Tuesday, 4 October, Regensburg, Germany (making sausage!)

Written 22 February 2023

We made it! Word was that a new wave of high water was on its way down the Danube, which was already raging and slightly over its banks, so as soon as we left Passau, the captain put the pedal to the metal and headed toward Regensburg at flank speed, slowing only for low bridges and to go through locks. Passengers who stayed up to watch say we got to the critically low bridge about 12:30 am, an hour and a half ahead of schedule, and scooched underneath with inches to spare before the river rose at that point. The "sun deck" (i.e., the roof of the ship) was closed to passengers for several days along this stretch, and it was at that point absolutely flat—they folded down the mast, sank the wheelhouse into the ship until the captain has only a narrow horizontal loophole to see through, and removed the shade canopy, herb garden (which was in portable planters), chairs, and railings.

We moored in Regensburg about 8 am, and the current was so fast it still sounded as though we were travelling full steam ahead, even though we were standing still! Nearby was moored a ship of a different line that we encountered several times—the Crystal Queen. It is, for reasons unclear to me, decorated with 50,000 pieces of Swarovski crystal.

Our morning walking tour of Regensburg started right from the ship, since we were docked near the center of town. We could have opted for the "extended" tour, which covered local Jewish history, but it would have run us too late for our afternoon tour. It was 46F when we set off and not much warmer when we got back.

Regensburg also has a BMW factory, but it doesn't offer tours—too bad. We learned that BMW stands for Bavarian Motor Works and that it started out making aircraft.

Unfortunately, we had the world's most annoying guide, who spent most of our time on anecdotes from his childhood, long convoluted explanations of the origin of common idioms, and songs that he had written, in English, to familar German melodies, e.g., welcoming us, bidding us farewell, and joking about marital relations. We did still manage to learn a lot of stuff from him.

History of the area, as narrated by our guide:

• Originally, Celts lived here, in little villages, in long timber houses. That was from the 6th century BC to the 1st century AD.
• Then the Celts disappeared and the Romans showed up. The Romans brought vines and wine to Germany.
• North of the Danube was Germania Magna, which the Romans never managed to defeat, so the Danube marked the northern border of the Roman empire in the area.
• Around 174 to 179 AD, the Romans built Castra Regina, a large Roman fortress to guard to guard that border ("Regensburg" is a corruption of Castra Regina). That was under the emperor Marcus Aurelius.
• A construction project in modern times uncovered not just Medieval walls and a large wooden gallows but an 1800 year-old-wall from Castra Regina, which had had 22 watchtowers. Part of the city wall from 1320 is visible behind the sausage kitchen.
• When the western roman empire fell, the middle ages began. The Merovingiens, the Franconian tribe, came here around then (6th and 7th century).
• The Carolingiens came after them. That was Charlemagne, who was crowned emperor by Pope Leo III. (Only the pope could promote a king to emperor.)
• In 791–793, Charlemagne was here in Regensburg. He built a big wooden bridge over the Danube.
• The Patrician class here was based on river trade in luxury goods: fruits, oil, and wine; cotton, ceramics and paintings; spices and silk.
• When the salt masters in Passau lost the monopoly, Regensburg tried to take up the market, but getting the salt here was expensive. It came downstream on the Inn from Salzburg to Passau, but to get it from there to Regensburg was upstream, on the Danube. Much more labor-intensive. The Germans say "salty prices" to mean "high prices."
• Eventually, they changed over to pepper. One ship a year brought pepper from the orient to Venice, so the rich local merchants pooled their resources, sent people to Venice, and bought the whole shipload—instant monopoly. The pepper was shipped in cotton sacks, so a rich person is called a peppersack.
• High water always washed away the wooden bridges, so early in the 12th century, they built the stone bridge. They started in 1135 and spent 11 years on it. I think the Germans missed a bet here. If they had let the Romans take a little territory on the north bank and let them hold it for, say, 20 years before driving them back south, they'd have had a handsome, durable stone bridge over the Danube 800 or 900 years earlier.
• For six years ending in 1653, black plague killed millions died in Europe. In 1484 Innocent VIII became Pope and ordered all cats and owls killed, thinking they were associated with witchcraft. That didn't help with control of the fleas carried by rodents, which carried the plague.

