Sunday morning we got up bright and early because we had decided to head to the beautiful city of Regensburg in Eastern Bavaria. I don’t have any photos of it so you should definitely click on that wiki link to see some, because I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s beautiful. A UNESCO world heritage site, the town is situated on the river Danube and largely escaped bombing during the second world war, so has a virtually intact medieval centre which is well worth a visit. It’s quite a surreal place; almost every building in the town centre would warrant being a museum piece in another location, yet people do actually have to live normal lives here and so you have medieval churches with a discreet sign outside indicating that they now serve a wide range of spaghetti

I have been to Regensburg many times before, but never fail to be impressed by it. On Sunday I was obviously very tired, and I was in a not inconsiderable amount of pain which the two paracetamol I had remembered to pack with me didn’t do a whole lot to shift, even when I had the happy thought of combining them with Gluehwein. Still, it was one day only and I made the best of it. Things got off to an excellent start when, upon checking out of the hotel in the morning, I was handed…. wait for it…. a rubber duck!!!!!!! Which is why the Hotel Mark in Munich must surely rank as the best hotel of all time; as a Christmas present, they were presenting every guest who checked out with their own duck My sister got one too, though I’m not sure she appreciated it as much as I did

The train journey to Regensburg takes about an hour and a half and is fairly pleasant, especially when remnants of Friday’s snow were still covering the countryside. Once in the town, we wandered around for a bit to soak up the atmosphere, before consuming some more sausages at the main Christmas market in the town centre. It was a beautiful sunny day, and I really wished I had a memory card in my camera as we went for a stroll across the famous stone bridge over the Danube. The bridge once made Regensburg an important trading centre, and knights pupportedly used it as their route to cross the river on their way to the Crusades. It is almost overwhelming to have so much history in one place. Regensburg was also the home of the famous Johannes Kepler, something which as a mathematician I find rather exciting, and the current Pope has links with the university there. Not all history is positive, however. Every so often the cobbled streets are broken up by golden stars, which give the names of the Jews who lived in these streets and the camps they were deported to

As the afternoon drew on, we sought on a private Christmas market which was taking place in the grounds of Schloss Thurn und Taxis, a large palace belonging to a famous German dynasty, which is situated between the town centre and the train station. You had to pay to get in, which personally I found a bit off-putting, but in the end it was well worth it because it was a totally unique experience. If anything, it was more medieval than the so-called medieval market we’d visited the previous day in Munich Walkways were illuminated with burning torches, and at random intervals there were open log fires burning for guests to warm themselves around. It was a total disregard for European laws on health and safety which would never be allowed in this country, but nevertheless it was all rather lovely. We ended up eating a massive portion of Kaiserschmarrn, a traditional Austrian/Bavarian pudding which consists of broken up pieces of pancake served with sauce. Delicious I also managed to fit in another latte macchiato before it was time to catch the train back to Munich.

The journey home passed mostly without incident, although there was a lot of turbulence on the flight which made it difficult to drink my coffee. All in all it was a lovely weekend, and something which I would definitely choose to repeat

Tags: Christmas, Germany, regensburg

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