Regensburg for the best wurst

Pils from the train Home of Pilsen beer

all the hotels we stayed in had this odd arrangement of quilts. This one added a pillow barrier which didn't prevent Steve from crossing over. Very comfy quilt though

Regensburg main square

I liked the boar gargoyle

the Dom

old stone bridge. For many years this was the only bridge over the Danube

entrance to the bridge

colorful buildings on the other side

world's oldest restaurant. Has been in operation for 1000 years. Boats traveling along the Danube would pull up for something to eat. Steve said the wurst was the best. I am not a sausage eater

unusual display of 'schmuck' Steve thought it was hilarious there was a Schmuck Alley" in Salzburg as in Yiddish it means a crappy person or sometimes a penis. But in German it is just jewelry

over the top donuts. This was a Dunkin doughnut shop

one of their many churches

not so obvious but there are several metal arrows protruding from this saint

although the outside of the church dates it into the 700s, the interior was decorated much later

along the side they had dressed up skeletons of saints

another one  Lest you think this is weird, in Munich in their Dom they have a skeleton with jewels inset in the bare bones. St Munditia, patron saint of spinsters. And I missed it

fancy interiors. As the Catholic church was nervous about losing Bavaria to the protestants, they sent steady cash infusions to keep them happy and Luther free

We had settled happily into our six person well cushioned compartment in our German train from Prague. Fortunately no one initially wanted to sit with an old strange American couple especially those obnoxious German tween girls coming back from a  Prague  weekend. Even though the compartment was sealed off, we could hear their screeches the whole time. Later a nice young man sat with us from Kazakhstan.  Even though it was a German train. it had a Czech crew coming through with a  Czech food cart. Time to get rid of some of those kroners which I had tried to do earlier in the train station buying up supplies for our long trip. . Cost of 2 cappuccinos: 20 geller. One geller is a hundredth of a kroner . Using my old faulty math I thought the total price was equivalent to a nickel but once I figured out my awful mistake, it is more like 80 cents. I got some beer (not much more expensive) to supplement my Moravian wine that I was sipping on. Cutesy Czech towns and mountains whizzed by. Pils (Plzn, the Czech don't waste space with vowels). Announcements were made in German, Czech and English but one we hit the German border, new staff and the only language used was German. Why wasn't Steve eating the tasty food I found for him? He thought he had ate some bad pickled herring, the only thing he knew for sure I would not have eaten. But later, we figured he was just train sick as he happily devoured those wursts (not a food for queasy stomachs covered in hot mustard and sauerkraut).

I heard announcements that sounded like we were having a delay but our companion finally spoke up.  The train is broken and we all have to get out at the next station in the middle of nowhere. Will there be another train? Maybe, he said. As for being broken, it still was whizzing by at a high rate of speed. Years ago, we took an Amtrak across country which lost an engine making top speed 20 mph before we could limp into a station. He said something about bad German trains. Ha, he doesn't know about awful trains unless he has been on  Amtrak.He lived in various parts of Europe, now in Switzerland but also in Cologne Germany. Although he didn't like Czech people in general for allegedly trying to cheat you at every turn with their dicey currency exchanges, he was married to a Czech woman. He knew at least 6 languages.

There was a train waiting for us which we were given less than a minute to board. Not nearly as nice but we were very close to Regensburg whereas most of the passengers were headed to Munich.

After very crowded cities, Regensburg was a breath of fresh air. In the summer, a various water  Danube cruises go by and often stop but we didn't see any of those ships. It is a very old city complete with Roman ruins. Being on the confluence of three rivers made it very important and an early capital of some of the Germanic states. However as time went by, it became less important. It was spared bombing during the two wars as it was not important but its architecture is intact. We stayed in a very cute small inn which greeted us with glasses of wine. They had an especially good breakfast.

We took a long walk that evening and then another one early in the morning before our train to Munich. We were lucky the whole week in which temperatures were always pleasant and no rain.