Mainly cruising today

Bit of a laid back day today - later breakfast and sailing till lunchtime to Regensburg. Regensburg is a perfectly preserved medieval city on the banks of the Danube. It is so well preserved because it escaped being bombed in WW2. The town is dominated by the spires of its huge cathedral. Its charm lies in its narrow alleys and quaint squares.
There's a bridge across the river called 'the old stone bridge' claimed to be the oldest stone bridge in Europe. Right next to the bridge on the river bank is Germany's oldest sausage kitchen, dating back to 1135. It sells 6,000 sausages a day. Even though we are eating far too much, we had to try one - a roll, mustard, sauerkraut and two sausages - wow!
The cathedral took hundreds of years to build, and, because of this, has some distinctive features. Some of the stone is white and some darker in colour. White stone is dearer than the dark, so when things were tight they bought the cheaper dark stone to at least keep going. The right hand side was built first, up to the bottom of the steeple. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the left doesn't match the right.
The other strange building feature of this town are the towers. The rich merchants would build big houses to show off their wealth. When this wasn't enough, they would extend. They would add on a tower - it wasn't used for anything - it was just to say 'I'm so rich that I can build this big, tall tower that I don't use'.
Big day tomorrow - we're off to Salzburg and the sound of music?
J&JLeggi altro