On To Augsburg

There are a number of notable southern German cities we'd never gotten to, so we thought we'd take the opportunity to visit a few, beginning with Augsburg.

Things started well...that's a Tesla being recharged, right on main street; just
like the Bay area; we parked just outside the old city and walked in

Main square; statue of Augustus; Augsburg was first a Roman capital, then an
imperial free city; then the site of many Reformation/Counter-Reformation events

Rathaus and tower

Looking back up the main drag, Maximilianstrasse, from Ulrich's church,
more about which in the next post

Here Martin Luther met with Cajetan, the Pope's legate,
trying to sort things out; they didn't; Cajetan later helped
draft Luther's excommunication writ; Cajetan was sort of
an early 16th century Forrest Gump; he was there and
had a hand in a number of the most notable events of the
era, e.g., the Pope's refusal to recognize the divorce of
Catherine of Aragon and Henry the VIII; many other
Reformation era events transpired in Augsburg as well, 
the Augsburg Confession, the Diet of Augsburg, the
Peace of Augsburg; it is unfortunate that so few Americans 
know  anything of the Wars of Religion that  occurred in  
the 16th and 17th centuries; they have everything to do 
with the founding of our country, freedom of religion, 
separation of church and state, etc.

Augsburg also was home to the Fuggers, the greatest banking family  of the era;
the personal banking office is still open for business; the  Fuggers were the
financiers of the Hapsburgs, among others

Inside the Fuggerei, the small city-within-the-city the Fuggers established in
the early 1500s to provide care and residences for the indigent; still in
operation...prove need, pay less than a buck a year, and pray regularly for the
Fuggers; there's a long waiting list, one assumes

A bit more of the downtown, old city; many, many beautiful old buildings

Gate tower on the old city wall, dated mid-1500s

Built using recycled materials