Augsburg, Part II

Our 2 days in Augsburg were FABULOUS - it is not a well known city but it is extremely interesting and beautiful.  As you may have gleaned from a previous blog, I kept asking why we were returning to Augsburg after all these years and Cindy just smiled knowingly.  As reported, we had a great first night on our own and then at 11 am the next day our former landlords Erich and Elisabeth met us in the hotel lobby and our real adventure began ...

Martin Luther was in Augsburg and there is much evidence of that in the various churches, plaques, and statues. Augsburg has the first onion dome in all of Germany, and one of the churches has the oldest stained glass in Europe (they hid the 4 panels during WWII when Augsburg was 80% destroyed).  The Rathaus is gorgeous - the largest in Germany - and the pedestrian shopping area is almost endless with many fancy stores as well as many normal ones. On an early morning walk I went through the city market, which is as old as it is beautiful with all manner of meat, fruit, vegetables, and fish including trout still swimming. It was so early that I was the only customer; all the others were vendors setting up. I saw a small truck with a tank on it next to the fish market and upon closer inspection found two men dipping nets into the tank and removing fresh trout to place in the tank of the fish market. There is fresh and then there is FRESH!   Parts of the market are indoors but much of it is partly outside with little shops that have awnings on one side that are open to the pedestrian streets within the market area. 

Back to our fabulous day:  Erich and Elisabeth are very interested in history and architecture wherever they go (we met them once in Padua) and of course they are extremely knowledgeable about the city where they were both born and raised.  One of the highlights (in addition to what is mentioned in the previous paragraph) was the Golden Room on the 3rd floor of the Rathaus - which is aptly named.  Seemingly everything is covered in gold on the walls and ceilings. There was a long line of people waiting to pay to visit the Golden Room, but Erich just told us to follow him - and we did, to a rather well hidden elevator. Upon getting out on the 3rd floor we were greeted by a ‘keeper of the gate’ who tried to tell us to go back down to the line, but Erich pulled out some kind of card and the next thing we knew the keeper was all smiles and polite greetings. We found out later that Erich is one of the members of the society that keeps the Rathaus in good shape.  Nice to be with insiders.

While we were at the Rathaus Elisabeth pointed out some wall art by Kager, an artist from the 1500 -1600’s who was born in Munich but lived and died in Augsburg.  Elisabeth told us that we were looking at reproductions - but just wait - we’d see the real thing at their house.  And sure enough, several years ago they had purchased a very old house that was in ruins so they completely refurbished it and saved the paintings on the walls which were done by Kager!  In 1600-something!  It was jaw-dropping and they did a beautiful job of fixing up the house while maintaining its historical significance.  

I need to point out something regarding communications.  Erich does not speak much English and so he just spoke - sometimes rather fast - German. The remarkable thing is that I kept up with the conversation and actually was using full sentences with verbs and everything. Amazing what you remember with just a little study and practice. If I had taken the time to study French I wouldn’t be sounding like Tarzan in Nice.  And as luck would have it, we usually separated into couples as we walked - and Elisabeth speaks rather good English.  Yet Cindy is the one who REALLY studied German and figured she’d be practicing it all day since when we lived in Augsburg Elisabeth seemingly spoke no English at all (no doubt because she was encouraging us to learn German). 

Before we left their house their daughter Steffi left work to come and see us; the last time we saw her she was still a teenager and it was fun to see her as an adult.  She took photos of all of us and one is posted below.  

That night we were invited to a dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant that they know well. We were joined by their son Erich Jr, his wife and one of their sons. Again, we ended up mostly speaking German and Italian and English was just the fall back. Turns out Erich knows a lot more English than he let on - but maybe he, like me, needed a bit of wine to loosen his tongue.  It was obvious that they were very well known since everyone was rather solicitous to them.

From Cindy:  I graduated from Augsburg College, which is named after the city, so I feel a special connection and was tickled when we had the opportunity to live there back in 1984.  I may not have remembered a whole lot about our 3 1/2 months in Augsburg so many years ago, but I do remember going to the same city market and buying potatoes.  We had only been in Germany for about 4 months and I was still adapting to the concept of ordering things orally by weight, in grams no less, so I asked for 100 grams of Kartofflen.  The clerk became very crabby and I quickly realized that I wanted a whole lot more than 100 grams, but she was not nice about it so I stuck to my guns and paid for just 1 potato.  So there!  

We heard that Rick Steves gives Augsburg about a sentence in his guide book on the area so that may be why it remains relatively unknown to Americans.  Put it on your list if you go to Germany.  

Best to all,  Cindy and William

 

Our lovely Augsburg Hosts