4/4/2024 Bamberg, Germany

 Probably the wettest day we have had so far, we are still dealing with the delay from a couple of days ago, so we took buses into the historic city of Bamberg.  This was a Historic city in that it was the home and seat of Henry II (Heinrich II) the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The rule of Henry II has been characterized as a  period of centralized authority throughout the Holy Roman Empire. He consolidated his power by cultivating personal and political ties with the Catholic Church. Like Rome, Bamberg was built on seven hills with a church on each hill.

Former Hospital in Bamberg, was the first hospital in Germany, this building was the extension of the original hospital where they first started doing surgery.

I thought it was interesting that the carving of Jesus carrying the cross depicted the other characters in medieval German Attire.

The stardard architecture in this Bavarian region what was referred to as Half Timbered, where you can see the exposed timber in the upper portion of the building. Here there is a mixture where you have half timbered homes in the upper floors, but boroque facads on the lower three floors.  If you had a boroque facad added to your home or building it was tax free for a number of years.

This brewery was originally called the Blue Lion , but after the brewer had a Barrel roll over him and break his legs he walked with a limp, they started caclling the beer Wobbly Walker and eventually renamed the brewery Wobbly Walker.

The Cathedral

As you looked around the cathedral square you could see the progression of architecture, including gothic, romanesque, and boroque.

During the age of the Prince Bishops, the original residence was like many of the buildings in the town, half timbered.

The Prince Bishop in this area was not satisfied with this and had a new residence built to be reminiscent of the one in Wurzburg

Half way through the construction, the church decided that the bishop was spending too much, so cut him off from the funding for construction.  The left wing of the building was not done, but he believed that they would relent and let him continue, so the jagged edge on the side if this building had what he called "Waiting Stones" waiting for funding to complete.

On the back of the building facing the garden, the bishop had the facad painted on so it would look like it had a three dimensional facad.

The Garden

Looking out over the city from the garden of the residence.

The Bishop's portal, which was only used by the bishop.

Anti-Semitism here dates all the way back to medieval times. The statue next to the portal depicts a blindfolded woman representing that the Jewish people were to the truth about Christianity.

Below that is a statue depicting a demon pulling out the eyes of a Jewish man.

The people of the region even blamed the black plague on the jewish people here and killed many of them.

The fishermen's homes, in the middle ages were pretty undesirable, now very expensive.

Just upstream of the fishermen's residenced was the slaughterhouse and all the waste was just dumped into the river this led to rotting waste making the fishermen's residences undesirable.

The Rathaus or Town Hall was built on a small island in the middle of the river. with bridges crossing on either end.

The upper bridge has an arch that goes right under the end of the town hall.

After our tour we had free time so we walked back up tu the cathedral to see the interior.  Here are a few photos of the arework inside.

The alter and the Bishop's chair (or throne)

The tomb of Henry II and his wife Cunigunde sits at the front of the cathedral in front of the raiised alter.  Hendy was later cannonized as Saint Henry the Exuberant and his wife was also cannonized Saint Cuneigunde of Luxembourg

The town hall is decorated on both sides with colorful paintings.