Day 87: Bamberg to Leipzig

May 15, 2025

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We had rather forgotten that with German hotels you have to ask for a quiet hole, somewhere at the back. If not, you will almost certainly be positioned in a room with a view - above the Biergarten. Since we always sleep with windows open, we invite in cigarette smoke and noise.

Last night in the evening, this amounted to the general hubub of people dining. But I woke up at 3 a.m. to the sound of a single loud talker. In my half consciousness, I was amazed that any person could talk so long and so loud, with never a pause. I seem to remember a game show where contestants had to talk, 2 minutes, ? With no umms or pauses. It's difficult! So I stayed half awake, wondering if he would ever shut up. Braver people, like Dodie, will shout shut up! out the window, but she amazingly was asleep.

In the morning, the "scene of the crime":

Some of the hotels in past days have been doing very well in the German breakfast field. Something that has turned up that we like a lot is cream cheese with herbs or spices rolled inside. But today we saw something unique for this trip - fresh passion fruit. It's not that there is much to eat with a passion fruit, but they are rather tangy.

The area around our hotel looks the part of great German guesthouses or restaurants:

Even the dogs get quality treatment. Here, dog water is dispensed from a genuine beer keg:

Bamberg has seven hills south of the Regnitz river, and each seems occupied by a famous religious building, such as the Dom. Since these buildings are the main sights of the city, up we went, to two of them anyway, other than yesterday's Dom Platz. To get to the first one, the Jacobskirche, we first passed though some streets leading to the river, and then went along by Little Venice again, before striking off up to the church.

The streets leading to the river:

Just by our hotel, this building harbours a bakery.

A large wooden door had this unique lion handle. It seems to warn you not to grab the ring.

You do not always need fachwerk to make an attractive street.

The Jacobskirche is a stop on the extensive support network of the "Camino de Santiago". Outside they have some maps that show the whole scope of the trek from here to there, which they give as 2850 km. There are, however, many roads that all lead to Santiago. Looking at the towns once one reaches Spain: Roncevalles, Pamplona, Puenta la Reina, Logrono, Burgos, Leon, Astorga, Ponferrada, makes us nostalgic for the route.

Looking at the map in general inspires ideas of where we could go next. For example, how about cutting southwest, though Switzerland and Italy, to Nice, and then along the Med, back to Mallorca!

On the wall of the church, here is their image of St James. He has the requisite shells, and also a drinking gourd. I prefer the newer water bottle model, by "Contigo" with the flexible plastic straw!

The colourful altar piece has the typical Mary, and other statues. There is also another St. James version.

The also have a standard St Roch, who is always depicted with an injured leg.

Here is Kunigunde, who is often depicted by statues in this area. She was Empress of the Holy Roman Empire by marriage to Henry II. She ruled as interim regent after his death in 1024.

The image below is the first time I have seen a figure with a broken wheel. As with St Roch, I knew there had to be a story for it.

The statue is of Ste. Catherine of Alexandria:

Legend says she converted to Christianity and defended her faith against pagan philosophers, even convincing many to convert.
Torture: Emperor Maxentius ordered her to be tortured on a breaking wheel, a spiked wheel used for executions.
Miracle: It's said that when she touched the wheel, it miraculously shattered.
Beheading: Despite the miracle, she was eventually beheaded by sword.
Firework: The "Catherine wheel" firework got its name from the wheel associated with Saint Catherine's martyrdom.
Iconography: In art, Saint Catherine is often depicted with a broken wheel, a sword, or a book (representing her wisdom and learning).

Our next stop was the mammoth Saint Michael's Monastery, a Benedictine abbey dating from 1015. Benedictines are favourites of ours because of their interest in herbs and gardens. Unfortunately, the Abbey was partly under construction, or closed until later, or difficult to access with the bikes. But we did enjoy posters showing the oveview of the place, now and in the past, and the views from this hill were good - both to down by the river and over to other hills.

Unfortunately, it did not look too accessible just now.

Looking down to some nice mansions by the river.

Looking down and over to the Little Venice houses.

There is a brewery on site at St Michaels. This truck was outside it, but we are not sure what its mission was.

I took the photo because the truck had special looking wooden kegs.

As we descended the St Michael's hill, we came upon workers rebuilding the annoying cobble streets. We were surprised at how thick the cobbles are, and how thick the sand underlay for them is. We told the workers it look like "schwierige Arbeit", and they agreed.

Back down at the river level, I had a mission to get a photo of the old Rathaus (the heavily frescoed building that is one of Germany's top attractions) from an angle that Grampies 2014 had managed. I had been looking at Grampies' frustratingly complete coverage and wanted to prove that ten years had not dimmed my ability to match them!

There are three bridges over the Regnitz here. The Grampies shot had to be from one of them. We see this bridge is already swarming with tourists.

The closest to Grampie shot I seemed to get was this. Wrong bridge, obviously.

Unbowed, I am introducing here a slew of additional Rathaus coverage. Match this, future Grampies!

Frescoes and gate, not saying from which bridge!

The statue of Saint Cunegonde, on the Upper Bridge.

