Regensburg and Nuremberg

Photo 1: Regensburg cathedral

Photo 2: The old and the new. Original town entrance with later additions.

Photo 3: Regensburg street scene. Note the narrow street dating from medieval times and made for horse traffic.

Photo 4: Part of facade of Regensburg Town Hall.

Photo 5: M pa pa Hansi (see blog below)

Photo 6: Sue (middle) displaying great musical talent (see blog below)

Photos 7 and 8: We have left the Danube and this shows us going through a lock on the Main Canal.The drop is 25 metres (80 feet), the width of the lock is 12 metres and the boat width is 11.5 metres. Tight fit!!

Photo 9: Us on Main Canal.

Photo 10: Canal scene in Nuremberg old town.

Regensburg

We spent Thursday morning slacking off before taking a slow walking tour of the old town in the afternoon. Regensburg dates from the second century and is one of the best preserved medieval towns in Germany. It also has the highest concentration of pubs of any town in Germany, which says a lot about Bavarians and beer J. It is a lovely old town with one of the most massive gothic cathedrals we have ever seen – Saint Peter’s.

At the end of the tour we stopped at a café where we used vouchers to get sausages and sauerkraut. The sausages were nice but the sauerkraut was …. well …. sauerkraut. Not to our taste at all. But we soon saw an ice cream shop so, in keeping with our determination to fatten ourselves up disgracefully, we each had two big scoops of ice cream and loved it!

That night in the lounge we enjoyed a one man act by ‘m pa pa Hansi’, a very funny guy who plays the accordion and lots of other instruments with great skill. He ‘volunteered’ Sue to play the weirdest percussion instrument we have ever seen – which she did with great gusto! The photos and video I took will haunt her forever :)

Nuremberg

On Friday we visited Nuremberg. It is a busy, prosperous commercial city that has been attractively rebuilt in traditional styles after being devastated by allied bombing in World War Two. The medieval city walls survived better than much of the old city and when you look at these massive stone walls and citadels it is not hard to see why. Not much is left from the Nazi era. The site of Hitler’s huge rallies is now used for motor racing.

After a walking tour we had three hours of free time in the city centre so we walked and shopped and actually managed not to get lost (high five!). Being the adventurous types that we are – always seeking exciting new experiences – the first place we went to was ….. wait for it ……. Starbucks! OK, we are boring old farts but the coffee is reliable. Then we made a significant contribution to the Bavarian economy by spending up big on presents. This was such an exhausting experience, involving 5 kms of walking, that we just had to have ice cream to aid our recovery. We also managed to consume some of the local apple strudel to the delight of our taste buds.

It was a long day as we were due back to the boat at 6,00 pm, however due to unexplained issues with a canal lock it was after 7.30 that we got back. No more sailing dramas please! As a concession to all we had grazed on during the day we decided to skip dinner. What a hard decision to be faced with!!!