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

Therme Erding

Readers of this blog know that we sometimes indulge in mineral springs, spas, Turkish baths, and so on. We did this again at a place called Therme Erding, in Erding, several miles from Munich. It bills itself as Europe's largest "thermal world." We stayed there, rather than in Munich, because Therme Erding offers sort-of -free parking for Wohnmobil clients. In retrospect, I can say it was a mistake. Unless of course your idea of fun is watching a crowd of over-weight and under-clad German suburbanites waddling and prancing around in tepid waters. Way over-priced, too. We spent a bit of time there on a Saturday evening--there was a Groupon for the place that day--and it was awful.

Driving up, we thought at first it was a military installation

A somewhat more flattering view as we left

We figured that any place that used Botticelli's Venus as
its emblem could be OK

It wasn't; even with the glamour shot

Munich's Alta Pinacotek

We spent a fair amount of time in Munich two years ago, and so the only thing we really yearned to see again was its Alta Pinacotek, its old paintings museum. Again, it's one of the great museums of the world, especially if its north-of-the-Alps collection appeals...

Durer's 1500 self-portrait, one of my favorite paintings, and
certainly my favorite self-portrait; but here I must protest--
the museum's placement of this, its most famous item, is poor
and undistinguished, and, like so many paintings we have
seen in great museums recently, it is covered over in glass,
the glare from which makes viewing difficult, much less
photography; I sympathize with the concerns for security,
but I'd rather be metal-detectored and strip-searched than
have every such work of art world-wide so diminished;
soon enough we'll all be going to Google Art rather than
museums, and this practice only hastens that day; see my
August 11, 2010 post for better pix of this and other holdings
of the Alta Pinacotek; commentators usually note Durer's
audaciousness in painting himself as Christ; the inscription
says "I, Albrecht Durer, of Nuremburg, painted this in
permanent colors"; south of the Alps they had not yet quite
gotten into oil painting...

A curious detail from a 14th century adoration of the kings/wise men/magi,
the artist, like so many from that time, unknown to us; justification for usury?
indulgences?

Detail from a late 15th century Last Judgment panel by Hans Fries; Vicki called
this to my attention, noting it is probably the first representation, in European art,
of thongs

Another late 15th altar detail, the temptation of some saint
or other, by Michael Pacher; note butt-faced devil; you
have to spend many hours studying art history to notice
things like this; again, credit Vicki

Cranach's Lucretia; he used the same model for Eve, Venus,
Judith, et al.

And five different times in this Golden Age

Pieter Brueghel the Elder's wonderful Fish Market; enlarge to appreciate the
incredible detail

Boucher's Resting Maiden (we got a little out of order after lunch)

One of the things we like about this museum is that in many rooms they leave out
whole books, in various translations, dealing with the masterpieces nearby

Rembrandt's Raising of the Cross; scholars conjecture that
he painted himself in to demonstrate that he too was a
mortal sinner; I conjecture that he had not met his quota of
self-portraits that month, and so worked himself in, center
stage

Leonardo's Madonna and Child; note the fantastic landscape
in the background...

Detail from a Botticelli Deposition; Vicki and I can spot a Botticelli at 40 paces;
we're getting to like even the religious ones

Albrect Altdorfer' impressive Battle of Issus; you do remember
about the Battle of Issus, where Alexander defeated Darius...

Durer's Holy Guys; John and Peter, Paul and Mark (an odd
assemblage)

And finally--what else?--a fragment of one of Bosch's Last Judgments, which
I had misidentified (good grief!) earlier as a Brueghel

Ceski Krumlov: The Rest

Next morning we rose and began inquiring about the best walking route from the campground to the city center. Estimates varied from 2 to 4 kilometers, 2 being the more accurate, at least on the haphazard navigational method we usually follow (every few hundred feet, ask some stranger for directions; generally works, except in Rome, where few people know where they are or what the touristic destinations in their neighborhoods might be). Ceski Krumlov is a World Heritage Site chiefly for its architecture, castle, and St. Vitus church. It is very pleasant and easy on the eyes, and we enjoyed our day there, especially seeing the Czechs at play.  

