Day 22: Sand am Main to Bamberg

May 21, 2014

Uberqueren is to pass over, and rasenflache is a lawn. Who knew!

I am in one of my favourite spots - parked outside a Kaufland. Kaufland has the greatest selection of grocereies and other stuff around. So for example our chances are good of finding Campingaz here. I don't know about Knoppers, though. Knoppers have been very elusive.

We will soon be in Bamberg. My map seems to say that at least the rathaus and the dom there are identified as UNESCO world heritage sites. On the other hand, UNESCO seems to hand out these designations like candy.

Bamberg is the last major city before Bayreuth, which is our planned end of the line as far as the Main radweg goes. The Main river nodoubt continues a bit further, but the Bikeline "Book" ends at Bayreuth.

Bayreuth will be our closest approach to Leipzig, which is the home of Joe and Karla and Juergen and Birgit and Oma Kate, and all the family. These are the parents and family of Marius and Christian, who came to stay at our farm so many years ago, and now are part of our family. Joe and Karla and the others have visited Canada many times now, and we were are their house by bike last year. We are very excited to see them again.

Their day to drive down from Leipzig is Saturday, which we realize is about three days from now. While we had planned to spend time with them in Bayreuth, we are now looking so immensely fast (ha!) that perhaps we will have to ask them to chase us to Nurnberg. On the autobahn it should not be too much extra time.

In this small town a bakery truck serves the people, stopping every block and blowing its horn. We caught up with it!

Knoppers! I have thefeeling that this style of wafer is more an Austrian thing, though these are indeed made in Germany.

Any question we had about where we should be in the next three days, and how to spend our time, was resolved by Bamberg, as soon as we began to enter the town. This is clearly a beautiful and interesting city. We entered along the Regnitz River (not sure yet what happened to the Main!) in an area that is called Little Venice. These are former fisherman's houses, and are medieval half timbered buildings with balconies and little gardens. The Regnitz is one waterway here, and then there is the Main-Donau canal. The old town straddles these two, making for interesting building/water scapes.

Naturally lost and not really knowing what we had pedalled in to, we first wound up (trapped) in the courtyard of a Dominican Monastery. However we managed to back out, and soon found ourselves at the Altes Rathaus, which dates from 1385. It is painted with frescoes, that were added lately (1755!) and has a half-timbered section that hangs out almost over the water.

From the rathaus we made our way to tourist information and got our hands on a map. Aha! Now we know that Bamberg is more than 1000 years old, and that it escaped damage in WWII. So it has the largest intact altstadt in Germany. It is not just a couple of buildings, but the whole thing that was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list, in 1993.

The map showed us that there are three basic areas: There is the City on the Hills - seven hills on the west side that hold a large number of churches - St Michaels, St Stephens, and the Imperial Cathedral (DOM), etc. Then there is the island between the Regnitz and the Main-Donau canal, which has the old and new rathauses, and both fruit an vegetable markets. Finally, to the east, is what they call the market gardeners' houses. Apparently this is an area of ...market gardens.

The city streets are sort of normal width, that is,they are not crooked little alleys. However, they are not really that much straighter or wider. There is no available parking at all. So although cars are technically allowed in many areas, there is no reasonto bring one in. That makes the whole placea de facto pedestrian zone. And the pedestrians are everywhere. We are only the latest of thousands and thousands to discover the beauty of the place.

Following our now established (and not necessarily foolhardy) practice, Dodie secured a spot in the Hotel am Dom, which is located right in the shadow of the Dom. So that means in the middle of it all. The cost, at 75 euros, was not totally outrageous and includes breakfast in the hotel restaurant.

After stashing our bikes in the customary basement or storage room we set off, first to the Dom. Also called the Cathedral of St Peter and St George, this one was built in the 13th century, though previous versions have been here since 1012. We bought a nice booklet explaining all the contents, and I will happily read this in the bath once back home. However the best for us was a free handout called "Bamberg Cathedral for Kids". This turned out to be just just enough for our strength and mental powers,covering 8 key points around the church.

Of these, here are the three zippiest ones:

1. There is a statue of a mounted horseman, claimed to be quite unique in a church. The guess is that it depicts King Stefan of Hungary from 1000 years ago, and a relative of the Emperor Heinrich.

