The shops and cafes (it seems as if every other door is a cafe, and they all have a couple of tables out front) are small and contemporary. I loved the banner that advertises Regensburg by playing with the king found on the front of the Dom/St. Peter's. And notice that one of the tour boats on the Danube has a putting green on top of it!

3. It's also a city of greenery. Part of this is because it's another of those climates, like England, where it is easy to grow things--all you have to do is throw the seeds and run. Coming from Colorado, I always notice this. But it's also because people take their greenery seriously. Besides the many parks, there are little courtyards in the center of buildings. These can be in the center of one building, or in the middle of several. We would glimpse them as we walked by, and there was usually grass and flowers, trees if possible, benches. Lovely quiet places to retreat to.

4. It's a city of stone. Cobblestone streets and sidewalks and plazas are still the norm in the center of town. Not on the thoroughfares and other streets in the outlying sections, but everywhere in the older sections. And they are still being maintained. We saw a workman replacing a patch as we walked into town one day. The stones of old are incorporated into the stones of the modern era. Newer buildings butt up against Roman towers, buildings on the Danube still stand that were started centuries ago, the Stone Bridge is still in use every day and was only closed to cars a few years ago.

Regensburg - Frankfurt

Our train for Frankfurt didn't leave until 1430, so we packed, asked for late checkout, and walked down to the Dult. We figured we'd seen it go up, so we might as well see the finished product. It turned out to be more than an amusement park. There are vendors selling dishes, kitchen implements, spices, even a hunting/military place. At least, I think that's what it was--I took a picture of a fluffy camo outfit that made me laugh.

And there was lots of beer. Including a Bier Himmel and a Bier Garten, right next to each other. What the difference is between a Beer Heaven and a Beer Garden is, I don't know. Other than the Himmel was much larger. There aren't the same restrictions on alcohol here that there are in the U.S. It's sold everywhere, even in convenience stores, and you can drink on the streets. The beer gardens are social gathering places, always with groups of people talking and laughing. Never saw anyone drunk, and saw lots of people enjoying themselves. The same was true at the Dult. Many families, all ages. Everyone appeared to be having a great time.

One thing we've noticed is that the traditional Bavarian dress of lederhosen and dirndl skirts is commonly worn as everyday dress, not special. Men young and old wear the lederhosen, which appear to be very practical. The dress for women can vary from simple cotton to fancier fabrics, but they look very comfortable. We also saw young women in a more feminine style of lederhosen, shorter and made of different kinds of leather.

We of course had to check out the Ferris wheel, since we'd seen it being set up. It wasn't rattling or anything, which was a comfort (g). The gondolas are different than I'm used to--not just a chair, but enclosed, and very prettily painted.

There was a Ghost House Ride, complete with vampires and zombies. No Zombie Apocalypse, though, dang. A very garishly painted house rocked from side to side. And then there is the Flip Fling. Oh. My. Gawd. The riders are strapped into a chair that rocks back and forth. The chairs are in clusters that spin around a hub. All that is on a pole that goes in a vertical circle. So basically riders are spinning in three directions. Three. Spinning constantly. And fast. AND they're upside down at one point. I couldn't get a good picture, but trust me, it looks absolutely terrifying. You would need a strong stomach and an up-to-date will to ride that thing.

We even saw a parade! Marching umpah bands, people in traditional costume, dancers, the works. Very fun.

The last picture is something you see everywhere--the running figure marks the exits. I saw it years ago in someting, put a print of it up on my bulletin board at work. It definitely gets the point across--and it makes me laugh.

Then the ICE (fast train) to Frankfurt. Tomorrow the airport and home.

Regensburg, Day 6

This was our last full day here. We decided to take a boat trip on the Danube.

As has been usual, we walked into town; we have done LOTS of walking while we've been here. Our hotel is about a half-hour walk from town center, and we're too cheap to take taxis. There's a bus, which we have taken sometimes at the end of the day. But in the mornings, we walk.

We've watched with interest the building of a temporary amusement park for the Dult, an annual fair that starts tomorrow and runs for a couple of weeks. It looks just like similar events in the U.S., where amusement rides are set up in some field of parking lot, tents house attractions and food, and there's a merry-go-round. We have watched the various rides, tents and so forth being set up. On this morning's walk, we saw the ferris wheel going up. The spokes went on first, then the curved outer sections. There is a man near the center of the wheel in the first picture, bolting something together. On the walk back, the wheel had been completed. I've never seen the wheel go up before. And actually, I don't find it particularly comforting, to see it being built. I think I'd just as soon not see it in pieces, if I'm going to ride it!

Our ride on the Danube took us southeast. Our destination was Bach, a town in the smallest wine-growing region in Germany. The boat also stops at Walhalla, and everyone except us got off. That should have been a clue....

Walhalla is a Parthenon-inspired ediface built from 1830-1842 by Ludvig I as a sort of German Hall of Fame. The Napoleonic Wars and the end of the Holy Roman Empire had divided Germany, and Ludvig aimed to bring back national pride. Famous and accomplished German-speaking people are honored there, both old and new. In order to be installed there, a person must be a German-speaker and have been dead for five years. So it is very much a modern, living monument. We didn't go in, but it is impressive.

And in front of Walhalla, right on the Danube, there are community gardens that add a human touch to all that stone.

Bach is a charming, prosperous little village with wonderful gardens, but no open wineries. Note to anyone wishing to do wine-tastings in Bach--go in the summertime, not in early May. For my flower-loving friends, I took pictures of the flowers and gardens, which really are gorgeous. And we did see vineyards, but no wine.

Since we have been visiting so many churches, we went into the one in Bach. What a lovely surprise it was. Cool, which was quite welcome on a hot, sunny day, but also very modern. The apse and altar area had Baroque or Roccoco furnishings, but the stained glass windows were of very contemporary design, made in 1997. Really lovely. And the grapes in one of the windows, I might point out, were the only ones we saw in the town.

We had a nice lunch in a restaurant, then wandered back to the Danube to catch the boat back. There is a path along the Danube almost its whole length, we have read, and here it is a road traveled by cars, but more, by bicycles. In the half-hour we waited, we saw two cars and at least 50 cyclists of all ages. There was a nice bench fit amongst the foliage in the shade, where we waited.

Most of the Germans, however, really liked the sun. Including a guy in a canoe, who stopped on the bank of the river for a smoke. The canoe looked like one the eastern U.S. tribes might have built from birch bark, with the raised points at front & back.

There are several small communities along the river. The church with the minaret is right up by the river. There are several churches with towers like this. It seems an Eastern influence to me, but I don't know where it comes from--I obviously don't know my history well enough! But I do know that the area is old, and has been continuously inhabited for so long, that there have been many different influences.

There is in Regensburg, as there is in so many cities, a lot of restoration going on. The Stone Bridge is being restored, as is a part of the cathedral. What Regensburg does differently from other places I've seen, though, is not just putting up a screen to mask the restoration--but a picture of what the thing being restored looks like!

And the final picture is a very typical one--at the end of the day, Regensburgers are enjoying the fine weather, in company. Friends, families, young and old, sitting on the grass and enjoying the day. Germans spend a lot of time outside, walking, pushing baby carriages, bicycling, eating. This sight is repeated all over the city.