Germany
Augsburg-Lechviertel

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    • Day 42

      Tag 42: Ingolstadt - Augsburg

      June 26, 2023 in Germany ⋅ 🌩️ 26 °C

      Anstatt wie geplant weiter der Donau zu folgen, bin ich an der Lechmündung abgebogen und den Fluss aufwärts nach Augsburg gefahren .

      Unterwegs habe ich meinen 3‘000. Kilometer passiert. Eigentlich wollte ich zu diesem Anlass dort ein Foto schiessen. Aber kurz vorher hat mich ein älterer Herr auf seinem E-Bike angesprochen. Er wollte einkaufen und eine kurze Spritztour machen, ist dann aber mit mir ca. eine Stunde lang mitgefahren. Ein spannender Mensch, welcher viel erlebt und viel von der Welt (teiweise auch mit dem Fahrrad) bereist hat.

      Nachdem wir uns verabschiedet hatten, hatte ich für einen kurzen Moment Mühe wieder auf meine Route zurück zu finden und musste teilweise auf ganz engen Waldwegen fahren.

      Nach dem „obligatorischen“ einkehren im Biergarten, schlenderte ich noch etwas durch die Altstadt von Augsburg und besuchte das Rathaus mit seinem goldenen Saal.

      Auf dem Rad: 93 km / 280 Höhenmeter / 4h 53min.
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    • Day 27

      26 May: What a day!

      May 26 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

      A Wow of a day!

      First up: Lutheran Mass at Sankt Michaelis, Hamburg’s most famous church and city landmark. This baroque masterpiece from 1750, affectionately nick-named “Der Michel” (“Our Mickey”) has survived war, Napoleonic invasion, a disastrous fire in 1906 and damage from Allied bombing in 1944.

      Today’s service was special as it incorporated a baptismal ceremony. To celebrate, there was a Haydn Mass (Missa Brevis of St John of God, always a delight) performed by professional singers and musicians. To top it off, the nimble organist played at three of the church’s four organs, including the Grand Organ of 1962, which at the time was the biggest church organ in the world.

      A moving experience, plus an auditory delight, hearing beautiful music in 3-D sound in a superb church.

      Next we drove 64K to the medieval town of Lübeck , “The Queen of the Baltic”. Lübeck was the leader of the Hansa League, a medieval commercial and defensive network of merchant guilds and market towns. For 400 years Hansa shaped the trade and politics of Northern Europe.

      Its memory still survives in the German airline Lufthansa-“ the Hanseatic League of the Air.”

      Marie-Thérèse’s friend Petra, who lives in the centre of the Old Town (originally a fortified island in the Trave River), acted as our guide.
      On our walk we found two sets of “Stumbling Stones”. These are small bronze plaques set into the footpath commemorating Jewish families living at this address who were taken by the Nazis.

      First stop was lunch at Schiffergeschellschaft (Ship’s Company) restaurant, founded in 1535!
      This is decorated with all sorts of nautical memorabilia. The seats (like pews) have different carved emblems. This was to ensure that crews from different ships and nationalities sat separately and didn’t get into a fight!

      After our delicious meal, Petra started showing us around the picturesque streets. Abruptly the clouds that had been gathering turned into a thunderstorm. Luckily for us , Petra knew the lady on the admission desk at the famous Marienkirche (Church of Our Lady), so we made a run for it over the cobbles and dashed through the door just as rhe storm burst.

      This remarkable church, built from 1265 by the citizens and governing council of this wealthy city, is 102m long, has towers 125m high, has the tallest brick vault in the world at 38.5 m (126 ft) , and covers 4,400 sq metres (47,361 sq ft).

      What makes it more remarkable is that this was the first ever Gothic church built in brick. It was enormously influential, “the mother church of brick Gothic”, and set the standard for 70 other churches in the Baltic region.

      Sadly, Bomber Harris of the RAF was looking for revenge targets in Germany after the Luftwaffe raid on Coventry, and on the night of Palm Sunday 1942, the church was almost completely destroyed by fire, along with most of the city centre.

      The Old Town was built largely of wood and burned well.

      After huge efforts, much of this superb building has been reconstructed, and in 1987 it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

      After a pleasant break at Petra’s charming apartment nearby, we walked over the cobbles to Lübeck’s Opera House for a performance of Puccini’s La Bohème.

