Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Regensburg, Bavaria

Marshall woke up with a few back pains this morning, so he didn't attempt to go into town.

I have learned that even though I thought we have been progressing down the Danube River, for the past three days we have simply been navigating the canal and the 21 locks we had to go through.  Today we finally reached the Danube and we hope that the scenery will get more interesting.

I joined the walking tour of Regensburg, one of the oldest cities in Europe, with lots of medieval buildings.  This is the town that contains the oldest restaurant and bar in the world.  In English it is called The Sausage Kitchen.

The walking tour was very crowded because the town is small and every boat that was docked here had 8 or 9 tours of 20 or 30 people each.  It was much like being on a Chicago street during rush hour, so a lot of the quaint qualities were lost.

The streets were rough cobblestone (mostly laid by the Romans) and VERY narrow.  And although it appears that the bicycle is the vehicle of choice, there were still plenty of cars and when a car came down a street that we were walking on, we had to literally squeeze ourselves to the walls of buildings to avoid the cars!

We saw a medieval cathedral (that was being renovated), an 800-year-old stone bridge (that was being renovated) and a medieval city hall (that was being renovated).  At the end of the tour I went to the Swarovski store to buy souvenirs.  They had cuckoo clocks (which you would expect in Bavaria) and beer steins (which you would expect in Germany in general), so lots of things to buy.  I now need a new suitcase which I will try to get tomorrow in Passau, the last city in Bavaria that we will visit prior to entering Austria.

Then I went to The Sausage Kitchen to get Marshall some of their famed sausages.  It is billed as the oldest restaurant in the world, but what that means is that a stone wall of this restaurant withstood the years and the restaurant was kind of rebuilt around those stones.  It was a popular place to get these sausages, but Marshall was not impressed (smile).  He thinks the sausage in the good old USA is much better.

Tonight we were at a dinner table with a couple from Scotland and another couple from England and it was a totally enjoyable evening.

Here are some representative photos from today:
Our ship -- showing the balconies on the staterooms

Medieval cathedral

This is the building where Napolean recovered after being injured.  He used Regensburg (and this building) as his headquarters until he was well enough to leave.  The plaque on the front of the building has NAPOLEAN on it.

This is one of the streets in Regensburg and all of these people are part of the various tours.  This line went very far to the front and very far to the back.  It was fun to see the city but fighting the tour crowds made the tour less pleasant.

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