Amberg is a medieval walled city, complete with four tower entrances to the old part of town. Here Katharina, Bianca and I are standing outside one of them, in the English garden.
The wall is still intact! It's reminiscent of the one in Nuremberg.
Notice the small grotto and statue at the peak of this house. In Bavaria, these grottos are common in Catholic homes. As for this little red house, it is reportedly the smallest hotel in Europe. On closer look, it is a B&B for newlyweds (click on the photo for an enlarged version that shows the intertwined ring decorations above the door and on the windowbaskets). For those who favor the non-subtle in life, here is a closer view of the door:
What a lovely little sequence of events! Hmmm....
Outside of the Franciscan seminary near the center of town, we discovered these jaunty, angular readers--on the steps of the seminary library. We decided to blend in. Voila! Bianca and I have made good use of our travel guides!
This is the seminary church, St. Georg's. I have never been fond of baroque, but it is impressive when the sheer amount of artifice that goes into it is taken into account.
Outside St. Georg's, we walked outside the walls once again. Notice the higher and lower walls. The lower one at one point would have been the bank to the moat.
And here is the moat! It is now a sort of public park area, and at one point we even walked by a children's playground. Fancy playing on a jungle gym in what was once an integral defense of a medieval fortress. If that doesn't put history in perspective, I don't know what does!
Commonly referred to as the Stadtbrille, or the Town Spectacles, this double-arched bridge was the first of many bridges we saw that day. Also, there were an abundance of ducks in the area. They came rushing towards us when we stopped for photographs, but, although Germany is full of fabulous bakeries, none of us had any bread at that moment.
Look closely!
This church, St. Martin's, was where I went to Mass on the Sunday after returning from Prague. The interior was gothic (no photos), and attention was drawn strikingly to the front by the one light: a giant shooting star above the altar and the creche (Nativity scene). Otherwise, there were mostly only candles. One of Katharina's friends called it the "dark church" whereas St. Georg's was the "light church." In fact, he could not understand why anybody would go to St. Martin's. I, on the other hand, could not have stomached St. Georg's.
There were Irish pubs everywhere in Bavaria! This was Kate's Irish Pub, where we went to warm up after sightseeing around Amberg. The Irish sign Cead mile failte ("one hundred thousand welcomes") contrasts with the chalked inscription above it: "20 + C + M + B + 09." It is a German Catholic tradition to have children from each parish dressed as the three kings go from house to house -- those which have this inscription on them -- and give blessings on the feast of the Epiphany, the 12th day of Christmas. The letters are the intials of the three kings: Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. The numbers correspond to the year of that Christmas, even though Epiphany occurs during the next calendar year.
Myself, Katharina's friend Dani, and Bianca in Kate's Irish Pub.
Ah, snow! How I missed you! We've since had snow in Belfast, but not much like this--the soft, downy, huge flakes that coat the ground in minutes. There had been no snow at all before we went into Kate's--and by this I am commenting on the heaviness of the snow and not the amount of time we spent in the pub. Underneath the large Christmas tree, the locals have piled their household Christmas trees.
While in Amberg, Katharina and her parents were very generous to put Bianca and me up for the time that we were there. In fact, her mother cooked us a number of typical Bavarian meals. My favourite was weisswurst, a white sausage with herbs in it, complemented by a honey mustard sauce and face-sized pretzels. Her father treated me to some Bavarian beer, which nobody but the two of us enjoyed. It is so strong and rich that Bavarians often regard it as a meal in and of itself. I could hardly finish the one glass.
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Katharina's father used to be a sailor, and he showed us photos from forty years ago of the Panama Canal, the Statue of Liberty, and other places all over the world. He now makes boats in bottles as a hobby. Katharina's mother is a full-time housewife, and she spoke no English while I spoke no German. Yet, we got along quite well. You can tell when you're being scolded for not eating knodel properly no matter what language you're being scolded in! It was very good knodel, though, and I was grateful for it.
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