The Carmichaels Abroad: April 2: Ich bin Bamberger!

Our plans – and former habit – of rising early and getting out there before the rest of the tourists have gone to pot. I dutifully set the alarm for 8:00 this morning, and then shut it off and slept for another hour. The beds were just too cozy, and the rain drilling against the window made the idea of getting out of bed seem just plain silly. However, we did struggle out of bed, and today we did a walking tour of Bamberg, complete with audio guide. This historic city, a UNESCO world heritage site, is beautiful, and so different from anything I have ever seen before. Every building is individually worthy of admiration, and even the rain, wind, and snow could not keep us from making every stop on the audio tour!

Breakfast in the hotel was very good, even though we sneaked in only a few minutes f=before the 10 a.m. closing time. Out we went, headed for the Tourist office and the Bamberg Card. It was just 4 degrees and raining hard. We decided that the first stop would be for gloves and an umbrella, but didn’t find a place before the Tourist office, where I splurged on a really good souvenir umbrella. I love my new umbrella with its scenes of Bamberg – but it doesn’t fold! The most important thing we got with our cards was an audio tour of the town. It was hard to follow the instructions of where to go next, but certainly was a good explanation – and in English. Ian gulped a bit at handing over his passport – we leave before the office opens tomorrow, but we put in the earpieces and headed off on our way. Here is a brief overview of our tour:

First, we went over the bridge – Bamberg is built where two rivers meet – and saw the old town hall. It is built in three styles, Baroque, Rococo and traditional Bavarian for the little soldiers’ quarters, appearing to hang over the river. The Prince Bishop would not grant land to the townspeople to build a town hall because he didn’t support their having freedom, so the people built their town hall on an island in the river, since the rivers belonged to the king. This is one of the most famous buildings in Bamberg. All of this happened in the 11^th century, but that building was destroyed by fire. The new building was built in 1440, and then converted into Baroque and Rococo in 1744-1756.

We walked over the little bridge on the other side and on to the Grüner Platz, where we saw St. Martin`s Church. It is closed for renovation, but we went into the department store next door for gloves and maybe a GPS, but came away without either.

The Grüner Platz is the place where flowers and produce are sold, and in other circumstances we would have been loading up. It is also famous for its fountain which local people call the “Man with a Fork” but who is really Poseidon.

Around the corner is Maximilionsplatz, with another statue, and then we moved on to Bamberg University and the Natural History Museum. The Walnut Tree in the centre of the courtyard has probably sheltered thousands of students, and we passed many of today’s students running through the rain to class.

The Natural History museum had amazing fossils – as Ian said, they would have been even more amazing if we hadn’t seen so many excellent ones just yesterday in Berlin, , but for me the original Eighteenth Century (1793) “Bird chamber” was even more wonderful. This “museum of a museum” is full of stuffed and mounted specimens, and is painted white with many windows because at the time, natural light was all there was. Now the windows of the glass cases are wavy and distorted, as are the windows. We realized how much times have changed as we passed the taxidermy orangutan, and realized that it was probably killed to become part of a collection. Other specimens, the bats and hummingbirds, for instance, are almost devoid of colour. In contrast, the noisy exhibits below with children running all around, clearly engaged in learning, showed how far our ideas of museums have come.

Bamberg is proud of its tradition of keeping up with artistic trends, and that continues to this day. There are many modern sculptures, and every second year Bamberg hosts an internationally renowned artist to live in the city for a year. These are two of our favourite such sculptures.

The Centurion

We next climbed the hill to the Dom Platz (“Dom” means cathedral and “Platz” means place or square.) The Dom has the only tomb of a Pope outside of Rome. Celements II had been Bishop of Bamberg and wanted to be interred in his beloved cathedral, and he was. In 1942, in order to protect the important artwork of the cathedral, his tomb was moved, and his body disinterred. His garments, except for his linen undergarments, are now on display in the Diocesan Museum nearby.

The Dom from a distance

Margaret approaching the Dom Platz

The tomb of Pope Clements II

Another famous statue is the Bamberger Rider, which you see here. I think he captures the imagination because nobody knows exactly who he is, although there are many stories. He has been riding there since at least 1237.

Another famous piece of religious art is the tomb of the Imperial couple, Heinrich II and Kunigunde, carved by my new favourite, Tilman Riemenshneider in 1513, and showing scenes from their life.

Of course there are many other treasures and objects of beauty in the cathedral, and I am sure I will bore you with them later!

We went to the Diocesan Museum and they are SERIOUS about not taking pictures – they make you lock them up. We saw many beautiful objects associated with the cathedral, including precious carvings, mitres and croziers, but were somewhat limited in our understanding as there was no guidebook and none of the signs were in English. We were amazed at the textiles that still existed from the era of Heinrich II and Kunigunde. Granted, they were done at least partially with gold thread, which is inorganic, but some incredible curator had arranged them on modern fabrics and the scenes and motifs were still recognizable. There was a strong smell of incense in the room with the Pope’s garments, and I hoped it was because it was because he was Pope and incense if holy, and not because of any lingering odor. Ian assured me that since he had been dead for 700 years, it was probably okay.

Our next stop was the Old Court. We loved this little courtyard, where this agricultural area was administered from for many years. The hay lofts, dormer windows, water troughs, and stable doors gave one the feeling that a farmer might show up with his contribution for the year at any moment.

We went through to the rose garden, but began to worry that we were taking too long, and wanted to get the audio guides returned – and Ian’s passport back. Besides, it was snowing (maybe hailing, but it lasted a long time) and were really not dressed for the weather. The wind had destroyed Ian’s umbrella, and mine was therefore deemed too good for actual use.

After a reviving bowl of soup and a trip back to our hotel room to get warm, we ventured out again, this time into sunshine! We wanted to go to the History Museum, but it was closed until April 25^th. We ended up instead seeing the State Rooms of the New Palace, and joined a German only tour. The guide spoke English, and there was a lovely gentleman from Koburg who helped us understand what we were seeing. The rooms had been redone in the Baroque style. The is the area where the Catholic south of Germany meets the Protestant North of Germany, so when Princess Louisa, mother of the future Empress Maria Theresa, converted to Catholicism to marry, it was a big deal, and the rooms were redecorated for her use during her confirmation into the true faith. I include a few sample pictures below.