Ulm: Attack Swan On The Danube

We drove next to nearby Ulm and stopped at a free municipal stellplatz in a huge public park right on the Danube. Before venturing into the old city, scarcely a mile away, we spent a few pleasant afternoon hours wandering in the park and along the river.

At the stellplatz; minimal, but legal and free, and with a nice
supermarket a block away

Vicki in the park

Outdoor sculpture all around, like most of the German cities
we have visited

Now again on the Danube, not far from its source in the
Black Forest

Already a sizable river, however

And a play place for Ulm's residents

But danger lurks...or stands in the middle of the path...in
the form of Papa Swan

Joggers could see what was coming and veered well off the
path; but few cyclists saw him in time to take evasive action

Thus

And especially thus; "It's a dangerous business, Frodo,
going out your door..."

Augsburg Churches

I had more than the usual cultural/historical interest in Augsburg. In the 1730s Salzburg Emigration, many Protestant families, including the Scheraus family, went first to Augsburg for a bit before traveling on to Savannah and the New World. I had read somewhere that Augsburg was the most Catholic of German cities at the time and have always been curious as to why their exile began there, of all places. As with most things, it's a lot more complicated than that, beginning with the Peace of Augsburg, 1555, which guaranteed peaceful co-existence of Protestants and Catholics for a time. Well, anyway, we visited a couple of churches in Augsburg.

Augsburg cathedral

In the courtyard, a relief of Roman textile merchants, found
in excavation around the church

Interior, nave and simple rib vaulting; I'll never understand
how that little can hold up the ceiling and roof

As we walked in, organ practice was
underway, and continued

What was most striking about this church
was that it still had much of its painted
walls intact, including this puppy at
the west end, which was at least 40 feet high

More painted interior

Nice windows too, some very old

And a Mary tympanum on the north side

After the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, the Catholics built a
church for the Protestants, a gesture, I suppose; it actually
adjoins the Catholic church, the gray structure in the
center there; kind of Counter-Reformation Baroque, I
suppose, but what the hey...

Interior of St. Ulrich's, now an Evangelical Lutheran church

Offering box my ancestors might have used;
I tossed in a few coins for the effort

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