Der Regensburger Dom

Yesterday we went on a city tour of Regensburg, which was really neat, but now I have blisters. Wednesdays we have off so that we can go on trips and excusions. Next week we will go to Nüremburg, which should be really awesome too.




For the first part of the tour, we went to the workshop of the Regensburg cathedral. Renovations have been going on their for quite some time, do to deterioration from acid rain and such. That was most probably my favourite part. There was a younger girl working in there, who had her masters. I couldn't quite catch what she was saying, but I later had someone explain it to me. Apparently she had to go through a LOT to be working in there. Hmm. Maybe I'll know what to write my Fulbright proposal for?
Then we walked around the cathedral a bit and we were able to see where an excavation was being done. Apparently, some centuries ago, a new part of the cathedral was built, and it must have been built on top of a cemetary. Only just recently they were able to find these bones, and they could be anyone! They said it looks like a man, a woman, and a baby. It was kind of sad really, but very interesting!!


























Anyhow, we were really lucky, and went on a special tour of the cathedral. Most people don't
get to go on the tour we went on, where you get to go up in the towers and look down. The tour guide had to unlock a special little door and then we all went up. It looked like it should have been a winding staircase, only there weren't any stairs built!! It went up and up forever, and we were all getting really tired. I was able to get some really great pictures of the city though, from the tower windows. Here is a picture of the Regensburg bridge, which I believe is even older than the St Charles bridge in Prague. This one is nice, but not nearly as cool, because there aren't street artists and such on this bridge. They told us several stories about this bridge, but I only half understood them. Something about that in the mideval century, no one was allowed to fight or duel on the bridge, and anyone who did would have their head chopped off! And then there was something else about the devil trying to destroy the bridge by lifting it up from below, but all he did was raise it.




It was kind of a pain to walk up all the spiral staircases, and everything, and get all the way to the top, but i was worth it. The posts in the upper part are all original wood, and the architects had designed a special ventilation system that keeps air flowng throughout the entire church, which has helped to preserved the wood. They showed us this special elevator thing, and you open it up and it goes all the way down to the floor of the church. They warned us to be careful of taking pictures because if we dropped anything, it would kill whomever it hit!! There was a big wheel that was used to bring the pulley up and down, and they said it took a couple of people to work it. Obviously, you can see how big it is!!



And here are two of my closest classmats, Bozhidar, or Bo, as we call him, and Allison. Allison is from Evansville as well!! Who would have thought?!
Well, I took a LOT of pictures of this trip, and it takes a while for them to load and format, so if you want to see them all, check them out on facebook. I'm about to upload them now!