The photo at the left is the Bavarian History Museum (covering 2000 years), which we walked past on our way to the center of things. The golden object is, I am reliably informed, a catfish. Catfish seem to have figured in Bavarian history, but it's a little abstact for me.

At the right is a work of art depicting (much more realistically) an anchor. If I interpret its label correctly, it commemorates a city partnership (sister city status?) with Odessa.

Our stroll along the river bank also passed this permanently moored museum ship, one of several along the way that make up the Schiffahrts-Museum.

And here, at the right, is the city's pride and job—the Nibelungensbrücke, the second oldest bridge in Germany, about which more later. It's so important that modern, larger cargo ships that an't fit through its arches detour around the city by canal.

You can't really see it in the photo, but across the water, near where the bridge reaches the other side, we could see a strange, skeletal tangle of metal parts. The guide assured us it was an old mechanical water mill, once used to generate electricity but now in disuse.

Our guide paused at this point to remind us that Regensburg is famous for its sausages. He showed us a page from his notebook of photos depicting the most famous, the Regensburg Knackwurst, as well as Rosswurst, horsemeat sausage. The one we were looking forward to learning more about in the afternoon was Regensburg Weisswurst, the basis of the "Weisswurst breakfast." Weisswurst (white sausage) is made and eaten fresh—the adage is that it should never hear the noon bells. It's made first thing in the morning, poached immediately, and eaten for "breakfast" about 10 or 11 am.

This little green building, free standing on the river bank right at the near end of the bridge, is the "Historic Sausage Kitchen." It was built in the early 12th century as a canteen for the workers building the bridge (it took them 11 years, so they had to break for meals sometimes), and it's been in business continuously since then.

While we stood nearby, it was busily grilling and serving sausages to locals at outdoor tables and wooden benches. At the right is a photo in through its open door.

Other stuff the guide told us:

• To go bankrupt is to "come to the dog." They painted a dog on the bottom of the money chest, and when he was all uncovered, they had come to the dog. (Personally, I would have thought it meant that, when you were completely destitute, it was time to eat the dog.
• Until the 11th century, women couldn't even eat at the table. They were married off as soon as they menstruated.
• During WWII, the Nazis destroyed the bridge tower and the near end of the bridge to block the allies. It was called the Adolf Hitler bridge for a while, until it was rebuilt and went back to the original name.
• Messerschmitts were made in Regensburg, so it was bombed, but bombing was confined to the factories and railway station, so 90% of the town is itself is still medieval. Unexploded ordnance is still being found
• The city always voted against the Nazis, but once Hitler took power, every city had to give him honorary citizenship, as did Regensburg.
• I think the guide said that Regensburg is the capital of the southern Palatinate.
• According to the purity law of 1516, beer can contain only barley malt, hops, water, and natural yeast from the air.
• From 1663 to 1806 Regensburg was the home of Imperial Diet, a sort of permanent, perpetual European parliament.
• "Pralin" (a French confection of many variations that gave rise not just to "pralines" but to dipped chocolates as well) originated here. The chef of France's ambassador (named plessis-Praslin, the ambassador, not the chef) made chocolates that came to be known as "pralins" from "Praslin."
• In 1220, Saint Catherine's hospital was opened, and the religious order that founded it started a brewery to finance its operation. It's still in operation, today as a retirement home, and it's still funded by the brewery. Every senior living there can go to the brewery each day for a free beer.
• In 1189, Frederik I (Barbarossa) crossed this bridge on his 3rd crusade.
• In 1967, the university opened.
• The two keys on the city's coat of arms represent those of the the mayor and the bishop

What the guide had brought us to the sausage kitchen to see, though, was this bronze relief map of the town (closer shot at the right). As you can see, it used to have a tower on it, near the little branch bridge leading to an intermediate island, but that was lost when Hitler destroyed part of the bridge (now rebuilt) to delay the Allied advance.

Regensburg is the second oldest city in Germany, founded in 179 AD on a natural island in the Danube, 1.5 miles long and a quarter mile wide, but now it's mostly on the shore. Our ship was moored on the far bank (as seen in the photo) between the historic bridge and the smaller, newer one beyond it, and we were standing near the far end of the bridge, next to the sausage kitchen.

The bridge is longer than it looks in my photo above, because it continues over the island to the far bank of the Danube, 16 arches in all.

