Bamberg - 22 October
We went through a number of locks overnight. Now in the Danube canal we are in a section that has 16 locks from start to finish, and all are going down, as we are on the descent towards the Main River. Today our destination was Bamberg. I had imagined a tiny little town like Dürnstein, but it's quite big at 77k people. It's also a Uni town so there is a flux of student population as well.
We docked in the industrial port and were bussed the 5 mins into the city. Being a Sunday everything apart from the tavern and a few coffee shops were closed.
We still had a nice tour around the city with a local guide, and managed to get a tour group that only had four of us. She showed us some great little areas we wouldn't have found on our own including Schlenkerla Tavern which does the famous Bamberg Smoked Beer (Rauchbier). It was definitely different and had a real lingering aftertaste. Quite a dark malt beer which was smoked by accident when they had a fire at the brewery and didn't want to throw the beer out. Something that defines their beer to this day.
We also headed up to the old Court which was a highlight. It looked like we had stepped into a movie set - and it has been used in a few movies including Zorro. There was the old blacksmith that still had all of the origial tacks in the posts to stop the animals chewing on them. Next to that was the old jail where the pregnant women were kept during the witch trials if they had been accused as the child was presumed innocent. Once she had given birth she was sent to the main prison to be tortured. At that time anyone from the age of 5 was responsible for their actions and could be tortured if suspected of witchery or other misdemeanors.
There was also the residence in front of the cathedral that was never finished because they ran out of money. Very fortuitous given the last part would have meant knocking down a chunk of the old court.
The other building of note was the town hall which was built in the middle of the river. Quite a feat of engineering with part of it hanging off a rock with an old school cantilever system (aka a piece of wood) and a massive mural on the side. There are a few legends around why but nobody really knows.
We docked in the industrial port and were bussed the 5 mins into the city. Being a Sunday everything apart from the tavern and a few coffee shops were closed.
We still had a nice tour around the city with a local guide, and managed to get a tour group that only had four of us. She showed us some great little areas we wouldn't have found on our own including Schlenkerla Tavern which does the famous Bamberg Smoked Beer (Rauchbier). It was definitely different and had a real lingering aftertaste. Quite a dark malt beer which was smoked by accident when they had a fire at the brewery and didn't want to throw the beer out. Something that defines their beer to this day.
We also headed up to the old Court which was a highlight. It looked like we had stepped into a movie set - and it has been used in a few movies including Zorro. There was the old blacksmith that still had all of the origial tacks in the posts to stop the animals chewing on them. Next to that was the old jail where the pregnant women were kept during the witch trials if they had been accused as the child was presumed innocent. Once she had given birth she was sent to the main prison to be tortured. At that time anyone from the age of 5 was responsible for their actions and could be tortured if suspected of witchery or other misdemeanors.
There was also the residence in front of the cathedral that was never finished because they ran out of money. Very fortuitous given the last part would have meant knocking down a chunk of the old court.
The other building of note was the town hall which was built in the middle of the river. Quite a feat of engineering with part of it hanging off a rock with an old school cantilever system (aka a piece of wood) and a massive mural on the side. There are a few legends around why but nobody really knows.
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