Pencils and Plague

We began the day with a trip to the Faber Castell pencil factory, in the hope they had a tour running. Unfortunately they didn't, and their museum was also closed today, so we had to settle for a visit to the shop and a walk around the grounds and surrounding woods.

On the way back to the city we passed the Nicolaus Copernicus Planetarium (also closed on Mondays 🙄), but had more luck at St Rochus Cemetery. The cemetery was created to bury the victims of the plague of 1517–18. To avoid spreading the disease, city authorities decided to build the cemetery some distance from the city, so St. Rochus is located outside the old city wall. It's an unusual cemetery where most of the graves are low, stone coffin shapes. Among the notable burials are Franz Schmidt (the city executioner who left a diary detailing the 361 executions he performed during his 45 year career), and composer Johann Pachelbel (Canon in D)

In the late afternoon we popped into the supermarket for supplies, had another walk around the city, and had dinner in our room.Read more