Last May, my Italian relatives and I decided on a day trip to Lindau on Lake Constance, Bodensee in German. Ever allergic to highways, I took the pastoral route. Although 45 minutes longer, the scenery was well worth the detour. Peaceful meadows, valleys and zig-zagging roads showed off their colourful palette. The landscape was dotted […]
Tag Archives: Bavaria
In a previous post we left off at St. Anna’s Church – where one of the key documents of the Reformation came to be: the Augsburg Confession, presented to the Holy Roman Emperor at the Diet of Augsburg on June 25, 1530. It consisted of 28 articles of faith, which became the foundational document of […]
As mentioned in my previous post, Augsburg’s population is 259,196 and is renowned as a centre for gold and silver. After exploring the Fuggerei and its bunker, Jackson and I wandered back to the centre to visit Town Hall. The Renaissance-style Town Hall was built in the 1600s, its showpiece, the magnificent Goldene Saal, is […]
City of Fugger, and of Gold- and Silversmiths – the lasting influence of one family. Here I thought that Augsburg was going to be just another boring city…. Wrong! When Jackson, my friend and fellow seminary-graduate came to visit from Hong-Kong, sightseeing Augsburg was one of the requests. I don’t regret having gone there. There […]
Freising, Bavaria When our noon flight from Munich to Toronto was delayed to 9: pm – due to an otherwise illegal crew rest – I took the bus to the nearby town of Freising in Bavaria. Freising dates from 4200 BC, when the first settlers arrived. In 996 AD, Emperor Otto granted Market rights which […]
Bavaria 70,549.44 km2 (approx. 27,239 sq. mi.) – Population 12.6 million (December 2011) Bavaria is the largest (and independent) state in Germany – officially named Free-state of Bavaria; takes up 20% land surface. Its size is equivalent to the Province of Ontario. As mentioned in previous posts, I’m only a hop from the Bavarian border and […]
Having related all that is wonderful and good in Germany, I cannot overlook the unpleasant past and pretend it didn’t happen. This has probably been the hardest post to write. How can I attempt to relate neutrally some of the darkest events in Germany’s and the world’s history? Yet, to my surprise, when mentioning Flossenburg, […]
SPRING….. at last! Or so we thought. On an exuberant first of May, we were caressed by the sun and enjoyed open air celebrations with traditional food and hoempapa music. The rest of the month the sun played games of hide and seek. Unrelenting rain tempests and laden skies dampened our spirits and tried our […]
A Neighbourhood in Bloom As I write, spring has burst out of its prolonged slumber, exploding through dead leaves and winter dreariness. Within ten days all that looked brown sprouted buds and flowers in short succession and my surroundings are hardly recognisable. A walk in my neighbourhood boasts purples and pinks, bright yellows and […]