At the left here is the usual flood gauge. The guide is pointing to the 2013 mark. He said the water covered the sausage kitchen's roof.

At the right is the Goliath House, named for the mural on its wall, which the guide led us inland a few blocks to see. Its tower, like those of many of the patrician houses of the time, was a sign of prestige (read wealth). In one especially tall one that he pointed out to us, the Bamberger tower, built in 1260, only the lower three floors were used; the top five were empty, just there for show. "We have 60 of these towers," the guide said proudly; "they are our Manhattan."

Written 23 February 2023

The view at the left here is back toward the river (you can see the near end of the bridge through the arches). The red tower and clock arch are part of the new city hall. The clock on the other side, facing the river, is even larger.

And here, at the right, is the Petersdom, St. Peter's Cathedral, one of its towers furred with the inevitable scaffolding. That's where the guided portion of the tour ended, so that we could go inside and look around on our own before having free time for shopping and exploring. The guide was carefull to point out the shortest route back to the river, where we could then walk along the bank back to the ship for lunch.

Before he left us, the guide added some information about the cathedral. Building it took 150 years, 5 generations. It's largely Gothic in style. Pope Benedict 16th was the bishop here before he went on to higher office in the church. The first cathedral on the site was Romanesque, but it was later rebuilt in Gothic. Gothic was the first style that put church stories on the outside as well as the inside of the church building.

Here's the usual shot down the center of the cathedral nave to the altar.

Then it was back to the ship for lunch. The interesting white object at the right is the mast on our ship's bow that held all the navigation aids, horns, lights, etc. The thing at lower right is the bow cam, pointing straight down. It usually pointed straight ahead but the crew occasionally used it when maneuvering (they could move it from inside the wheelhouse) and sometimes forgot to put it back in place. Mentioning it to reception usually got it promptly pointed ahead again.

At the left here, two of the fine-print appetizers—a smoked salmon canape and some sort of mixed veggie salad with a lot of cabbage in it.

At the right is the third fine-print app—guacamole with corn chip and red currants. I took a miss on that one.

The appetizer soup was zucchini-mint. Good as always.

I passed up the Italian pannini, Alpine salad, and fettucini Alfredo for the golden-fried Parmesan-crusted veal scallopini with arugula, raddichio, and basil-tomato salsa. Okay, but not terrific.

David chose the blueberry tart, shown here at the left, but I went for the Creole, "rum raisin ice cream, rum marinated pineapple, coconut, banana," and very good it was too.

In the afternoon, David and I (and six of our shipmates) made Regensberg weisswurst! We suited up with plastic aprons and gloves and were taken to the kitchen (in a building just a few steps from the Historic Sausage Kithen). At the left here is the list of ingredients for an 8-kg batch:

• 2 kg each of lean veal, lean pork, diced pork fat, and ice cubes
• Zest of 3–4 lemons
• Chopped onion
• Chopped parsley
• 144 g salt (18 g/kg)
• 32 g baking soda (4 g/kg)
• 64 g spice mix (8 g/kg)

The instructor had them all premeasured and laid out in advance. Under the right conditions, we were told, you can use ice-cold water instead of ice, but the sausage mixture must remain below 15C throughout the process, so using ice is better, especially because we were using a grinder without a chilling jacket (the same is true for bratwurst and knackwurst). The spice mix is a combination of ginger, cardamom, white pepper, and mace. Every sausage maker uses custom proportions; our instructor suggested starting with equal parts, then varying the mix to suit our own tastes. The baking soda binds the water and keeps the meat from dehydrating.

At the right is the procedure:

• Step 1: grind the meat with the salt and 1/3 of the ice; the mixture should be at 6C.
• Step 2: grind in the baking soda, pork fat, another 1/3 of the ice, and the spice mix; the mixture should be at 12C.
• Step 3: grind in the onions, parsley, lemon zest, and the rest of the ice; the mixture should be at 15C.

We took turns adding ingredients. Here at the left, somebody is adding handfuls of ice. I got to sprinkle in the baking soda and was amazed to see the change in color and texture that resulted. The mixture should be ground until completely homogeneous, not lumpy. It turns a shiny silly-putty pink, as you can see in the right-hand photo.

