Speyer - Speyer vs Speyer

For the title of the post, you had to have read Mad Magazine.  Anyway...

Started out this morning in the fitness centre (3 days in a row), and Jennifer joined me. Our ship docked in the middle of the night in Speyer. Our tour guides met us at the ship and we walked into town from there. We passed a senior citizen’s mini golf course. All the holes are on tables and you use a pole cue instead of a putter (so you don't have to bend down).  Next stop was the big cathedral. It's the largest Romanesque style cathedral in the world and one of the 5 largest cathedrals in the world. Tour guides weren't allowed inside (the current bishop feels the cathedral should be a place of worship and not a museum). However, you are allowed to go in as an individual and take pictures.  So we went in on our own. We paid 3€ each to see the crypt (now is it a museum?) and it was cool to see. The cathedral was very big and impressive.  Outside the cathedral was a huge bowl 1,500L that was used during festivals (typically wine festivals). The bowl would be filled with wine and villagers would dip their cups in the bowl to get some wine.  It is still used for current day festivals, although hygiene is more important so people don’t get to just dip their own cups.

Next we visited a biergarten, but it was not open. The biergarten had a children's playground in it. Let the kids play while you have a beer. That's better than day care at a gym.

The biergarten was followed by a quick visit to a Lutheran church. Very small in comparison, but the furniture, decorations etc... were very detailed and intricate.

The final stop was a trip to the Jewish section of town. The synagogue was destroyed a long time ago, but some of the ruins remain. There was also a Mikvah, which is a ritual Jewish bath. The ritual requires fresh water (vs through pipes), so it is dug into the ground to access the ground water. Women would have to go in once a month to cleanse themselves. Since all parts of their body were required to be clean, they would have to open their eyes under water as well as shake themselves. I imagine it would have been really cold since it was ground water. The tour ended and we walked around for a bit before heading back to ship for lunch.

 

You can see this for miles.

Looking down the main hall of the church.

That’s a big bowl of wine. I wonder if they allowed double dipping back then?