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.