Typical street scene in lower town

Beautiful old hotel/restaurant every window of which was decorated in metal
work like this; oh yes, American friends, that's the real Budweiser; ours is but
a pale fake, not even American-owned anymore...

Another of said windows

Typical buildings

Main square and plague monument

The town's most-photographed sight is the castle's painted tower, seen here from
the square

"Hey, careful man, there's a beverage here" interlude:
20 crowns to the dollar; that's right, sports fans, a big
mug of draught Pilsener Urquell for 60 cents; and wifi
too

Tower from the castle grounds

Two bears live in a compound just below the tower, possibly
the former moat

Bear vittles still life

Practically the whole castle is a study in exterior trompe l'oeil, some of it good

Me, at the castle, over-looking the town and St. Vitus'

Interesting hair style Vicki is considering

St. Vitus

The old town is the World Heritage Site; contemporary Ceski Krumlov, in the
distance, with its rows of eastern bloc apartment buildings, is not so appealing

Ceski Krumlov: The Water Sports

So we drove on from the Danube, knowing we would see it again, heading north, back into the Czech Republic,* our destination the Rickie Stevie League of Undiscovered Cities town of Ceski Krumlov. It also happens to be another World Heritage Site. We found it easily enough, and though the only campground location we had was on GPS, we found it easily enough too. What we found, however, had no RVs or Wohnmobils, only tents, hundreds of them. Many hundreds. We thought maybe it was a Czech Woodstock. The throng was gentle enough, however, mostly young, and many with young children. We generally feel safe around young children. Anyhow, we found the recepcion and paid our 10 dineros, and all was well, if somewhat goofy, until the mother of all thunderstorms hit. We probably were the only persons in the campground who were not flooded out.

What we had wandered into was a 3 day Czech weekend, in the summertime, and one of the national past-times, floating the gentle and shallow Vltava river that wraps itself almost entirely around Ceski Krumlov. From Wulingyuan in China, to Ceski Krumlov in the Czech Republic, I continue to see river floating as one of the great humanizing activities, one in which people show their true nature. Etc. The Czechs appear to be a very orderly and peaceable lot, if a bit prone to sunburn. We saw no river drunks and no water fights. At the TI, between her English and my Czech, I discerned that the holiday celebrated the two saints who had brought Christianity to the Czechs. A fitting occasion for weekend water sports, I thought. We hoped we might also join in the festivities until we learned that every boat in the county had already been rented.

The lower of three levels of tents; from the middle, looking
up-river

Ditto, looking the other way; you can see our camper
middle-right; there was another such campground, a few
hundred meters up the river with, presumably, hundreds
more tents

The campground cafe/pub, just before the deluge

Next day was sunny and warm; the less quiet parts of the
river are navigated through little chutes, thus

And thus

As I said, they are an orderly people; here passing by a
cafe where we had stopped to snack

From the castle heights, queuing up for the portage

And re-embarking

I think this may have been a mandatory beer stop

Another chute, another queue; another day on the Vltava

*our primary motivation here was to avoid the Austrian autobahns, heading west, which require a hefty “vignette,” or usage fee, or rather, for our size and weight, purchase of a “GO Box” that uses GPS to track and charge for usage of said autobahns. Austrian restaurants charge for bread by the piece, ordered or consumed. Similarly for autobahns. It would be an outrage for the Czechs to so charge for use of their “autobahns.” 

Danube

Thursday we finally were able to leave Vienna. We drove up the Danube, the Great River that flows from the Black Forest, just miles from France, through a dozen or more nations, and then empties into the Black Sea. Just to see a little more of it.

Stopping briefly at the Melk monastery

Looking down river from Melk; castles everywhere

Looking at one of the great river cruise ships

Not the only way to see the Danube