Tuesday June 17
Speyer and Heidelberg
The ship docked at the ancient city of Speyer
before breakfast. Speyer has the largest
Romanesque building in Europe, the cathedral completed in 1111 together with
the oldest Jewish bath in Germany.
The other attraction in Speyer is the Technical
Museum which contains, amongst other things, a Boeing 747, the original Buran
Space Shuttle, the submarine A9, many other plane, boats, vintage cars and
locomotives, just driving past the site was very impressive. We had elected to visit Heidelberg today, so
we missed out on a visit to Speyer
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| Heidelberg Palace |
Modern Heidelberg can trace its
beginnings to the fifth century. The village Bergheim (Mountain
Home) is first mentioned in that period, in documents dated to 769 AD. Bergheim now
lies in the middle of modern Heidelberg and the people gradually converted to
Christianity. In 863 AD, the monastery of St. Michael was founded on the Heiligenberg inside
the double rampart of the Celtic fortress. Around 1130, the Neuberg Monastery
was founded in the Neckar valley. At the same time, the bishopric of Worms extended its influence into the valley,
founding Schönau Abbey in 1142.
Modern Heidelberg can trace its roots to this 12th-century monastery.
The first reference to Heidelberg can
be found in a document in Schönau Abbey dated to 1196. This is considered the founding date
for Heidelberg. In 1155, Heidelberg castle and its neighbouring settlement were
taken over by the house of Hohenstaufen. Conrad
of Hohenstaufen became Count
Palatine of the Rhine. In 1195, the Electorate
of the Palatinate passed to the House of Welf
through marriage.
In 1225, Louis
I, Duke of Bavaria obtained the Palatinate, and
thus the castle came under his control. By 1303, another castle had been
constructed for defense. In 1356, the Counts Palatine were granted far-reaching
rights in the Golden Bull, in addition to
becoming Electors. In 1386, Heidelberg
University was founded by Rupert I,
Elector Palatine.
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| Heidelberg Castle |
In November 1619, the royal crown of
Bohemia was offered to the Elector, Frederick V. He was married to Elizabeth, eldest daughter of James I and VI of England and Scotland) He became known
as the "winter king", as he reigned for only one winter before the
Imperial House of Habsburg regained
the crown by force. This overthrow in 1621 marked the beginning of the Thirty
Years' War. In 1622, after a siege of two
months, the armies of the Catholic League, commanded by Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, captured Heidelberg. He gave the famous Bibliotheca
Palatina from the Church of the
Holy Spirit to the Pope as a present. The
Catholic Bavarian branch of the House of Wittelsbach gained control over the
Palatinate and the title of Prince-Elector. In 1648, at the end of the war,
Frederick V's son Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine, was able to recover his titles and lands.
To strengthen his dynasty, Frederick
arranged the marriage of his daughter Liselotte to Philip
I, Duke of Orléans, the brother of Louis
XIV, king of France. In 1685, after the death of
Charles Louis' son Elector Charles II,
Louis XIV laid claim to his sister-in-law's inheritance. The Germans rejected
the claim, in part because of religious differences between local Protestants
and the French Catholics, as the Protestant Reformation had divided the peoples of Europe. The War
of the Grand Alliance ensued. In 1689, French
troops took the city and castle, bringing nearly total destruction to the area
in 1693. As a result of destruction due to repeated French invasions related to
the war of the palatinate succession coupled
with severe winters, thousands of Protestant German Palatines emigrated from
the lower Palatinate in the early 18th century. They fled to other European
cities and especially to London, where the refugees were called "the poor
Palatines". In sympathy for the
Protestants, in 1709–1710, Queen Anne's government
arranged transport for nearly 6,000 Palatines to New York. Others were
transported to Pennsylvania. They worked
off their passage and later settled in the English colonies.
In 1720, religious conflicts with the
mostly Protestant citizens of Heidelberg which occurred after he assigned a
major church for exclusively Catholic use caused the Roman Catholic
Prince-Elector Charles III Philip to
transfer his residence to nearby Mannheim.
The court remained there until the Elector Charles Theodore became Elector of Bavaria in 1777 and established his
court in Munich. In 1742, Elector Charles
Theodore began rebuilding the Palace but 1764, a lightning bolt destroyed other
palace buildings during reconstruction, causing the work to be discontinued and
no further work has been carried out since then.
After arriving in Heidelberg we walked
to a funicular which was built in the 1800s and travelled to the first station
to gain access to the castle area, as mentioned above no restoration work has
been carried out since the fire in the late 1700s but there is continual
maintenance to prevent further deterioration.
In the wine cellar of palace many wine barrels still remain, two in
particular caught our attention. The
first has a capacity of 55,000 litres and the other 250,000 litres, the larger
is listed in the Guinness Book of Records.
Above the cellars on section of the palace appears to be in good
condition with glass in the windows but no-one seemed to go inside, the wing to
the side was more of a shell following the fire caused by the lightning strike.
Walking through an arch and under the
palace we were rewarded with a view over the old part of Heidelberg and the old
stone bridge over the river. Returning
to the funicular we passed some of the houses of residence of the university
and in some of these the students still conduct sword fights as they have for
hundreds of years and a scar on the face from a sabre strike is considered a
badge of honour.
