Hello , it's 16.00 on Tuesday 7th May and we are docked in Vienna. This morning we have had a panoramic tour of this beautiful city followed by a walk into the centre and St Stephen's Cathedral and yes I enjoyed a Kaffee und ein stuck Sacher Torte Kuchen with real edible gold leaf atop!! Photo when I catchup with myself.
Once again, we had a sunny afternoon for a walking tour of this city. We were docked over a kilometre from the old bridge with 5 Viking ships (Viking have 17 ships operating on the Danube-Rhine etc) and another 4 from other companies all in port so to speak. So the town was very busy with tourists and locals. Our Tour Guide was born and had studied at both High School and University in Regensburg. He was a History Lecturer at the University and rightly proud of his heritage and City.
Regensburg is a city in eastern Bavaria at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers, and at the Danube's northernmost point. It's the capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state, with more than 150,000 inhabitants and is the 4th largest city in Bavaria after Munich, Nuremberg and Augsburg. From its foundation as an imperial Roman river fort, the city has been the political, economic and cultural centre of the surrounding region and later, under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire, it housed the Perpetual Diet of Regensburg.
The Perpetual Imperial Diet was one of the most important political institutions of the Holy Roman Empire. For almost 150 years (1663 until 1806) where representatives from all over the Empire met permanently in the city, so a kind of forerunner of the European Union of today.
The medieval centre of the city was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006 because of its well-preserved architecture, being the biggest medieval city site north of the Alps,
Wikipedia tells me that the first settlements in the Regensburg area date from the Stone Age. The oldest Celtic name given to a settlement near Regensburg was Radasbona, a site where a Roman fort was built around AD 90. In 179, a major new Roman fort, called Castra Regina ("fortress by the river Regen"), was built for Legio III Italica during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It was an important camp at the most northerly point of the Danube; it corresponds to what is today the core of Regensburg's Old City or Altstadt. It is believed that as early as the late Roman period the city was the seat of a bishop.
The first 2 photos show what remains of the Roman Wall and entry to the Roman Fort. The history of Regensburg is far to complex to even summarise here but has mainly to do with the transfer of power/government from a Bishopric to a self-governing city. Google is a good source if you want to know more.
I am going to pick up the story again with the photo of the small brass plaque, known as a 'tripping stone' set into the cobbles outside a house in the Old City. After the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933, many Jews fled in the following years, and some were also expelled to Poland. On November 9, 1938, several Jewish homes and stores were destroyed, and around 220 Jews were arrested and some were also deported to the Dachau concentration camp. The brass plaque records the name and fate of the Jewish family who occupied the house outside of which it now sits in the cobbles. The surviving family has to apply for such a plaque. Not all have done so and authorising the placing of this memorial is at the discretion of the local town council. I found this rather moving.
Regensburg was home to both a Messerschmitt Bf 109 aircraft factory and an oil refinery, which were bombed by the Allies on August 17, 1943. Although both targets were badly damaged, Regensburg itself suffered little damage.
The photos feature the Dom (Cathedral), an example of pure German Gothic and is regarded as the main work of Gothic architecture in Bavaria. It was founded in 1275 and completed in 1634, with the exception of the towers, which were finished in 1869. The stone bridge, built 1135–1146, represents a high point of medieval bridge building. The knights of the 2nd and 3rd crusades used it to cross the Danube on their way to the Holy Land and finally the remains of the Roman fortress' walls including the Porta Praetoria.
There are several multinational corporations located in Regensburg, such as BMW, Continental, E.ON, General Electric, Infineon, Osram, Schneider Electric, Siemens, Telekom, Vitesco Technologies and Toshiba.
BMW operates an automobile production plant in Regensburg producingthe 3 Series, 1 Series and (previously) Z4 vehicles.
An interesting and enlightening afternoon.
