Bamburg

This morning we visited another medieval town, Bamberg, once very important as the centre of one  of Germany's most powerful imperial dynasties and today a UNESCO World Heritage Site, fortunately this area was not badly affected by the bombing during the war. An interesting feature of the town is the Altes Rathaus (Old Town Hall), built on an island in the middle of the Regnitz River when the bishop refused to give the townspeople land for a town hall. Also one of the buildings we saw has subsided so badly on one side that all of the doors and widows were slanting. Even worse than many others we've seen.

 

We heard a really interesting talk this afternoon about the construction of the Main-Danube Canal; the 170 km long man-made canal which joins the Main and Danube Rivers. The idea started in 1546 but digging soon ceased because the sand fell back in as quickly as it was dug out. King Ludwig 1 started it again in 1826 with difficulties also.  A new route was planned and the canal was recommenced in 1939 and finally finished in the late 1992 at a total cost of 2.8 billion Euros, and now has 122 bridges crossing it and 34 locks.

The lock system is fascinating; worth Googling! It take ships up a hill and down the other side. We just went through a lock which raised the boat 20 feet but there is one which is 100 feet deep..or high??

It was never envisaged that cruise ships would use this canal so docking in some towns has been a problems because allowances were made but thy are working on new docks to accommodate the ships.

 

The funny thing was, as interesting as this talk was, the man who gave it didn't pronounce his Vs, so every word that started with V he said with a W; so we had Willages, Wessels, Walleys, Wisitors and Wisible.

Can you imagine the Wessels going through the Walleys and Willages?? All very wisible to the Wisitors in the Willages

 

:-)