Our last couple of days in Mitterfels have been spent exploring a little more locally. This is very pretty country with hills and valleys, forests and farmland, all in shades of green. Farmers have been harvesting their hay while the sun shines. Weather is very changeable, with black clouds and a few light showers suddenly transformed by sunshine that is soon very warm. Jan and Barry went for a long walk early this morning and were pleased to sight a deer, like one we had viewed from the road yesterday.
Straubing
We all went into our most local city, Straubing, expecting a guided walk in English, but it wasn't available, so we did our own sight seeing, much of it inside lovely homewares stores where Jan and I both made purchases. Straubing has a very attractive pedestrian centre with lots of interesting historic buildings, cafes, jazz playing, a market in the street from which we purchased luscious cherries. Every year the city hosts the second largest beer festival in Germany (after Munich.)
We watched a man re-tiling a roof five stories above the street, standing almost vertically without any form of safety harness.
Bodemais
In the afternoon we drove to Bodemais, a dot on the map, but a very busy centre for factory outlet stores selling glass and ceramics, dominated by the massive glass manufacturer, Joska Crystal. The store was enormous, and we only visited the smaller of the two, and we watched some glass blowing and glass etching. Prices were very reasonable.
In the evening we drove around our own little community Mitterfels and found it to be larger than we had previously thought, with numerous dining options. We ate another traditional German meal at a local guesthouse with a bar/restaurant. It was very cheap and tasty, but unsophisticated food. John and I had a serve of 2 minced meat patties served with boiled potatoes and a small side salad with pickled beetroot, carrot, cabbage and lettuce. With large glasses of wine, the bill for two of us was 15Euro (about $27).
Regensburg
Regensburg was our destination for today. The centre of the city is a UNESCO Heritage Site, with the largest intact medieval cityscape. There is little parking close to the centre but after driving around in ever decreasing circles we found a convenient parking spot. Surrounding the old centre is a large industrial estate including BMW and Siemens factories. Our first old town visit was to the Thurn und Taxis museum where we visited the Treasury and Carriage Room. The Thurn und Taxis family were responsible for establishing a mail delivery service and the logo of the horn which announced the mail delivery is still in evidence on all post offices. They were incredibly wealthy princes and today we viewed a part of their treasures. It was all splendid, including, porcelain, gold and silver objects, furniture, guns, and beautiful carriages, but probably the treasures that gave us the greatest delight was the collection of snuff boxes.
A German couple stopped to chat to us, amazed that we had traveled so long by plane to get to Europe. (This is a repeated refrain. I think airlines need to address this issue in their advertising, so that Europeans, and Americans, don't continue to feel it is too far to travel.) They were very charming and told us that although they live in Frankfurt they go to Regensburg every Wednesday for breakfast. We are still not sure if they were joking or not.
The four of us then joined a small group on a guided walking tour of the city for one and a half hours. We had an excellent local guide and learned much about the city, famous for the wealth of its merchant class who built huge mansions with towers. (The towers were totally useless, purely symbolic of the owner's wealth).
There was an curious moment when a group of girls asked if one of them could be photographed with us as they needed a photograph of one of them taken with four people all wearing hats. It was some type of school exercise. These projects set for students seem very odd indeed, but of course we were happy to oblige.
People have been, almost without exception, polite, friendly, helpful, good-natured. Young women working in shops apologise for the quality of their English, rather than expect us to have any German. Menus are often produced in English, or the staff are happy to translate menu items.
After the tour, in very bright sun and walking on cobbled streets, we were all in need of something to eat. Jan and Barry chose sausages and sauerkraut at the oldest sausage bar in the world (800 years); but I felt I couldn't face another sausage so John and I had a French meal at a little cafe in one of the narrow side alleys. My Salade Nicoise was excellent and John had a good salad of shrimps and mushrooms.
The restaurant's downstairs toilets had a glass wall which looked into what seemed like a bottomless medieval pit. A very eerie experience.
We then retraced our steps to visit some antique shops we had seen earlier and made a couple of small purchases.
We joined Jan and Barry on the ancient stone bridge, built in 1135. It has stood the test of time very well, and until recently was open to vehicles, but the practice of putting salt on the road in winter to protect motorists has now done damage to the stones, so they are trying to rescue it from further deterioration. It is a lovely outlook from the bridge to the city.
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