Regensburg

Regensburg, Germany

Regensburg is located at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers, the Danube’s northernmost point. It was listed as a UNESCO Heritage Site in 2006 for its old town, the best-preserved medieval city in Germany. It has about 1500 listed heritage buildings of which 984 are in the UNESCO World Heritage Old Town. There’s also a 12th century stone bridge with 16 arches crossing the Danube River into the old town. Regensburg is the 4th largest city in Bavaria and 8th largest on the Danube River, also the oldest city on the Danube. It has a population of over 170,000. Younger residents generally speak English as well as German since it is taught in their schools.

stone bridge

Regensburg has comfortably warm summers, cold winters, and often clouds. The temperature typically ranges from winter lows in the mid 20’s F to summer highs in the upper 70’s F, but it does sometimes get colder or hotter. Average rainfall is about 25 inches, 3 inches less than Germany’s average of 28. The warmest month is July and the oldest January. Snow can occur from November to March. July is generally the rainiest month averaging nearly 3 inches.

Viking Skirnir in Regensburg, Germany

Regensburg River Cruise Port

In Regensburg our ship docked right in town just a short walk away from some of the town’s major sites like the gothic cathedral that towers over everything else, the 12th century stone bridge, and the famous ancient sausage kitchen restaurant. The ship was only docked there for a few hours, then it had to back out of that area and head into a small canal to go through a lock in order to bypass the stone bridge, which is too low for the ship to pass under. It was nice to have the ship right in town where people could come and go as they wished during the time it spent in port.

riverside walkway

Regensburg Walking Tour

On a very cold foggy early December morning Viking Skirnir docked in Regensburg, Germany. The included excursion at this port was a walking tour, which started right at the ship with no need to take a bus anywhere. At several degrees below freezing even warm winter clothes weren’t quite warm enough, especially for the standing around waiting for everyone to get off the ship so the tour can start part.

It’s a catfish?

The first stop on the tour was a statue not far from where the ship docked. The guide asked for guesses as to what people thought it was supposed to be. People guessed tadpole and other similarly shaped things. Not one person said catfish, which is what she said it is intended to be, though it really does not look like one.

little open square between buildings

Viking provides little audio boxes to all of the passengers, which are tuned to a specific channel for the guide you are assigned to. The guide has one for speaking, everyone else one for listening. The guides are locals who choose their own path through the city, ending at the ancient gothic cathedral that towers over the rest of the city even though some of the other buildings are quite tall.

street corner

Other than one end of the old historic 12th century stone bridge, Regensburg escaped the bombings that destroyed so many other cities during World War 2. Buildings in the old town are from generally from the 11th to 13th centuries, but there are buildings dating all the way from Roman times to the 16th century.  Like all of the small German towns, there are many churches. They aren’t the only places with tall towers though.

mostly empty tower

The rich merchants of past centuries built stone towers next to their homes to display their wealth even though most of the tower just held empty space rather than useable rooms. There is still just empty space in some of those tall towers. The stones the towers are built from had enough value back then that the towers were somewhat of an investment in that the owners could increase the height to show off ever more wealth or decrease it if the need to sell off stones happened to arise.

the cathedral towers over the other buildings

Narrow cobblestone streets lead through the pastel-colored buildings as they wind their way through town. Sometimes more space opens up on a small square or wider road. The largest open space we saw was set up as a Christmas market just down the road a bit from the giant gothic cathedral. Like many of Europe’s tall ancient buildings it was partially covered in scaffolding as renovation and restoration seems to be constant to maintain these structures.

inside Saint Peter’s cathedral

The inside of the gothic cathedral was beautiful, but quite plain compared to the excessively ornate churches in some of the other towns. This one mainly had stone pillars and giant stained-glass windows. I personally prefer stained glass windows to all the gold-plated stuff. Anything is better than the one that had coffins and skeletons on display at Melk Abbey in Austria.

Saint Peter’s Cathedral

The cathedral is called Saint Peter’s. It has been in existence since about 700 AD, but due to several devastating fires was rebuilt in the current gothic style with construction beginning in 1273. At nearly 350 feet high the church’s towers are taller than the building is wide or long. Gothic style churches reach for the heavens with towering pointed arches. The stained-glass windows were mostly installed in the 14th century. The outside of the cathedral is quite intricately detailed.

Christmas market

The Christmas market in Regensburg had a lot more booths that looked like their merchandise might actually be handmade rather than mass produced then some of the markets we saw in other towns. It was by a church, but not the gothic cathedral.

buildings on the other side of the Danube

As is standard with these tours so far it ended at a church, this time the gothic cathedral. The guide had said the next service wasn’t for awhile so people could go inside to warm up and listen to the choir practice, but it was a Sunday morning and when we went in there was a mass in progress so we didn’t stay.

wiener dog museum

On the way into town we had passed a wiener dog museum, but it was closed.

gift shop in the wiener dog museum

On the way back it was open so we stopped in and checked out the gift shop. They packed a lot of stuff in that tiny gift shop. It cost extra to go into the museum so we didn’t see that part.

ancient sausage kitchen

That street came out near the stone bridge and ancient sausage kitchen which is the oldest in the world. They not only make sausages there, but also serve them since it is a restaurant. Like many places alongside rivers in Germany, it does suffer periodic floods. The guide said that the sausage kitchen handles the flooding by flooding the building themselves with clean water so that the dirty river water can’t get in. Then they just have to let the water out when the river subsides rather than having a massive cleanup.

riverside walkway and stone bridge

From there it wasn’t too far back to the ship, and a lot faster going on our own than the slow meandering of a guided tour. Since the sausage kitchen is right on the riverfront it’s easy just to follow the river back to the ship.

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