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| Town Gate from Bridge |
Back in the old town we walked to the
town square still surrounded by many old buildings and a protestant church,
many years ago the catholics were giv en the use of the church so a wall was
built inside to separate the chancel and sanctuary, which the catholics used,
from the rest of the church used by the protestants, the wall was eventually
removed returning the church to the protestants.
From the square we walked down to the
river and walked out into the middle of the stone bridge to look back at the
old town and the town gate at the end of the bridge before returning to the ship.
Later in the afternoon we were taken by
bus to some of the villages near Speyer where we were split into small groups
of around six, and we were entertained for afternoon tea in the homes of
several residents a very interesting experience, returning to the ship we
sailed for Strasbourg before dinner.
Wednesday June 18
Strasbourg
As has happened on many occasions on
these cruises we have moored at a new town before we wake up, often several
hours before the planned arrival time, this morning we also arrived at
Strasbourg early.
Strasbourg, the capital city of the Alsace region
in north eastern France, is situated on the Rhine at the German border.
The Romans under Nero Claudius Drusus established a
military outpost belonging to the Germania Superior Roman province at
Strasbourg's current location, and named it Argentoratum. The name
"Argentoratum" was first mentioned in 12 BC and the city celebrated
its 2,000th birthday in 1988.
From the fourth century, Strasbourg was the seat of
the Bishopric of Strasbourg and was made an Archbishopric in 1988.
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| Carousel in Strasbourg |
A major commercial centre, the town came under
control of the Holy Roman Empire in 923, through the homage paid by the Duke of
Lorraine to German King Henry I. The early history of Strasbourg consists of a
long conflict between its bishop and its citizens. The citizens emerged
victorious after the Battle of Oberhausbergen in 1262, when King Philip of
Swabia granted the city the status of an Imperial Free City.
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| Strasbourg |
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| Strasbourg Old Houses |
Eventually our walk brought us to the cathedral,
where our guided tour finished and we were left to fill in an hour and a half
before returning to the coach, so we went into the cathedral where one of its
highlights is a large astronomical clock in the east end.
After leaving the cathedral we wandered around
several lanes and arrived at a market, food, clothing and hardware. The range of food would be a “foodies
delight” cheeses, sausages, processed meats, braun and others, plus a huge
range of fresh meat, including poultry and rabbits, there were also stalls
selling fresh bread, pastries and cakes and it took a lot of “won’t” power to
walk past.
After lunch on the ship we set out to walk to the
Orangerie park, named after the large orangery but now without orange
trees. Nesting on the roof were three
pairs of storks with young and there must have been another twenty pairs
nesting in the trees throughout the park.
We returned to the ship by another route along a canal past about twenty
old cargo barges which have been converted into house boats, a round trip of
one and a half hours and Ann asked the Captain if he had moved the ship a
kilometre from its original mooring as it seemed further away.
Tonight was the Captain’s farewell cocktail party
and dinner and we were included in the six people invited to sit with him, we
had a very pleasant and informative dinner with the Captain explaining the many
regulations for travel on the rivers and through the locks. We spent longer than usual in the dining room
and as a consequence we missed several songs from our guest artist
tonight. The ship will sail at 2:00 am
so we probably won’t hear it.
Thursday June 19
Breisach and the Black Forest
The seat of a Celtic prince was at the hill on
which Breisach is built. The Romans maintained an auxiliary castle on Mons
Brisiacus which came from the Celtic word Brisger which means water break. The Staufer founded Breisach as a city in
today's sense. But there had already been a settlement with a church at the
time.
In the early 13th century, construction on the St
Stephansmünster, the cathedral in Breisach, started and by the early 16th
century, Breisach was a significant stronghold of the Holy Roman Empire.
We arrived at Breisach at lunch time and departed
for an hour and a half coach ride to the Black Forest area.
Our first stop was at Triberg but whether it was
for a toilet stop or to view the highest waterfall in Germany we weren’t sure. Triberg is a tourist town with many clock shops and
hotels but we didn’t have time to explore and they wanted 5 euros to view the
waterfall most people elected for a toilet stop.
Black Forest clockmakers are renowned for their
precision clocks. Most of the mechanical clocks are now sold as antiquities as
many factories were shut down after the First World War and the Second World
War. A few factories survived the structural change.
Due to the rich mining history dating from medieval
times, the Black Forest was one of the most important mining regions of Europe
circa 1100.
The Black Forest was visited on several occasions
by Count Otto von Bismarck during his years as Prussian and later German
chancellor (1862–1890). Allegedly, he especially was interested in the Triberg
Waterfalls. There is now a monument in Triberg dedicated to Bismarck, who
apparently enjoyed the tranquillity of the region as an escape from his
day-to-day political duties in Berlin.
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| 16th century Farm House |
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| Steam Train passing the Museum |
Friday June 20
A quick breakfast before boarding a bus for Zurich
airport and as we travelled on a ring road and motorway, we didn’t see any of
Basel.
We are currently sitting in the Business Class
lounge at the airport waiting for our flight to Singapore and then home.
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