Augsburg

July 7, 2007

We got a group of people from the school Mike is going to and headed over to Augsburg today. It was only a 40 minute train ride from Munich and is one of the oldest towns in Germany. It was heavily bombed during World War II, but has been re-built. The buildings were very beautiful and it was easy to navigate and walk around. We started with the city fall. There was a festival being set up in front of it, and there was a Fair-Trade event going on in the city hall. It would have been interesting to walk through it, but since we were with 4 other people, we skipped it. No one else seemed all that interested in it. There is a gorgeous room that you can go through called the Golden Room. The ticket in was really cheap, and the room is amazing. Obviously, lots of gold and floor to ceiling paintings. Amazing. There is a smaller room off to one side that you can go into as well. The wood work in that room is incredible. There is beautiful wood paneling, ceiling, and desk.
Next we walked over to the Augsburg Cathedral. It is incredibly old, and has undergone many remodeling and additions. It also claims to have the oldest stain glass windows in the world dating from 1140. Pretty amazing. The doorway into the building is incredible. Lots of stunning stonework that you could look at for quite some time. There are many beautiful windows and altars in the cathedral. There is a hallway of crypts that is interesting as well.
There is a tower next to the City Hall called the Perlachturm that for a small fee you can climb. Its not too bad of a climb up. At least the hallway is not as narrow as some of the towers we have climbed. And there are nice views of the city from the top. There were a lot of bells right above our heads and it was nearing noon. No one was keen on finding out if the bells would actually ring at noon or not. I thought it might be fun, but I am sure that it would have been loud and I probably would not have been able to hear anything for at least the rest of the day.
We wandered through some more of the streets before we stopped for lunch. The donner in Germany is MUCH better than the donner that we tried in Scotland. Mike has become addicted to donner sandwiches and would probably eat them all the time if I let him. Donner is the Turkish equivalent to a Greek Gyro. They are quite tasty and quite cheap for lunches out. We found a great little restaurant on Maxmillianstrasse with great donner and we tried one of the local beers. The name translates as “rabbit beer” which we thought was funny. There are so many breweries in the town that a hops plant is part of their town crest. We weren’t even trying and found 6 different kinds of beers from Augsburg. Anyway… the food was great and the wonderful waitress gave us all Turkish tea to try at the end of our meal. It was slightly bitter, but tasty.
After lunch we visited the Church of St Ulrich and Afra. It was celebrating a birthday and there was quite the activity going on inside and outside the church. The church was really pretty, and the main altar amazing. There was a side chapel full of beautiful religious icons, and the other side chapels were gorgeous as well. Its amazing what people way back when would commission to save their souls. In the basement of the church are some tombs, and the tombs of St Ulrich and St Afra. St Ulrich’s tomb is quite ornate while St Afra’s is fairly plain. Hers is much older though.
We walked over to the Fuggerei after the church. It is Europe’s oldest social housing estate. It was much like New Lanark in Scotland. Designed for poorer families as a city within a city. It was not as large as New Lanark, but then again it didn’t house a factory for its inhabitants. It has lots of apartments with a church, school, shops, and small hospital. It is now a home for retired citizens and is still run by the family that built it back in the 1500’s. Pretty interesting. The rent is still amazingly cheap. Back when it started part of the rent was a three times daily prayer for the founding family, and I imagine that that is no longer in place. There was a bunker put in during World War II as this place was heavily bombed. It is now a very pretty memorial park. The complex was re-built and still retains much of its original details – including old hand pumps, bell ringers, and religious icon niches above doorways (it is a Catholic complex.) It was even the home of Wolfgang Mozart’s great-grandfather, Franz Mozart who worked on the building of the Fuggerei.