This was going to be a long day; got up early, had breakfast, paid the hotel bill, loaded the car, said goodbye to the very competent and charming lady that ran the small hotel in Grainau, and got under way, direction Augsburg (well, direction Munich, as all roads north eventually converge on a tunnel, 2+ km long, cut through the mountain north of Garmisch-Partenkirchen for the Munich autobahn). Later, you get to diverge in other directions, including Augsburg. We chose to take the more scenic route, which took us past previously visited Ettal, Oberammergau, Unterammergau, etc. We could have take a faster route on the autobahn, but Scott and I came that way last year, and it is pretty soul-less. Rule of travel for reasonably short trips (2 hours or less) in Germany - unless you are in a total hurry, get off the Autobahn, but stick to Bundesstrassen (B roads); you'll see more and only take a little longer.
We got to Augsburg in about 90 minutes (going the fast route might have made that 75), and parked central to the centre of the city. Greater Augsburg is a sprawl, but the historically important and interesting old city is quite compact (which is a good thing, as we only had limited time before we got onto the rest of the lengthy drive this day). Almost everything of historical interest in Augsburg is concentrated along a central, very wide, avenue; the exception is the Fuggerei (no, that is not a bad word); a very early (16th c.) housing complex for "pensioners" in the city; pensioners in quotes because pensions really didn't exist - however Jacob Fugger, a very rich banker (rich from financing and then collecting on political offices), built this complex of row-houses for those who had no other means of support, the only requirement beyond a very modest rent of a few pennies a year being that they would daily pray for the soul of Jacob Fugger. Today the operation has been taken over by government social welfare, the rent is still minimal for very modern but modestly sized apartments, and no praying is required. Cynically, if several centuries worth of praying for the soul of Jacob Fugger didn't have a positive effect, it is unlikely that further praying would improve his situation.
But, I digress.
Other than the Fuggerei, everything is along a central axis, a very wide avenue. It wasn't always very wide! The aforementioned Jacob Fugger, deciding that Augsburg was important enough to deserve a wide central avenue (which incidentally would create a large open space in front of his own large and posh residence) had the houses between two streets along the route of the avenue razed; I have not been able to ascertain whether the owners of said razed houses were actually compensated.) Whatever; Jacob made it easy to see Augsburg.
At the northern end of Jacob's avenue is Augsburg Dom (cathedral), named Maria Heimsuchung (same as the church on top of the Zugspitze). Founded in 15 B.C.E., Augsburg goes back more than 2000 years as a city; it is named for the emperor Augustus, so we are dealing with a time around the birth/ministry/death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Whatever; around the cathedral are examples of buildings with features that are (or might be?) baptismal fonts, decorated with early Christian symbols (fish), and there is other evidence of a very early (1st c.) Christian presence. And even ignoring all that, Augsburg cathedral is worth a visit; the present building dates from the late 1st to early 2nd millennium, with 14th and 15th c. gothic renovations. There is significant stained glass art, and the Romanesque bronze doors depict allegorical and biblical figures..
From the cathedral one can walk along the central avenue (the Maximillianstrasse for most of the way), reputed to be the most beautiful street in southern Germany, for about 1300 metres. One walks past the city hall, with a large open square in front of it and its Augustusbrunnen (a fountain with a large statue of the Emperor Augustus). Beside the city hall is the Perlachturm (Perlach's tower), which can be climbed (70 metres) to a viewing platform which shows all the city in panorama, the Alps to the south, and Munich to the north-east. Further along are the Fuggerhäuser, the city residence of the Fuggers; it is in this large city palace that Martin Luther met with Cardinal Cajetan (the pope's representative) and delivered the Augsburg Confession (Luther's statement of Lutheran belief) and stated his famous, "Here I stand, I can do no other!" The building is still owned by the Fugger family, and next to one small door a discreet sign announces the "Fürst von Fugger Privatbank" (Count Fugger Private Bank); some of the remainder of the building is a luxury hotel. Continuing the walk, one passes a number of impressive fountains and buildings, and at the end of the avenue to the churches of St. Ulrich and St. Afra (both of whom were local early Christians); these two separate worship buildings are build one on top of the other; the bottom is St. Ulrich, on top is (confusingly) St. Ulrich and St. Afra (the saints are buried in this building). Pre-Reformation, these were simply two separate worship spaces; after the Reformation, in a very sensible compromise the bottom became Lutheran, and the top remained Roman Catholic. Today, while separate, they operate a very significant joint ministry within the city of Augsburg.
