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.