Speyer today! I didn't know much about Speyer or what to really expect from this German town. Up early again so we could meet the tour guide early so we could, hopefully, avoid the heat of the day. The weather today will be 82 and about 75% humidity. Ugh. Humidity saps my energy.
We met our guide and off we went to a quick drive to Speyer and a walking tour of the town.
We stepped off the bus and began walking through a beautiful, shady park. As we walked it became clear a cathedral was part of this park and was starting to become clear it was a very large cathedral.
The Speyer Cathedral is gorgeous. Built with the local pink sandstone it lords over the town.
Speyer Cathedral, Germany - the jewel in the crown of Romanesque architecture and a medieval monument to imperial power. In Speyer, all roads lead to the cathedral. Emperors and bishops processed along the city's expansive boulevard. But it was an emperor, rather than a bishop, who actually built Speyer Cathedral. Shortly after his coronation, Conrad II set about creating the cathedral. The Pope may have given him the crown, but it was God who gave him his power and glory, at least according to the emperor himself. The cathedral has always been a symbol of state power. Today, German chancellors like to show state visitors this historic monument. Cathedral warden, Bernhard Volk, has met many of the world's great and good here: Gorbachev and Yeltsin, Bush and Thatcher, Kohl and Schröder.
Like the others we had seen so far, the simplicity inside made it beautiful.
The town of Speyer itself wasn't very interesting. We walked to the city hall and down to a tower that was once part of the security of the city. Other than those buildings there wasn't much to see. Speyer was founded by the Romans and is one of Germany's oldest cities.
Our tour seemed short today and I was very happy with that. We had another excursion that night and it was going to be good to get back to the boat and have some down time. By now we're starting to realize that having two excursions each day is exhausting and was leaving us with very little time to actually relax.
Tonight's excursion was one I had been looking forward to. We would be doing wine tasting and then dinner at the monastery. I was looking forward to tasting the regional wines again.
We departed with a small group of about 15 and headed to the Eberbach Monastery. The monastery was built originally in the 1100's. The monastery was a Benedictine monastery - which is often seen as very discipline and very serious about their wine. The monks took advantage of the land around them and began to produce wine. The wine brought in money thus allowing for more monks. By 1525 the monks were producing between 50,000 and 100,000 liters of wine.
Our wine tasting would take place in the basement of the abbey. I didn't think much of it until I followed our tour guide in and he mentioned there was no electricity in the basement. We'd be drinking wine by candlelight and, initially it'd be dark upon entry. He was not lying. I was the first to step into the basement and it was D-A-R-K. Eventually I saw the candles and headed in that direction.
It was a little spooky down in this basement, but probably the coolest, literally, place I've every did wine tasting.
After wine tasting we toured more parts of the abbey including the reading room. The monks would enter this room and read for hours kneeling on the cold stone floor.
Off to the side was the area they had the wine presses. It was pretty interesting to see how they managed to make wine back in the day without modern machinery. Lots of elbow grease.
All in all, Speyer wasn't my favorite city. The monastery was definitely one of the favorite excursions. Tomorrow we'll be starting our day sailing up the Middle Rhine and checking out all the castles along the Rhine. Thankfully we could get some much needed relaxation.
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