We were only able to visit St. Ulrich, which is a very brightly lit but relatively low ceilinged church, reminiscent of New England churches (or maybe, given the time sequence, New England churches are reminiscent of St. Ulrich). The front of an almost all-around balcony is decorated with ooil paintings of biblical scenes, and the furnishings are mostly very simple pine (the pews under the balcony are very dark, the ones in the centre very light - these are quite new and in time will darken to match). The Roman Catholic St. Ulrich and St. Afra was closed for a complete interior restoration (and the signs announcing the closing also announced that the celebration of Mass would continue on a slightly reduced schedule in St. Ulrich, the Lutheran church - we can get along if needed!) Scott and I were able to visit St. U and St. A a year ago, when we happened to be there for Ascension day, and even late afternoon the haze and scent of incense permeated the space. It is in the gothic style, very high, and also very bright, and worth a visit (if it is open!).
After this, we walked back to the City Hall Square, and had lunch, outdoors, at one of the two restaurants that border the square. I love this part of German life; having lunch in a public square, good food, good beer and wine with no morality police worrying about some people having a drink in public, and being able to observe life going on all around - the elderly ladies who lunch, the business people stopping to relax on their way between meetings, the mother and daughter out for lunch together with mother asleep in her chair.
Alas, after lunch it was drive, drive, drive. We headed roughly north out of Augsburg to the A8 autobahn, and from there it was east in the direction Stuttgart, then Mannheim, via a sequence of autobahns. From Mannheim it is roughly north, following the course of the Rhine, although we never actually saw the river. And while no part of Germany if ever totally ugly - there are always beautiful vistas even from the autobahn - this is no way to go up the Rhine valley - but we were short of time. And so we drove past Heidelberg, visible off to the right in the distance, but were not able to stop for even a short visit. (It was 1969 when I was last there, and I would dearly love to re-visit - perhaps another time.).
In late afternoon we arrived in the Frankfurt-Mainz-Wiesbaden area, and found our way to the Hotel Rebe in Hochheim am Main (note on rivers and cities; many German towns and cities are named by the river they are on to distinguish the from other, similarly named towns or cities - thus my late father's town was Höchstadt an der Aisch [Höchstadt on the Aisch river] to distinguish it from at least five other Höchstadts). So we were in Hochheim am Main (on the Main river - and non-German speakers are now scratching their heads and screaming "but I thought he said 'an der' means 'on the' - well, it has to do with the gender of German nouns [and rivers] and for reasons known only to German lexicographers the Aisch river is feminine and the Main river is masculine - and as far as I know, rivers are only masculine or feminie, never neuter, eg. the Rhine is masculine, the Danube is feminine - go figure!).
Moving right along - Hochheim is on the Main river, which not far from there flows into the Rhine. To get more confusing, further up the Main, back where my father lived, the banks of the Main have significant wine growing going on, and produce a speciality wine called Frankenwein (the wine of the Franks) which is usually bottled in very distinctively shaped bottles called Bocksbeutel, sort of elliptically shaped both vertically and sideways. (Sadly, very little of this wine finds its way to the LCBO, and when it does is of mediocre quality and overpriced - there is not a lot of it being produced, and the Germans are not stupid and keep the good stuff for themselves.) But again, I digress - Hochheim is in a wine growing area, surrounded by vineyards, but despite the river they are on, they are growing Rhein wine (Rhine wine), which tends to find its way into the LCBO listings as plonk called Black Tower or Blue Nun, but actually comes in almost infinite varieties and much better quality than they usually ship abroad.
After settling into the hotel, we wandered up the street to a little courtyard restaurant that Scott and I had discovered the previous year. There we had the usually excellent meal, with a bottle of the local wine (grown on the Main but Rhein) from a vineyard that had been granted the use of her name by Queen Victoria, as she had liked the wine when she had visited this town about 110 years ago. (It is easy to forget the connections between British and German royalty, but Victoria would be here visiting cousins both by blood, through the House of Nassau, and by marriage to Prince Albert of Saxe-Cobourg.).
And then to bed.
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