Sonntag, 16. Juli 2006

…are in Augsburg. And guess who got to see them! I took pictures of everything, but as usual, with my lovely mostly broken camera, they are all blurry. All indoors pictures are crapshoots—either they’re brilliant or they’re awful. I managed one brilliant shot of one of the Frauenkirche windows in München later today, though, so be happy about that! *grumbles*

Back to Augsburg. Mary and I decided that we’d go to Augsburg for a few reasons. It’s the third largest city in Bayern, after both München and Nürnberg, and that’s where my Medieval literature professor and advisor recommended I go at some point, because she’d briefly taught that the university there and loved it. So we met at 6:30 at the station for a 7:06 train to Augsburg. The only problem is after about a half hour, we heard the announcer say, “Augsburg…” and didn’t catch the rest. We bolted and got off the train to…a deserted, abandoned station. Augsburg—Hochzoll, not Augsburg. We groaned. So we took a few pictures—totally in the middle of nowhere Germany, which was fun, for about five minutes—then found which platform the next train to Augsburg would be arriving. Only the next one didn’t come. We had to wait nearly an hour in the cold wind of the growing day before it finally pulled up, a one-car train-bus that would take us the last 6 minutes to Augsburg proper. How annoying. (And at the next stop we almost did the same thing!)

Once finally in the city, we looked at the city map. Unlike Nürnberg and München, Augsburg’s more sprawling development made it a much more urban, haphazard city to navigate. Unfortunately, all the touristy things weren’t all in the same place, nor did anything seem open at all. We ended up walking around the completely deserted city at 9:30 in the morning, wondering when, on Sunday, things would start opening. We almost got lost and found our way to the Rathausplatz, the central square in front of the city hall, and took a seat at the only thing open, a café. We ordered the “Großes Früstück” or big breakfast, and decided to make it our brunch. We each got two slices of different bread, a roll, and a croissant, with honey, butter, marmalade, two slices of swiss cheese, two slices of salami-like meat, two pieces of tomato, one piece of lettuce, and a strawberry—with a glass of orange juice and a cappuccino, besides. Oh man! That was tasty. German bread is unlike any bread I’ve ever had. It’s fresh and amazing. None of this crappy baked a week ago stuff or anything like what you’d get at the local supermarket. It’s all from actual bakeries, and it’s serious, serious bread. Who needs anything else in life? (Well, the guy the table over from us had three Weißwursts and a Bier—at 10am—so I suppose he needed something else.)

The day was spent rather leisurely, walking from place to place enjoying the sights of a real city, instead of the tourist and pretty city of Nürnberg or the busy tourist/shopping/business hub that is München. Most all shops were closed, and even the one big museum, a palace even, was closed. The Rathaus wasn’t going to open until 3pm either. So we took the stroll down to see the major churches—which were having services—then up to the Dom St. Maria, the oldest church in Augsburg with the oldest stained glass windows in the world. The church was begun in 944 and the windows date from the 12th century, depicting biblical prophets in an almost Byzantine sort of style. I actually didn’t photograph those, though; I took other ones, thinking I was taking the old ones. Oh, well. (My batteries were dying anyway. Not that they even would have come out—my others didn’t!) The church was fantastic. Easily my favorite, even out of the Nürnberg churches. It was huge, too. Very cool, and much of it was pre-Gothic Romanesque architecture, which was even cooler to see because it’s rare in Germany (though part of the cathedral was Gothicized in the 14th century, so there was a bit of it.)

Once we were done with that we went straight for the train and our return to München, properly fed up with touring. I wasn’t quite done, especially as I hadn’t ever really done a lot of München, so I went to Marienplatz and actually went inside the Frauenkirche. (Every single store is closed in Germany on Sundays. All except some restaurants, and of course, beer gardens.) The Frauenkirche is HUGE! It’s much bigger than Notre Dame—its main towers anyway—though I think Notre Dame is a bit wider. They’re both Gothic of slightly different orders; Frauenkirche’s inside is the hallmark of Gothic architecture, in terms of its vaulted ceilings and wide panels of stained glass. There are so many paintings inside, it’s amazing. Notre Dame was severe; its dark gray inside and outside give it a much more forbidding appearance, and make it appropriate Victor Hugo-esque, whereas Frauenkirche is awe-inspiring in its heights and inner brightness. Having white walls helps with that! One of my pictures of the stained glass actually, actually came out. My only one of a lovely window in all of Europe so far! It’s lovely.

Nothing more to say about my Abenteuer today, actually. I’m quite pooped from all the touring. Alls I can say is I spent about half of what I would have spent on simply the price tag of Prague through the Institut, not counting money for museums and food in Prague. I’m thrilled I really got to see so much of Germany. This trip was really about Germany anyway. I’ll save the Czech Republic for another time.

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