Under The Dom

I’ve put up external pictures of the Dom before.  Here’s one to remind you before I continue with the post.

The Dom, sometimes known as the Regensburger Dom or the Cathedral of St. Peter, is well known as an example of pure German gothic architecture.  It was completed in 1634 except for the towers, which were finished in 1869.   The Dom is so integral to the identity of Regensburg that pretty much all of the touristy stuff (postcards and so forth) show the cathedral spires along with the Stone Bridge.  This town loves the Dom so much that they even made a chocolate version:

In addition, the Dom is the home of the Regensburger Domspatzen, literally “Cathedral Sparrows.”  The Domspatzen is the oldest boy’s choir in the world, founded in 976.  It’s also a boarding school for young boys.  The Domspatzen is quite famous, and has performed for Queen Elizabeth II and Pope John Paul II.  (Both of those events were in the 1980s though, so it’s obviously not the same kids.)   Here’s a sample performance-

I digress wildly.   The original point I intended for this post is that I finally had a chance a few weekends back to go inside the Dom and look around.  The interior contains a lot of interesting sculpture, an small catacomb, and a pretty huge pipe organ.  It was also considerably colder than the temperature outside-  I’ve been told that it’s always that cold inside the church.   Here are some pictures from that day:

Easter Weekend In Prague

Easter weekend is a four-day weekend here, because the Friday before and the Monday after are public holidays in Bavaria and much of Europe.  Not wanting to waste a long weekend, I went to Prague.

Some notes before the pictures and story:

  • The Hotel Victoria is pretty convenient to the tram lines, and the room was surprisingly nice for the low rates.
  • Never again will I use an ALEX (Arriva Länderbahn Express) train to go anywhere.  It was not a happy experience, either to or from Prague.  We were treated like cattle on the way there.  Give me a DB train any day.
  • Inside Prague, where tourism is huge, we didn’t have any trouble even though neither of us speak Czech.  There was plenty of English.  Except on the aforementioned ALEX trains.
  • The entire weekend, from rail to hotel to food and attractions, was actually very affordable.  I just wish the weather had been a little bit better…
  • While there are thirty-four pictures in this post, there are over 240 in my SmugMug gallery from Prague.  Feel free to click through that if you like.

On with the pictures and story!

There’s a lot of images here. Click to see more!

The Deutsches Museum

A few weeks back, when the weather first started to turn sunny and nice, I took another short day trip. This time, it was to München to see the Deutsches Museum. This place is sort of like the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.

Inside, there’s a huge selection of aircraft, boats, space vehicles…

I kept waiting for James Franciscus and the mutants to come see this one…
This poor guy must have been waiting for his flight forever.

Up on the sixth floor, there’s a sundial garden. Since the weather has recently started to be sunny, this was a beautiful spot.

…I also got this pretty spectacular panoramic view of the Munich skyline from the sundial garden:

I don’t have a lot of commentary for the rest of these, so I’ll just put up a lot of pictures.

Foucault’s Pendulum
Biggest bong ever.
Looks like I need to eat more Big Macs.

I don’t know why, but I find this hilarious.

This was next to the self playing piano in the music section.

Palmator: Das Starkbierfest Am Adlersberg

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Palmator: Das Starkbierfest Am Adlersberg, a set on SmugMug.  There are more pictures in the set, so click on through!

On the way to breakfast this morning, there were a lot of people wearing lederhosen and dirndls, the traditional Bavarian outfits that Americans always picture when they think of Germany.

The reason for this belongs to the Prösslbräu Brewery in Adlersberg

Palm Sunday is the first day of the year that they serve Palmator, a dark and strong bock beer from their kegs. A lot of people turn out for the beer, the band, and the traditional Bavarian outfits.

I managed to find my way out there, sharing a taxi with some friendly guys who were also going after the number twelve bus was far, far too packed to be useful. The beer is served in one liter glasses- this is a much larger volume of beer than I’m used to, and those glasses were heavy!

Also of note- one of these pictures shows what was being used as a men’s room- the Germans have turned public urination into an art form.

The brewery sits on top of a pretty good sized hill, so there’s a fantastic view from the top of the wall, looking all the way back to the city.