2. The imperial tomb, of Heinrich and his Mrs.,Kunigunde.

3. Tomb of Pope Clemens, whose dying wish was to be buried here, in his old cathedral. This makes him the only Pope to be buried in Germany.

One thing we found on our own (without the kids' guide!) was the chapel of the nail. They have a nail from the Cross in there. Got their hands on it in the 14th century.

When you see the Chinese tourists you know you are near a photo hotspot

This golden throne is the bishop's chair. Behind it is the tomb of Pope Clemens.

From the Dom we headed to the island area, marvelling at every turn at the amazing architecture. Whereas in our ideal beautiful small town there is a square with fachwerk buildings standing all around, plus a church and a rathaus on either side, here we have a much broader combinaton of building styles and a much more complex arrangement of the buildings themselves. While fachwerk is great, you can also make an attractive building with various forms of ornamentation, colour, and frescoe. And you can arrange buildings in forms other than a square. Have a look at our photos and see what you think. (when eventually uploaded!)

Walking in the sun is pretty tiring, even when the surroundings are so stimulating. So the answer is .. eis cafe! There are two per block here, so we just chose one at random. Yikes, check out the menu (when eventually uploaded!). We went for the "Coppa Bacio". As a special diet measure, we split it. No doubt that did not help much.

More distance in the sun and we were ready to retreat to our room. That is where we are now, but maybe soon we will have another go at it.

One spot where we probably will not end up is Buttenheim, which is a suburb of Bamberg. Buttenheim is where Levi Strauss came from, when he went to America (San Francisco) in 1853. In 1873, Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis received a U.S. patent to make the first riveted men's work pants out of denim: the first blue jeans. Who woulda thought? Before this we really had given no thought to the origin of "Levi's".

These gaudy cuckoo clocks struck me as being of poor quality.

Along the Gruner Markt, some very nice produce. These local tomatoes look very Italian.

Spargel (asparagus) is still in season, though fields we have seen have already been allowed to leaf out.

At our random eis cafe - a portion of the menu.

Dirndl - lirium. A nice play on English words, just like Mc Doner. Dirndl-lirium is not just the name of the shop but also is on the label of the dirndl - indicating that it is likely made right here.

This rental electric bike seems to have come from the Donau region. If so, it would have come up the canal.

The Main-Donau canal. Of course, we did not know this existed. On the other hand, we have learned that a standard boat cruise can start on the Rhine and end in Vienna, following the Rhine, the Mine, the Canal, and the Danube.

Another look at frescoe on the old rathaus

Postscript: An evening walk in Bamberg

Once the sun had lost some of its intensity, we wandered out again. We loosely thought we might try to track down the synagogue and the synagogue memorial square, both in a slightly untouristed section of the island section of town. The synagogue was marked with a very bold star of david on the tourist map, but we walked past it twice without spotting it. The actual building was a nondescript rectangular affair, set in from the street, and marked only by a single star of david. Some people were leaving the building, and we asked one if this was actually the synagogue. He confirmed that it was. He was a man about 5-10 years older than us. We asked about the size of the Jewish community here, and he put it at 1000. None of these were remnants of the original community, but rather most were recent immigrants from Russia. The synagogue had been built only five years ago.

The man recounted that the town had had five synagogues in succession before the war, including the last which he characterized as the most beautiful in Germany.

We used the tourist map and made our way over to the site of the former main synagogue. There was a rather high and rather fine print explanation of the memorial, affixed to a post.

Dodie had a crack at translating the sign, and she seemed to gather that the stark monument was intended to be highly significant and artistic. However I noted that there was no information about the people this had involved, what their lives had been and what happened to them. There is a little writing, in German and Hebrew between the two slabs. Dodie identified it as a couple of lines form the bible. Even this, though, is almost impossible to see or photograph, because it is so concealed.

It must be very uncomfortable for the towns and people today to deal with these historical events, so minimalism is understandable. Actually, all in all, we are finding that there is good coverage, in the sense that many sites and events are at least identified in some way.

Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 1,328 km (825 miles)

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