22 May 2017
Home of the Fuggers

Jakob Fugger

We began our Augsburg visit with a trip to the Fugger Walser Museum.

Yes, that Fugger, the one from the fifteenth century who became a trader and then lent money to the Emperor Maximilian of the House of Habsburg. Jacob Fugger was known as Jacob the Rich; he acquired lots of land and mining interests in three places in Europe and traded out of Venice to the Indies. The Walsers were also wealthy traders but they went bankrupt a hundred years later whereas the Fugger family is still in set in a Romanesque arch with the coat of arms in the lintel, the massive dark wooden doors are outlined in octagonal stars Door to Private Banking business, same outfit, nearly 700 years later, engaging in Private Banking in the building next door to our hotel with the beautiful door. Our hotel, Drei Mohren, was snazzy, too, named after four monks from Abysinnia who visited Augsburg in the seventeenth century. Finding the winter harsh, the monks headed south but one of the four died, and an innkeeper rescued them and brought them back to Augsburg, where they recovered. Later he painted a sign with the heads of the three "moors" and hung it outside his inn. The Three elaborately sculpted gilt busts are mounted on the lobby wall of the hotel. Drei Mohren hotel has a green roof with wildflowers and honey bees, too.

The Fugger Walser Museum was a lot of fun. They handed us a little sack of pepper (because Fugger traded in pepper from the Spice Islands) inside of which was an electronic chip, and we were told to hold the sack up next to certain parts of the museum displays and the speaking would be in English. That was very nice. Also, a number of the exhibits were Then and Now, about how the trading and banking and mining the picture of the green roof and beehives was taken from the hotel room but we could not raise the shutters, only open them wide. Green roof and beehives businesses have changed over the centuries, and they were pretty socially conscious showing videos, for example mining conditions in present day Bolivia. We altogether liked the creativity (such as holographic talking pictures) of this excellent museum and recomment it most highly. It was the first of several times in Germany where significant efforts have been made to engage English speakers.

For lunch we stopped in the central plaza where Elsa had a big plate of spaghetti carbonara which she couldn't eat fully and Bob had a dish of spaghetti ice cream which he could eat fully. A large crowd of young people standing in front of McDonalds Hen and Bachelor parties

While having lunch we were entertained by the coming-together of a hen party and a bachelor party (same wedding-to-be, we think). They met in front of McDonald's. The girls all wore distinctive pink t-shirts and the bride-to-be had a white veil over her head, while the guys were all wearing fluorescent green vests except the groom who had on a pink sweatshirt and carried an accordion, which they got him to play after he emerged from McDonald's doing some stunt. He played several tunes and both groups were The ballroom is two stories high with upper and lower windows, and a painted ceiling, in white and gold and pastels, brimming with curlicues and baroque ornamentation Baroque ballroom ceiling singing and then one of the groomsmen danced with one of the bridesmaids and then they went their separate ways.

The following day was Museum Day, with free admission to most museums in Augsburg. We observed this by a visit to the Schaezler-Palais, featuring the most baroque ballroom in Germany. It was built for Marie Antoinette who visited Augsburg on her way to Paris to marry the man who became Louis XVI. We loved seeing this elegant mansion, including lots of dark paintings by Cranach, Holbein, Hals, Van Dyke, Rembrandt, The garden is separated into four rectangular regions with a fountain in the middle; each region has a path, four corner miniature trees, and is surrounded by low square-cut boxwood hedges Formal garden Durer, and the like, and a well-kept formal garden on the ground floor. A lot of the paintings were religious, and they weren't displayed very well but still we're glad we visited.

Making good use of Museum Day, we then took a short train ride to Ulm.

When is a cathedral not a cathedral? The foundation stone for the Ulm Munster was laid in 1377 when the question would not have arisen, but the construction was halted for many reasons: lack of funds, wars, The dark stone Gothic facade focuses the eye on the towering central spire which appears to rise to heaven Tallest minster in Ulm plagues, and, of course, the Protestant Reformation, when in 1530 the citizens of the city voted to become Lutheran. The architectural features are those of a cathedral, and the spire is the tallest in the world (according to Wikipedia). It is gorgeous, and we were delighted to see that a Lego model of the building, decorations and all, is prominently displayed by the front door.

Over the course of our visit we became aware of the many restoration efforts rebuilding Allied bomb Inside a glass case, the model, of dark red and sand colored lego blocks was prepared for a 2015 exhibition. Lego minster model damage from the Second World War. These projects make use of skills in carpentry, masonry, textiles, and many other crafts, keeping them alive for new generations, but the extent of the damage and the lingering effects after more than half a century are shocking.

Augsburg is a prosperous German city, although not so internationally important as a few centuries ago when 30,000 people worked spinning and weaving cotton and linen to make fustian, a strong, smooth cloth, of which Augsburg was the world manufacturing center.