Regensburg, Germany

June 24, 2009

I arrived in Regensburg around 12:30pm with plans to spend four to five hours wandering around the city. My host has suggested taking a tour of the city, and while I was still playing with the idea as I went in search of the Information office for a map, I doubted I'd actually take one. However, when I got to the office I decided I'd give it a shot and signed up for an English tour that started at 1:30pm. I figured that since I've got about five hours and not entirely sure what exactly I want to see in Regensburg that it would be worth giving a guided tour a chance.

Since I had an hour before the tour I decided to wander around and search for food, which didn't go very well. However, while wandering around I did see some interesting things, one of which was a stone mosaic in a part of what I learned was the Old Town Hall. It was interesting and well done without the pieces being insanely small and difficult to work with. I unfortunately have the feeling that my world map mosaic isn't the last one I'll do now ...

After getting a small roll from the bakery I headed back to the front of the tourist office where I sat on the steps eating my roll while looking for some sort of group to start forming. It'd been about five minutes or so and I'd spotted someone with one of the postcard/ticket things that they'd given out for the tour, so I got up from where I'd been sitting and went over to talk to her to see if she was waiting for the same tour.

As it turns out she was, but for rather interesting reasons. She was a tour guide herself and had been living in Regensburg for a little bit. To improve her English she had decided to take the tour.

Shortly after I started talking to her, our guide approached with two people and then more that had signed up for the tour joined as the group started to form and it was obvious that we were all there for the same thing. A little past the time the tour was supposed to stop we started moving, though we only moved over to a covered area for a little bit of a history lesson because it had started raining some.

Since I've for the most part always been a fan of history that was pretty interesting for me as she talked about how Regensburg was a big trade center for that part of the country since the building of the Stone Bridge, and how the city had pretty much adapted and used its history to continue into the future rather than just leaving up some buildings as monuments and tearing down everything else. It was pretty neat to see a fairly well preserved center.

The tour continued and we stopped at a bunch of places that I would have either missed or not deemed important. Our guide pointed out a section of a building where a slab of stone with symbols on it was used in the house. As it turns out it was a Jewish gravestone that had been selected as a piece of the house because of that. I don't rightly recall the reasons right now and don't want to put false information.

We also stopped by a couple large houses with towers and little courtyards with personal wells where we were told that these had been the homes of the merchants who had build massive buildings and towers with stone to show their wealth.

The guide led us through the city, hitting tons of interesting spots that I'da probably just skipped over. I mighta glanced at them once and thought ‘hmmm cool' and moved on, but hearing the history and stories behind it all let me understand how things were and what they were now because of it.

As we went through the city we lost quite a few people and by the time we reached the Stone Bridge there were only eight of us, including myself and the tour guide. This point was pretty interesting because our guide told us a story about the bridge that has commonly been a myth in the area (story below if I can find it online.).

Once she was done with the story she started answering questions, at which point one of the three couples in the group left in search of other things to do. I hung around and listened as they discussed the water level in the river due to the rains and how the creations of canals and other things had affected the lands on the waters edge.

After a bit the couple from Ireland invited us back to their boat, which they were sailing down the Danube River to Serbia, for coffee. I accepted the offer with the others and we sat and talked for a while. As it turns out, Mike and Rosaleen, the couple from Ireland, had been living on their boat, which they had built themselves, in and around France for a few years.

We stayed and talked for a bit and after that I went in search of the Sausage Kitchen that our tour guide, Susi, had mentioned. At that point I actually met back up with Nils-Petter and Elisabeth Wedege, who were the other couple that had stuck out the whole tour. They were from Norway and just in Regensburg on vacation. I sat down and at with them and we talked a bit more.

From there it was off to the peak of the Stone Bridge, which I was told was the best view nearby for taking pictures of the city. After that I just headed back to the train station to get back to Landshut, hoping my timing wouldn't be too bad as I had lost track of time while talking on the Aquarelle, Mike and Rosaleen's boat. All in all it was a pretty great day. I saw and learned more about the city than I thought I would and got to sit down and talk to some rather interesting people for a time.

The Stone Bridge Story

The story goes that the architect of the Stone Bridge and the architect of the cathedral bet on whose project would be completed first. Not one to lose, the architect of the Stone Bridge made a pact with the Devil, that if his bridge was completed before the cathedral, the first three souls to cross the bridge would belong to the Devil.

With the Devil's supernatural help, the bridge was completed first. The bridge's architect, however, being a clever lad, decided to cheat the devil. Instead of the heads of state the devil had hoped would be the first to cross the bridge, the architect sent two chickens and a dog. Outraged, the devil grabbed the critters and dove over the side of the bridge. His anger was so intense that the water still swirls around the spot where he dove in, even to this day.

Not at all happy about being cheated, the devil tried to destroy the bridge. He squeezed under it, with his feet on the river bed and his back against the bridge, and pushed up with all his might. The bridge bowed upwards, but it held. He tried again and little further down. The bridge bowed upwards again but still held. He tried several more times, each time creating an arch, but the bridge still held. Eventually, he gave up and fled back to the underworld, but the arches of the bridge remain to this day as a lasting reminder of the Devil's anger.

Regensburg Photobucket Album: http://s645.photobucket.com/albums/uu173/jordanftravels/Regensburg%20Germany%20-%20June%2024%202009/