Bamberg, Germany

October 13, 2016

Bamberg is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, laid out over 7 hills where the Regnitz and Main rivers meet. Its old town preserves structures from the 11th to 19th centuries including the muraled Altes Rathaus, which occupies an island in the Regnitz reached by arched bridges. 

We had the option to start on the edge of town and walk into downtown, or to drive closer to town and spend more time downtown.  I chose option two.  

Our group started just a few blocks from downtown just beyond the Altes Rathaus.  We walked through a lovely park and then into the narrow streets of the town that lead to downtown.

Driving into town

We started at a park

The town dated back to the 1700's and had a variety of architecture

Many of the buildings had the dates of when they were built

 The town lies on the river and the streets lead to cobblestone streets and paths along the river.

 The Altes Rathaus is the Bamberg town hall which was built around 1467 on the river Regnitz. Originally influenced by Gothic, the building received Baroque and Rococo touches from Johann Jakob Michael Küchel in 1756. Anwar Johann painted the murals on the exterior walls. Traditional German fachwerk juts out over the river.

Apparently there was an armed conflict between the town's mayor and bishop which ended with an agreement that the citizens could not rebuild their burned down city hall on land, so the building was placed on an artificial island, supposedly because the bishop didn’t want to relinquish any land.  Tall arched bridges connect the island on either side to this city center on a river.

As we crossed one side of the building, our second group was on the other side

We left the town hall to walk into the down town square.  Every kind of store imaginable lined the streets from souvenir shops to high end clothing/designer shops.

Walking towards downtown

On display in one of the shop windows - couldn't resist snapping a photo.

 We had about an hour in the main square downtown.  Three of us went into a small shop for coffee, soup and a snack.  It was chilly outside but the humidity made it feel even colder to those of us used to a dry cold.  We had time to visit the shops and I finished with a bratwurst from many of the sausage stands.  We have good sausages in the states but just not the same eating a hot sausage with good German mustard in a beautiful German town square.  Life is good.

We finished in town just in time to go back to the boat for lunch.  In the afternoon there was an optional tour of a Franconian farm village, which I chose to do.

Our buses to the farm left right after lunch.  Once we got there, our group was split in two.  I was in the first group and we went right to our "hay" ride, which was a tractor pulling a trailer with seats.  I had the pleasure of sitting next to the farm's owner who didn't speak a word of English.  But I did figure out from our conversation the land he owned and how proud he was of all that he had and had built.

One of the things you learn as you travel it come prepared for anything, so I had hat, gloves, ear muffs and an extra coat around my waist just in case.  The extra coat came in handy, the couple across from me in our little trailer were late getting to the bus and she had left the boat without a coat. Turns out my extra coat got put good use for the rest of the visit.

We traveled through a wooded area before we got to the vineyards.  I don't know what kind of trees, but they made me think of the aspens we have in Colorado.

The farm we visited

Headed off on our "hay ride".  You can see the tractor in front of us.

 We traveled through the hills of vineyards.  Apparently they were owned by different farms.  The little cottages were built for the farmers to step into while working in the fields.

When we got done with hay ride we returned to the village for our tour.  I would guess there maybe a dozen homes at the most so the tour was maybe 15 minutes as we walked about a block to see the entire town.  At the edge of town was the cemetery which was lovely yet quite small.  From there we walked back towards the farm to visit the local church.  It too was small but very lovely inside.

Town cemetery

Town cemetery

Church altar

Statues in the church

The two groups converged on the winery and we went downstairs for a wine tasting and Franconian bread.  We had a red and a white wine which were nice but didn't seem to have a lot of body.  May just have been the region since they produce a lot of wine.  But it was a very nice end to a great day.

The farm's owner

We headed back to the boat for dinner and to sail on to the next town, Wurzburg.