The plaque below is on the Rathaus, and yesterday there were flowers by it. It laments the loss of lives of soldiers in Europe and Africa, women, and children in WWII, and expresses indelible gratitude for their sacrifice. The Germans have come a long way in 80 years and are not that far out of line for remembering or thanking their lost combatants.

Hellerhaus in Bamberg, a prestigious town house, built around 1730-40, possibly based on plans by Justus Heinrich Dientzenhofer.

We proceeded to the main walking streets of the island (Inselstadt), spotting this great hanging sign. Often the use of the premises has changed since the sign was put up, so this was by a current ladies' clothing store, rather than anything to do with babies.

St Martin's church is located at the Green Market. This building used to be a Jesuit church, but when Old St Martin (in Maximillian Square - further on in our walk) was demolished, all its art and stuff was transferred here. This church was constructed in 1686, but the transfer happened in 1804.

Dodie went in for a look first, and came out with a glowing report of gold paint and pink marble. I went in, and took my shot of the altar area. I felt it revealed a lot of white and insufficient pink. I also felt overwhelmed with white statues. And the ceiling I had been urged to not miss ... yeah, ok.

When I got out and reported my assessment, it was not well received. I held out the Wieskirche as a better standard bearer for Baroque churches. But actually, looking at it, there is a lot of white too, and statues.

But Wieskirche has a Golden Lamb - hard to beat!

St Martin's counters with this piece, featuring about 25 cherubs!

Our next stop was Maximilian Square, the largest square in town. This is the site of a reportedly fabulous Christmas market. The square takes its name from King Maximilian I of Bavaria (1756-1825). Maximilian features in a fountain, along with Bishop Otto I of Bamberg, King Conrad III, and the ubiquitous Kunigunde (980-1033).

We came along next to an old guard house, on guard house street. This was ok, and did have some interesting carvings, as below:

But the main claim to fame of this site, was that it was housing the bakery of the golden Fox.

Their slogan is something like "You know what you are eating"

The thing about this bakery is that they came up with what I think is the ultimate in schnitte. (I asked for their strawberry and their raspberry, and the lady put them both on one plate. She must have thought I looked really hungry.) The structure of the two varieties differed a lot, but both were stellar. For starters, both had that cookie like base. Then the strawberry had two thin layers of not too fluffy cake, with a yogurt based concoction in between. On top was a generous layer of gelatin coated strawberries.

The raspberry version was a little more sophisticated, with a thin and not at all fluffy cake layer, a thin layer of custard, and then a massive thick raspberry section.

These two were unbeatable, and mean that we can shut down all further research!

We split each specimen so we both could try each. The piece on the left is still the raspberry one, though it looks like it has a stray strawberry?

Should we move research to strawberry croissants?

It was time now to begin to head to the train station. We did see another couple of things on the way:

A bell tower, or maybe just a bell statue, up on a building.

In the elegant style of this town, a "pissorte".

At the train station, we were surprised to find that not only the lift down to the tunnel under the tracks was out of order, but so was the lift up to our track. So much for the idea that the French are useless at keeping things in order, but that the Germans would be on top of it. They are all useless when it comes to this!

There was nothing for it, but to carry the bikes down, and then up again. We took off the bags and ferried them separately. The bikes, even mostly unloaded, are still insanely heavy. I find that my stamina is not what it once was, and especially after hoicking one bike, the other was a real chore. Each time this happens, I wonder - and Dodie is wondering too - if my heart will be up to the challenge. So with that in mind, I look up the stairs, as below, and think "Is this the stairway to heaven" - "Why is there a white light up there?"

We had carefully studied the screens and found that the bike car was going to be way, way, down the platform. So we positioned ourselves down there, and waited for the 12:42. When it came, and before we could begin to board, a conductor came running up and demanded to see our bike reservations. The reason was not enough space in the bike section of the car. The conductor did a lot of running back and forth, while assuring us that the train was not leaving until he gave it the ok. Finally, a hapless girl and bike got thrown off the train - no bike reservation. But for us to board, the bikes would have to be hung. We were not pleased about having to pull all the bags off, and not sure where the bags should then be stored. But we did it, and a nice young man helped with getting the bikes onto the now two remaining hooks.

As we debated the various aspects of this with the conductor, he fretted about the train now being late. Sure enough, our phone got a message from DB, saying the train would arrive in Leipzig late. Their excuse: "Assisting passengers with boarding and alighting". We'd say that was accurate.

The 12:42 is our train, and only section e is going to have a bike car. But we have reservations for that section, ha ha.

At Leipzig, people helped us take the bikes off the hooks and off the train. We then had to completely reload the bikes and look for the exit.

It was true that we did not have to go under or over any tracks to get out of the building. But they saw us coming, and put in a set of (down) stairs, right at the exit. I bumped one bike down these, but Dodie approached a gaggle of teenagers who were sitting on the stairs. In seconds, they grabbed the second bike and whisked it down. So that was it - we made it to Leipzig!

Now in our hotel room near the station, our gear has been sorted into what little will come home as carry on, and what will stay with friends here, ready for the next excursion. Tomorrow we ride out to Markranstadt to meet up with those friends. So there is still a bit more to come on this adventure!

Today's ride: 7 km (4 miles)
Total: 3,247 km (2,016 miles)

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