Regensburger Dom

This High Gothic church, dedicated to St. Peter, is a major highlight among many others in medieval Regensburg.

I wish I'd snapped more photos of its glorious exterior, but Henry and I compensated for this oversight by both going a bit bonkers inside. I weeded our collection down considerably to present to you here...

As you can see above, there are some pretty fabulous stained glass windows in the cathedral, always magnets for my shutter finger...

...and Henry's...he took this one

I was particularly taken by how harmoniously the lovely windows complemented other features in the church, like this crucifix above some doors...

...and its impossibly high ceilings...

Here's a better look at the ceiling:

Henry snapped this nice photo of their lovely candle niche...

...as well as this one, of an extraordinary silver altar-piece...

Unfortunately, we didn't get to hear this organ in action, but I thought it was photogenic enough even when silent...

Our next stop, however, featured an organ concert that was out of this world! I'll tell you all about Passau, which ended up being one of my favorite towns of the whole trip, in the next few posts.

A World Heritage stop: Regensburg

We were very happy to learn that Viking was going to make it possible for us to do two tours on Sunday; we wouldn't have to choose between the scenic Danube Narrows and the culturally significant (and beautiful) old city of Regensburg.

After returning from the Narrows, and having a fortifying lunch, we embarked on the tour of this amazing place. Its strategic location on the Danube meant that it's been settled since the Stone Age (according to the Wikipedia article linked above), with significant histories in both Roman and medieval times.

More recently, its old city largely escaped bomb damage during World War II, leaving these medieval structures and streets available for tourist-ing as a World Heritage site.

As is typical of medieval towns, its towers and gates are some of the most photogenic sights. The tower at the top of the post is the East Gate, and on the right you see the Brücktor, or Bridge Tower.

The bridge in question, which is right next to not only this handsome tower and arch, but also very near our boat's docking berth, is the Steinerne Brücke, originally built in the 12th century, but rebuilt in the year I graduated from high school, 1967. (Yes, I don't think our boat would have fit under those arches; my speculation is that it went through a canal on the other side of the island that you can see on the far end of the bridge, and then backed up to its conveniently located dock.)

And here's our lovely boat in its perfect docking place...

We were quickly learning that one of the best indicators of the quality of our excursion stops is the location of our docking. Fortunately, only in Nürnberg were we docked far enough away from sightseeing areas that buses were required to ferry us there. It's so much nicer to be within walking distance, and we were docked just so, in all of our other stops. (In Vienna it was walking distance to the subway, but that still counts.)

So it was easy to begin our formal Regensburg tour, and easy when we were turned loose for free time, to wander on our own back to the boat in time for dinner.

Our guide (as wonderful as all our guides were, but I unfortunately neglected to make a note of her name) was justifiably proud of her city and its UNESCO recognition. (What's great about all of Viking's tour guides is that they are local and are unashamed boosters for their hometowns. This not only means that they are experts in what they're showing us, but they make it easy for us to fall just a bit in love with each of our destinations...since they are!)

The tour started with a short stop (in the rain, for a while; but of course Viking provides umbrellas) at the clever model/map of the Regensburg Altstadt that you see above on the left.

In addition to the towers I've already shown you, just ordinary buildings here are supremely photogenic...

As our guide explained, some of the buildings incorporate pieces from original, or at least much older, structures into their walls...

And, of course, details are often as interesting as the bigger-picture architecture...

Here's the town square where we we started exploring on our own:

We had a very pleasant stroll, including some souvenir shopping. No, we didn't buy a hat, but the shop  is actually quite famous!

And I was reminded of my own Hummels (originally collected by my parents) when I saw this window of attractive knick-knacks...

Among other sights was this flood marker (Wasserhöhe means "high water"). Unfortunately, I foolishly didn't include the whole wall in the shot, so you can't really appreciate the height, but, trust me, these were high floods. 2013 was pretty devastating; Weltenburg Abbey had water in their church, we learned on our tour of that area, and our next stop, Passau, was particularly hard-hit. But apparently 1893 was worse...

And, last but not least, there's a cathedral! Of course there is!

It was a spectacular addition to our ever-growing list of visited churches. So in order to do it justice, without exhausting my kind readers even more than they already are, I'm saving my photographic tour of the Dom until next time. Stay tuned!

Wordless Wenesday: I discovered that I did take a pic of the stateroom bath!

Side trip: Weltenburg Abbey

The terminus of our Danube Narrows boat ride was this Abbey, a moderately impressive structure in a supremely impressive setting. 

