The weather is cooling in Southern Germany with highs reaching into the mid 60s on most days. The trees are starting to rust a little--just a bit of browning among the green. A few varieties are beginning to flame with fall, but mostly the change is still subtle.
Yesterday, Lawna and I drove out across heavily forested hills along the autobahn, past the flat, fragrant wine country to Speyer, a city on the Rhine of about 55,000, most famous for its imperial cathedral, one of the finest Romanesque churches in Europe, a major station on the Saint James pilgrimage road to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and a registered UNESCO Heritage site. The Palatinate had three imperial cathedrals that formed a geographical Trinity, and we previously visited another one in nearby Mainz. The construction is similar, though, since Speyer is a smaller city, its Dom (cathedral) seems to tower more impressively among the other buildings.
Speyer Dom
The day started pretty chilly. Lawna was decked out in layers and I was walking briskly to stay warm in my single layer fleece hoody. Later, of course, the afternoon would warm and we would be carrying around our wraps. Parking was hard to find, but once I found a spot, we walked through narrow streets until we emerged onto the vast, long town square. The center of town is marked by the Dom at one end and a tall town gate at the other. Between the two is a lengthy promenade filled with shopping on the gate end and cafes at the church end. That day, an expensive looking wedding was taking place at the Trinity Church (more on that later) with a Rolls Royce ready to whisk the couple away, and a television talk program was being broadcast from a giant outdoor stage framed with huge PA speakers and light towers. It was a busy Saturday, but the crowds were not annoyingly dense. We found plenty of room to move about.
wedding party
television stage
Thanks to its good location on the Rhine, Speyer was an important imperial center throughout the middle ages. In 1689, Louis XIV of France, the Sun King, burned most of the city to the ground in the War of the Palatine Succession, and Speyer never quite recovered its prior glory. Fortunately, it escaped most of the ravages of the two world wars, and the mix of medieval and baroque architecture is still on fine display. The inside of the Dom is remarkably plain, at least compared to most catholic cathedrals. Throughout its history it has been extensively damaged by fire and then restored. After Louis XIV laid waste to the town, the cathedral sustained further damage by the French during the Revolution. The interior was pretty much gutted of its fittings and the French revolutionaries tried to secularize it. At one point it was to be demolished and transformed into a triumphal park. Fortunately for Speyer and several other great churches that were on the revolutionary chopping block, the struggling Republic ran out of funds. Bringing down such an edifice is no easy task. After years of erratic restoration work, Ludwig I of Bavaria (the mad king's father) took up the cause of restoring the church. He commissioned two painters, Johann Schraudolph and Josef Schwarzmann, to decorate the interior with neo-romantic artwork that was fashionable at the time. The effect must have been quite breathtaking, but in the 1950s it was decided that these paintings clashed with the original Romanesque style and they were taken down and stored. Many of them are on view in the Rheinland-Pfalz Historical Museum, which we had the pleasure to visit. There are plans to restore some of them to parts of the church. The stations of the cross from Ludwig's ambitious, but possibly misguided art project still run underneath the upper windows. Otherwise, the ceilings are stark white. After extensive cleaning, the church looks brand new inside and out.
The remaining Schraudolph and Schwarzmann artwork
Dom sanctuary
Lawna in the Dom
Behind the church, we strolled though a pleasant garden park, punctuated by various styles of sculpture, traditional and modern, then eventually found our way to the Rheinland-Pfalz Historical museum where we saw artwork and historical artifacts from widely different periods. Although there were no English translations available, it was still a fascinating journey through the heritage of the area. Featured was a beautiful, digitally animated video of the Speyer Dom, recreating its probable appearance through the ages, including the giant murals commissioned by Ludwig.
On our way back across town to see the medieval Altpörtel (town gate), we stopped to visit the uniquely impressive Dreifaltigkeitskirche (Trinity Church). It is a baroque wooden church, and walking on its plank floors and hollow stairs raises a minor ruckus. The ceiling murals are a bit faded now, but still quite beautiful. It was modeled on a similar wooden church in Frankfurt, Saint Catherine's.
Dreifaltigkeitskirche organ
Dreifaltigkeitskirche (Trinity Church)
faded ceiling art
After taking pictures in the church, we headed back down the city promenade toward the town gate, side tracked briefly at an Eis Cafe for ice cream cones (the weather had grown warmer and we were now overdressed). Amusingly, the flavor of the dark chocolate scoops was named "Obama." That would not have gone over well in the U.S., but Germany does not carry the kind of racial baggage toward African Americans that we do, so they think nothing of such light humor. On the other hand, they have to be sensitive about any Jewish related humor.
Stadthaus (city hall)
We finally reached the Speyer Altpörtel, took a good look and a few pictures, then headed down a side street to find our car. A lovely visit!
Last weekend we drove about two hours to Nancy in the French Lorraine region. We had just recovered from a full week of dismal, rainy weather and suddenly had a sunny day to work with. Nancy was once the capital of Lorraine, and features a beautiful town center designed in the 1750s by architects of Stanislas I. Today Stanislas square is a center for restaurants, grand hotels, grand civic buildings and a large statue of Stanislas himself.
The weather was as good as we could hope for, yet our visit was a little disappointing because, despite visiting on a Saturday, we found that a lot was closed. We had hoped to visit the Art Nouveau museum, the famed school of art for which Nancy was a great center, but it is located a good distance from the rest of tourist town, and we just didn't get to it in time. Nancy also has a great church, la basilique Saint-Epvre that was closed for renovations. We had a pleasant lunch in Stanislav square and strolled around the town. I had just invested in a new digital SLR camera to up my game on the blog, and took lots of photos. I'll let them tell the rest of the story.
