Straubing

Here are some touristy photos of Straubing, in eastern Bavaria (Ostbayern), that I took on 8-9 August 1999.

Unfortunately we used Straubing as a dormitory town for Regensburg, and saw little of it. The center, all that's photographed here, is built around one shopping street. Cars are very sensibly excluded from most of this, inviting a passeggiata. At one end of the pedestrian precinct, the glandularly imbalanced attempt to attract attention by driving their souped-up cars and motorbikes as noisily as they can -- but even this isn't too bad, as after all they haven't souped them up to the point where their Bavarian parents would complain.

Every August, Straubing becomes less civilized with the Gäubodenvolksfest, a second Oktoberfest. We just missed that, but finding accommodation was still a bit tricky -- though the outcome was excellent.

Though Straubing gets a whole page to itself in the Rough Guide to Germany (4th ed.), it doesn't even appear in the index of the Cadogan guide to Bavaria (2nd ed.). This wasn't the only instance when the £15 guide to the whole of Germany was more informative about Bavaria than was the £13 guide to Bavaria.

The Stadtturm, mostly.

I believe that the column is Dreifaltigkeitssäule (trinity column), about which a page I can no longer find within the Straubing site rather inscrutably says:

Aufgrund eines Gelübdes der Bürgerschaft während des Spanischen Erbfolgekrieges, im Jahre 1709 errichtet, nach Entwurf des Bildhauers Frisch. Verkündigungsgruppe des Salzburger Meisters Bernhard Mandl, davor Hl. Michael von Franz Mozart.

Which I think means that the column was erected in 1709 following a pledge by the townspeople made during the Spanish war of succession. But how the trinity encompasses the Annunciation and St Michael, and whether both Bernhard Mandl and Franz Mozart worked according to the designs of the Frisches -- all this is beyond me. It may be scrutable if you read it while looking at the statue with binoculars. (In the meantime, residents of Straubing and those with detailed guidebooks are cordially invited to enlighten me.)

Miscellaneous views of Straubing. The second picture is of Karmelitenkirche. We stayed in Hotel Seethaler (fuzzily portrayed in the third picture); it wasn't cheap, but it was excellent -- and its lobby has a fine old painted wooden ceiling, which I was too lazy to photograph.

Any comments? Corrections? Write to me (Peter Evans), or tell the whole world.

Other snaps

Home

First created -- in home-devised cookie-cutter style (batch files and lean, mean software) -- on 15 January 2000. Last fiddled with: 18 May 2000. My thanks to Ruth Gehres for some information. Keep those corrections coming!