Here's a view downstream of the Narrows from the Abbey, a look at from whence we had come...

In addition to an elaborately baroque church (which we didn't see much of, since during most of our free time there was a mass going on) the Abbey grounds are quite scenic. They provided short hiking opportunities that were good exercise, and nice, fall color-rich views of the countryside...

This steep stairway led up to some ruins and a small chapel. 

I took in the chapel, also very baroque...

...and then headed back down to the main Abbey complex for some souvenir shopping. But Henry walked the whole scenic loop and got some nice, atmospheric photos of the extended Abbey grounds...

Back down at river level, here's the central square of the Abbey compound...

This is where Jana, our typically wonderful guide, left us to our own devices for an hour or so. Here she's holding the sign that helps our group (14G) stay together visually and aurally. Inside the "lollipop," as I mentioned in an earlier post, are the electronics that let her broadcast over our headsets.

As I said, we didn't have time to do much more than duck into the big church for a few minutes after the mass, before we needed to board our bus back to the boat. This is the only picture I took, of its riotously baroque ceiling...

The Abbey grounds have other interesting features, such as this saint's statue, on the path leading from the dock to the main square (which saint it is, I was unable to determine)...

...this monument to some American soldiers who drowned in the Danube near here in 1977 on a training mission, courteously inscribed in English...

...and this rather sobering reminder that the Abbey is, after all, right on the riverbank, next to a rather large river that does occasionally flood...

We would see similar high-water markers at our next two Danube stops.

What Weltenburg Abbey is perhaps most famous for these days is its main product, of which it is justifiably quite proud...

My possibly not-quite-exact German translation of the epigram at the top of the sign is "a beer in Heaven as well as on earth." At the bottom, under Weltenburger Kloster, it reads: "the oldest abbey-brewery in the world."

After our short sojourn at this historical structure, our bus whisked us back to Tor for another wonderful lunch. It was docked in Regensburg, at the confluence of the Main-Danube Canal and the Danube itself. From now on all of our cruise would be on the waters of this storied river.

Thanks to Viking's adding an additional Regensburg tour in the afternoon, we were able to learn about this interesting place as well as ramble about in it on our own. That's the next stop for the blog as well.

Side trip: der Donaudurchbruch

While our lovely Viking longship continued to sail down the Main-Danube Canal, we took an optional tour on the Danube itself.

The Danube Narrows (German: der Donaudurchbruch, or, literally, "Danube breach/opening") is a wonderfully scenic gorge. Although it's not quite as gorge-like as we are used to, given our puny little southwestern rivers. For a stream, though, that's already traversed almost 450 kilometers* (through regions that actually get reasonable amounts of rainfall) you couldn't expect anything more narrow than what we saw on this tour.

This is the tourboat that took us from the town of Kelheim up the Narrows to Weltenburg Abbey (I'll show and tell about the Abbey next time)...

As you'll see, the weather for this excursion was less than ideal. Most of our fellow travelers stayed in the cozy enclosed bottom decks, but we wanted to spend as much time as possible up top, in spite of the cold drizzle...

One good thing about the weather: I was able to wear every piece of outerwear (and long underwear) that I had packed, and this made me happy; it's always a goal not to leave unused anything you've carried for thousands of miles! Another plus: this was really the only day with sub-standard weather on our whole vacation...and it could have been a lot worse!

The views from up there were well worth a few shivers...

Oddly enough, especially given the weather, ours wasn't the only boat on the river!

He was going downstream, while we motored up, but it was windy and we didn't really envy him. Especially since we were treated with customary Viking-excursion-luxury, like a free beer (although some of us opted for Spezi, since it was, after all, only mid-morning) and pretzel...

But the rocks were the big attractions... and I mean big! The shot has a human walker in it for scale...

But we did see a couple of man-made attractions that were worth a snap. On an particularly commanding height is the Befreiungshalle ("Liberation Hall")...

it looks super-mythic in the mist, don't you think?

We knew to be on the lookout for this monument to victories over Napoleon, as we'd seen it from the bus on our way to Kelheim...

If we ever make it back to this part of Germany, we want to hike up to the Befreiungshalle (on a clear day) and look down at the Narrows.

Another non-natural structure was the end point of our short cruise, the Abbey at Weltenburg, which we saw emerging from the mist and curves in the river...

The Abbey and its grounds were fun to explore, and I'll show you what they are like next time.

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*I had a lot more trouble than I expected finding this number. That is, until I located this fabulous Danube map, complete with mile-markers. I'm sure I'll be using it for all the rest of my Danube posts.