      We enjoyed this excellent production, first class voices, good orchestra, deep feeling. It’s an affecting story that had us reaching for our hsnkerchiefs.

      The population of Lübeck is 318,000. Imagine a NZ city not much larger than Wellington staging 21 first-class performances of drama, opera and modern shows a year.

      After this wonderful day I could only finish with “ They drove home tired but happy.”
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    • Day 5

      Fuggerei

      October 13, 2022 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

      LEGGETE PERCHÉ È INTERESSANTE.

      - Questo quartiere è stato costruito nel 500 dalla famiglia dei Fugger, che divenne la famiglia più ricca d'Europa con la vendita di spezie e schiavi.
      - Per poter abitare nella Fuggerei una persona doveva (e deve ancora oggi) essere cattolica e residente di Augusta da almeno 2 anni.
      - L'affitto è di 88 cent all'anno, infatti queste sono case popolari per chi non può permettersi un'altra soluzione.
      - Chi torna a casa dopo le 22 di sera deve pagare una penale.
      - Oggi nella Fuggerei abitano 150 persone.
      - Il più famoso abitante della Fuggerei fu Franz Mozart, bisnonno del compositore Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
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    • Day 1

      Childhood friend

      August 22, 2015 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

      After 7 years I finally reunited with my child hood friend. We went to the city gallery in Augsburg and after some shopping we watched a movie together. It was really great day. Even though we hadn't had any contact for such a long time it still felt like we were old buddies and nothing had changed.Read more

    • Lipizzaners - day 23

      May 4, 2019 in Germany ⋅ 🌧 2 °C

      We are getting good at getting up if we need to, and were on the train at 8.30 as planned with our tickets picked up, and having breakfast in Starbucks by 9.30. Just before we were able to go in, we walked through more of the area and found some other amazing buildings that we probably should have known about before. Oh well, you can’t spend time at all of them. When we got to our seats we realised how great they were. We initially wanted to go a week earlier but couldn’t get the best tickets then. Today did work out a better day for us anyway.

      As for the performance – wow wow wow. They started with 8 of the younger horses which were still different shades of gray – they turn white when they are older. They just showed some simple exercises which was good. Then they had more experienced horses doing some of the complicated exercises while mounted. Then a session of experienced horses doing unmounted exercises with the horses leaping. Then a pair of horses doing synchronised exercises. Then a group of 8 experienced horses. What I was most impressed about was the leg changes at the canter, and their ability to turn tight circles leading with the wrong leg. The stallions looked extremely muscled and strong. It really was magical with each session introduced in german and english, and the use of lighting was wonderful as well. This was something I had wanted to see from when I was much younger, and I was very pleased that I have now experienced it.

      After the performance we went back to Klosterneuberg (camping near Vienna) and Nico. We were trying to drive as far as we could that day to Stuttgart where Jody’s son is living. We did pretty well – 570kms after leaving at 2pm, and ended up at Augsburg in Germany. The drive wasn’t too bad, though the first hour or so was on country roads in Austria before we finally got to the A1. Then when we got to Germany we were a bit confused about the speed signs, but were pretty sure that we were on an unlimited speed road by the buffeting we got from the speed of the cars going past. Nico was trundling along nicely at 70mph (around 112kph), and cars were just leaving us in the dust. We had fun watching them come up from behind and Jody was videoing them – anything to pass the time of day! It was also very interesting seeing the number of solar panels beside the motorway. The weather forecast had not been good, but the only time it really poured was when we stopped for lunch, and nicely just after Jody had filled Nico up with gas and gone into pay. The temperature got steadily lower and was 2 degrees when we arrived at 8pm. Now it says it feels like minus 1, yikes! We had been looking at different locations today and tried to stay away from the ones that were forecasting snow. We have worked out the heating in Nico now though, and are feeling toasty warm after Jody cooked some very tasty hamburgers with mince, bacon and eggs. The campsite is very basic, but is close to the motorway so we will be on our way in the morning.

      So there were no driving issues today with googlemaps, and we absolutely nailed the trains in and out. Such pros!
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    Augsburg-Lechviertel

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