Our Labor Day weekend trip to Bamberg was our first foray into Bavaria, the scenery of which state represents much of what many Americans think of when they think of Germany. Bavaria is where the alpine castles are found, like the famous Neuschwanstein of the mad king Ludwig II. We did not venture into the mountainous regions. I have a later trip in mind for that journey when we actually have three days available to us. Lawna had some work to catch up on, despite the three day weekend, and I had some paperwork to finish for my new jobs at the University of Maryland in Europe and Ramstein High School. Even the Bamberg trip would have benefitted from having more time. There's a lot to see. But, alas, we made it another day trip, with a longer drive than usual.
We departed Spesbach around 8:00 and arrived at Bamberg a little after mid day. I found parking under a Best Western hotel next to a bridge that crosses the Regnitz River into downtown. We strolled across the short length of the bridge, ate lunch at a nearby bakery, and then continued on into the city, which initially appeared pretty quiet The civic buildings were older, but nothing too special in comparison to what we had seen in countless other German towns. Then we reached the market area which was suddenly packed with tourists. It turned out that Bavarians also had a holiday that weekend, and German children were still out of school. The market center was full of fruit and vegetable stands, and shops and cafés were packed all around. We sort of sped through this area to find a less populated area, but from the market, narrow medieval streets led through the sprawling historical center of town, crowded with tourists speaking a range of different languages. The only place that we spent any time at in the Green Market square was the baroque St Martin's Church, which was undergoing interior renovation, so we had to view the sanctuary from behind a barricade.
Bavarian painted building
Green Market
Holiday crowds
St Martin's Church (Martinskirche)
Old fishermen's houses along the canal
We have visited so many European cities that have been extensively restored from the ruins of allied bombing that it was instructive to see an ancient city that has remained relatively untouched by the ravages of modern history. Most German cities display a limited altstadt, but Bamberg's spreads out over seven hills. Were it not for the contemporary dress of the tourists and the rumbling of buses, motor scooters and cars along the cobblestone streets, one might mistake one's location in time as the seventeenth century. This must be what many German cities looked like during Bismarck's belle epoch before two ruinous world wars reduced much of the country to rubble. Bamberg luckily emerged nearly unscathed.
a very cool vintage scooter
From the Green Market, we headed across a narrow medieval bridge, through some narrow avenues of half timbered shops, up a steep walkway and some grand steps to the massive, four spired Imperial Cathedral. King Heinrich II consecrated the church in 1012, but several fires destroyed the original buildings and the present Romanesque/gothic structure arose in the thirteenth century. The church was filled with tourists and guided groups. We wandered through the massive structure, taking turns with others viewing the various sites, including the resting place of Pope Clemens II, the only pope buried north of the Alps.
Canal Bridge
Imperial Cathedral
Imperial Cathedral crowds
Imperial Cathedral rear towers
Actually, it was kind of a relief to leave the packed cathedral, which is flanked by the Old Household, where the bishop lived before a grander palace was built across the wide courtyard. We did not visit the Old Household, but rather opted for the grand New Residence, erected in the early seventeenth century by Prince-Bishop Von Gebsattel. We took the guided tour which, of course, was all in German, but with English handouts for those of us that required them. I understood maybe half of what the young tour guide told us. She welcomed our questions, but spoke about as much English as I do German. The rooms she led us through were sumptuously baroque, and a highlight was the beautiful rose garden which may be seen from many of the rooms in the palace.
Old Household front
Old Household courtyard
New Residence
Lawna in the Rose Garden
After our tour, we began to feel hungry, but I wanted to see one more church before eating. The trek up the hill to St Michael's monastery is fairly steep, and we met a German couple who knew how to get there. The gentleman, who had been born in Bamberg, led the way and spoke some English. We emerged at the great steps leading to the church, but unfortunately it was closed for renovation. Today much of the monastery complex is used as a retirement home. Pictures of the inside reveal a fabulous baroque interior, but we could not see it that day. There is so much to see in this well preserved city!
We did discover a restaurant in the rear of the monastery that overlooked the red tiled city. Our German acquaintances assured us that the prices were reasonable, so we ate there, though our friends moved on. Lawna ordered ox meat and I ate venison. It was all quite delicious, washed down with local Bavarian beer and coffee.
St Michael's Monastery
St Michael's on the hill
dinner overlooking Bamberg
Prosit!
Once we finished eating, we made a walk down the hill back to the old city. The crowds had thinned by this time, but it was getting late, and Spesbach is about four hours away. We decided that there was too much to see for one day, and we would try to get a room. We checked with the hotel over the parking lot where I had left the car, but the friendly young lady at the front desk regretfully informed us that they had no vacancies and that most of the hotels had booked up for the weekend because of the American, British and Bavarian coincedental holidays. So, back to Spesbach it would be, driving on the dark autobahn on a moonless and starless night. The German autobahn is not nearly as well lit and marked with flourescent markers as are the freeways in the states, and the drivers travel much much faster. It was not my favorite choice, but we had not planned for a weekend--we had too much else to do at home. We gassed the car and headed into the darkness toward Pfalzerland. My night vision isn't what it used to be, and it really was a black night. Three hours in, we stopped at a McDonald's, our first in Europe, and it actually tasted good to have a small order of chicken nuggets and a small chocolate milk shake. I never order that kind of stuff anymore, but it tasted like home. I enjoyed every morsel. We reached Spesbach around 11:30 p.m., a small hamlet that rolls up around six. Even with its hanging yellow street lights, it seemed terribly dark, and it felt good to stumble into our apartment and fall into bed. Nights are already growing chilly, and we had a good sleep.
