Apologies for being out of order,
but the Siegfried post was ready to go and this one was yet to be written.
After the Munich museum marathon, we spent the night in Hohenlinden, a nice
little village outside of town. On our way back to Bayreuth, we went to
Regensburg, a city on the Danube River which was little damaged by World War 2.
Regensburg, another UNESCO World Heritage site, takes its name from Castra Regina, or Regen Fortress as the Romans called it in AD 179. Today you can still see a bit of the wall and gate from that time (rather, it is possible that you could see it – we couldn’t see anything except the Tyvek & scaffolding it was under!). We were sad to be on such a tight schedule, but we had to get back for a performance and assured ourselves that we would dedicate more time to this town when we biked through!
We
arrived and lucked immediately into a bakery selling warm quarkballchen and
coffee, thus breakfast was achieved. The spires of the Dom of St. Peter loom
over Regensburg with relatively little scaffolding. (Though the front door
stands behind a plywood wall, so obviously you can’t have everything.) Inside,
there are far more brightly colored stained glass windows than we have seen anywhere
else in Germany. Perhaps the most striking element is the altar. It looks to be
made entirely of intricately wrought silver and gold and is so bright that it
probably glows in the dark. It was a truly beautiful centerpiece of the church.
Ambling
down the hill towards the river along narrow, winding streets, we discovered
the famous Stone Bridge almost entirely under scaffolding. Most of the span was
actually paralleled by a temporary bridge. The Stone Bridge is 900 years old,
so I suppose it is due for some upkeep. Still, it was disappointing to miss out
on the classic view of Regensburg - the bridge, river, and array of church
spires. 
I
cannot remember exactly how we heard about the Donauradweg, or Danube Bike
Trail. It runs the length of the Daube River from the Black Forest to the Black
Sea, a distance of about 1,800 miles, and to a pair of former Appalachian Trail
thru-hikers like us, it immediately captured our imagination. Zada, however, is
less enthralled with the prospect and please by the idea that she’ll be out of
the house well before we can pull it off! Near the Stone Bridge, we saw a
number of people clearly who were clearly on their way along the river trail.
There is a set of guide books that are rather difficult to find in the US and
it occurred to us to ask for trail information in the tourist office. They
directed us to a bookstore near the Rathaus that specializes in travel books
and maps. Not only did they have the guide books, they had them in English! We
bought them, because, you know, it’s never too early to start planning another
epic summer trip.
It
truly is a lovely town, and its excellent state of preservation allied with its
gorgeous situation on the Danube make it a very popular stop for river cruises.
We were so glad we’d arrived early as we beat the enormous herds of tour groups!
As we were treating ourselves to ice cream and apple strudel wave after wave of
tour groups began to appear. We were really confused by this until we recalled
the Viking River Cruises ads we’d seen (we love those commercials – although in
those it is never you and 40 other people with audio guides slung around your
neck following a guy with a flag). There must have been a ton of boats stopped
out there – the crowds looked more like the volume from a monster cruise ship!
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