The instructor then wet his hands, and while one of our group held the barrel of the extruder for him, scooped up big goopy double handfulls of the mixture, rolling each quickly into a rough ball, and threw them, with some force, down into the extruder barrel. He explained that you really have to splat them in there, to minimize bubbles in the mixture (and thus in the sausage). At the bottom of the extruder barrel, you can see that a metal tube protrudes.

At the right, the instructor lays out precut lengths of hog casings (small intestines of the pig), which slaughter houses save, wash throughly inside and out, and salt down. Sausage makers soak them, then rinse thoroughly to get the salt out. At the far end of the table is the extruder barrel, mounted on the extruder, with its metal tube sticking out parallel to the table.

To start, the instructor threads a length of casing onto the tube, scooched up the the way you put a sock on your foot before pulling it straight up over your ankle.

At the left here, he's turning the crank on the extruder to force sausage mixture out into the casing, which pulls itself off the tube as it fills.

When he gets the the end of the casing, he slides the rest off, then ties off the ends, leaving just enough slack that the length can then be twisted in four places to form four sausages about the length of an ordinary Italian sausage. If he ties the ends too tightly, so that the length is too full, then twists, the casing can burst.

Then each couple got to stuff a length of casing. Here at the left, David turns the crank on the extruder while I manage the casing as the filling emerges and the instructor judges whether we're gotten it to the right degree of fullness. He then tied the ends for us.

At the right, David and I are twisting our length into the requisit five links.

When we'd all had our turn, the instructor lowered all the links into a large simmering water bath that he had at the ready (70 to 80C where they poached for 18 minutes while we adjourned to the tables out front.

Here, at the left, are the last few bites of the weisswurst I ate, together with last of my pretzel and a mound of the mustard I liked best—a coarse honey mustard (bottle pictured at the right). Sweet mustard is recommended with weisswurst. I'm going to try to make the weisswurst at home.

Shortly after we set out for our afternoon's excursion, the ship cast off again and headed upstream to its right turn into the canal from the Danube to the Main, so after eating our sausages, we rendezvoused outside the sausage kitchen with other passengers who had stayed on the Regensburg for the afternoon and boarded a bus, which then chased down the ship so that we could reboard her as she shopped at the Regensburg lock.

On the way, we learned that:

• The boys choir of the local cathedral is called the "Domspatzen" (cathedral sparrows).
• The eastern boundary of the Roman empire was the Rhine, and the Romans closed the space between the Danube and the Rhine with a wall. (See? I'm sure they would have built a bridge over the Danube given half a chance.)
• In the third century AD, northerners (Germanic and Celtic tribes) migrated south and pushed the Romans out.
• At the end of WWII, Regensburg was taken by Patton.
• Upper Bavaria is also called Franconia. It's white asparagus country and a major hop-growing area.
• Bavaria was a kingdom from the 19th century until 1918. Mad King Ludwig (Ludwig II, who built Neuschwanstein and other fanciful castles) was one of those kings.
• From 1945 until 1949 Bavaria was in America's section of Germany.
• In 1992, after three years of construction, the Danube-Main canal was completed. Its highest point is 1330 feet. At the top, where the canal goes over the divide, the locks have basins in which to store water for reuse and thus save 60% of the water needed to run the locks. They even generate electricity as the water runs from level to level.
• A monument at the high point commemorates the defeat of Napoleon.
• Ships pay a hefty toll to use the canal.

For dinner I had the appetizer from the "regional specialties" menu, but the main course and dessert from the regular. I didn't say anything to the others, lest I put them off, but "ochsenmaulsalat," translated on the menu as "beef salad," looked an awful lot like "ox muzzle salad" to me. I've had that in France and liked it, but the version here had vanishingly little actual ox muzzle in it. It came with "knudel-carpaccio"—extremely thin slices of cold bread dumpling. Not bad. The two appetizer choices on the regular menu were a Peruvian salad and a Thai soup.

The main course was seared daurade (a favorite fish of ours) with lemon-olive-oil emulsion. That's it on the right. Excellent.

Finally, dessert was traditional Bavarian key lime pie. Not very authentic, but delicious nonetheless.

In the evening, Jan and I teamed up with three other passengers for the trivia contest. The winners got 14 out of a possible 17 points. We got just 9.5—we could not, e.g., name the three movies that got 11 oscars each or say how many stars are on the EU flag.