Bamberg Germany

Bamberg Germany

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Nestled in the rolling hill country of Franconia, at the confluence of the Regnitz and Itz rivers with the Main, this town is billed as the gift of a thousand years, which is how long it has been making its mark on history. Probably no other city in Germany evokes the essence of the country more effectively, and many Germans simply say, We may not have Florence or Venice, but we do have Bamberg, which is even greater. To be sure, Germany has numerous other picturesque and historic spots but most of them are either living museums of the past or situated so squarely on welltrodden tourist trails that visitors to them invariably photograph each other. Bamberg is a refreshing exception to the cliches. Although it welcomes, and gets, plenty of tourists, it does not depend on them.

And although its architectural masterpieces are in mint condition, it is neither frozen in time nor mired in its oncegreat past. As one of its burgomasters once put it, Our city is the house in which we live, but because it is so unique and beautiful, we live like the gods.Bamberg is a radiant assemblage of Europe's greatest architectural stylesRomanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroqueas well as a treasure trove of some of Germany's finest art. It abounds with majestic churches, lavish palaces, and dazzlingly ornate mansions. The town itself is an engaging maze of narrow, winding cobblestone streets and an oasis of sparkling little streams, dreamy canals, old bridges, and vibrant colorful market squares.

For 800 of its 1,000 years Bamberg was the capital of an independent princebishopric whose properties included substantial chunks of real estate as far afield as presentday Austria, Italy, and Switzerland, and whose affluent artloving rulers, usually more princely than pious, exercised both secular and ecclesiastical powers. That is why there are actUally two townsthe Bischofstadt (Bishops' City) and the Biirgerstadt (Burghers' City)each strikingly different.They are separated by the Regnitz river, in the middle of which sits Bamberg's most photogenic edifice, the ornately embellished and frescopainted Altes Rathaus. Built on an artificial island in 1450 as a compromise between the bishop and the burgomaster, each of whom wanted the city hall on his side of the Regnitz, it was redecorated in its present Baroque style in the 1750s. The medieval Obere Briicke (Upper Bridge) links it to either bank of the river.

There is also a Neues Rathaus (New City Hall) about half a kilometer north on Maximiliansplatz, in the Biirgerstadt, designed in 1732 by Balthasar Neumann. The officially celebrated date of Bamberg's founding is 973, when it became the property of Heinrich the Squabbler, a litigious and cantankerous duke of Bavaria. His son, Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich (Henry) II, briefly made Bamberg the capital of the German Holy Roman Empire, which in those days stretched from the North Sea and Baltic to the Mediterranean and Adriatic.

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