May 24, 2014
Day 25: Bayreuth
Our impression of Bayreuth from yesterday, when we were rather at a loss to find the really attractive bits, was reinforced today. To be clear, the city is not in the least ugly, quite the contrary. The buildings are large, attractive, and solid. The pedestrian area is large and open, and extends for a long way. It is lined by eis cafes, restaurants, and shops as it should be. And of course, there is nothing anywhere near this nice anyhere near our own home in Canada.
So what's the beef? Well, the buildings are not ancient enough for us. The giant cathedral is lacking. And the buildings lack innovative decoration. The guidebook gives us some indication of why this is so. The town was first known in the 12th century, plenty of time to start building some great stuff. But, it was burned down in 1430 by the Bohemian Hussites. Recovery was slow, but in the early 17th century things started to pick up. Unfortunately, the placed burned down again in 1605 and again in 1621. In the last part of that 17th century the Old Castle was greatly developed. But that burned out in 1753. (Clearly these folks needed to invent the sprinkler system!).
The golden age for the town was in the period right after 1753, when Wilhelmina, the sister of Frederick the Great was instrumental in construction of the Opera House, New Castle, Hermitage, etc. The town suffered again, though, whenbeseiged by Napoleon in 1806-1810. Still, in1876 was the opening of Richard Wagner's Festival Theatre, which (together with Wagneer himself) helped turn the town into a world class opera venue.
However, the old town was bombed out in 1945. Reconstruction lacked any kind of inspired architectural value, and in fact little was done to even preserve what was left.
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Today, we do see some significant efforts. Principally, there is the effort to restore the Opera House. Built between 1746 and 1750, the opera house is supposedly the best preserved example of baroque theatre architecture. However restoration work has been ongoing since 2012, and is not scheduled for completion until 2017. We went to have a look, and found that the entire interior is first off screened from view. Any peeking that was possible revealed a totally gutted industrial scene. They clearly have a long way to go. Strangely, they were offering a display about the restoration for the noticeable price of 2.50 euros. The display was fairly minimal, and not the kind of thing one would normally charge admission for.
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The New Palace and Court Garden seemed to present a similar story. The interior furnishings and decoration were gone, though we understand some rooms have been recreated to represent what was it was probably like. This time, we resisted paying an admission.
So the day did not shake out as one spent marvelling at ancient architecture and cityscape. However, it was still one of the best days of the tour. The reason lay with our friends here. Jurgen and Birgit and Joe and Karla drove down from Leipzig just to meet us here. These are the parents of Marius and Christian, two young men who came to us as visitors and who have now established themselves in Canada, and in our hearts. The four parents are fine, fine, people - and now, good friends. Though Christian says we knew this, we were surprised to find that Christian (and Melissa) had come to Europe in early May and have been touring and camping since then all over, including Ireland. But today, they came to us (and, oh sure, the parents too). So here we all were, able to stroll down the pleasant streets, and to sit for a long time in a nice restaurant.
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Sitting in the restaurant was not just an example of European relaxed lifestyle. Rather, it started to pour mid day and carried on for several hours. It was great just being able to look at it, rather than having to pedal or camp in it.
The restaurant allowed us to continue our apparent new research project on saurbratten. This was one different again, with a strong hint of clove in the sauce. Why am I so surprised that each one is different? Maybe it's that they are so different.
With our German friends around the table, we could also advance our language knowledge a little bit, with some questions popping up from our recent experiences. My first question was about "plunder". In the bakeries we had seen and purchased many items with this word as the suffix. The things looked like "danishes" to me, but technically what were they. Apparently "plunder" refers to "puff pastry". Ok, but they always seem to be things with a fruit topping. So, it's puff pastry typically with a fruit topping. Maybe I would call that a danish. On the other hand, there are also tachsen - pockets, that I would also call danish. Maybe when it comes down to it, everything that is not a cake or a slice is probably a danish!
Not surprisingly (for those who know us) the next language question was also pastry related. As we sat in the restaurant looking at the rain I walked over to the waitress and inquired about what sort of pastry might be on offer. The woman said a bunch of words, and I got the impression somehow that "krapfen", from Berlin, might be possible. This impression was right, but my only knowledge of krapfen is punschkrapfen. Punschkrapfen are an absolutely yummy pink iced rum cake that we had found in Vienna the other year. I returned to our table and reported that a real treat might be on the way.
Now I am not saying that Berlin krapfen is not a treat, but it is in fact a variation of the "Berliner", which is a filled donut, itself a form of Pfannkuchen. So what I got was a donut, not a yummy pink little cake. Hmmm.
At the risk of blithering on about this, the confusion was amplified by the sign on our table that read "Kaffee Kuchla 4 euros". I asked our friends about "Kuchla" and they said that this is the diminutive form of "kuchen", which is cake. So that would be coffee and a little cake - I could see my little pink guys almost on the table. But the kuchla in the sign turned out to the Berliner krapfen, and if that was a little one, watch out for the big one!
As you can see, without so much as being able to ask for a glass of tap water, I seem to be going for a Ph. D. in pastry terminology. Time to re-jig the language strategy!
After many satisfying hours with our friends, we said a tearful goodbye to them all. However we know we will see them all back in Canada, or when we come again to Germany.
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At the risk of giving the impression that we are really pigging out over here, I will admit that we repaired to the eis cafe to drown our sorrows in chocolate or caramel sauce. I took the requisite photo of the two cups. There was a suggestion that we could "fudge" the photo to help preserve our reputations, by only showing one cup. Fudge really was a bad choice of words, though.
Oh well, tomorrow we will be back on the bikes and hopefully pedalling today off like crazy. Our immediate objective is Nurnberg. We found a website with .gpx tracks for all Bavarian radwegs, and downloaded the ones needed for our next few hundred kms. In so doing we are abandoning the Google maps routings we had developed at home. The reason is that the "official" radwegs are going to be signed (we hope). Our confidence in that is boosted by the fact that the signs for the first one, the Pegnitz Radweg are basically right outside our hotel.
Stay tuned, as we sail off now, more or less into the unknown - deeper into Bavaria.
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