We docked at the lovely little village of Braisach, Germany. Although there were several excursion options today, we decided to relax, take our time to pack, and not be overly tired for the start of the next leg of our journey. It was nice to have the ship nearly all to ourselves.
After we laid low for the morning, we strolled into Braisach, which is a very old town having (of course) a cathedral. The town was established before the Romans came, but the Romans were responsible for establishing the town as a trading post on the Rhine.
Braisach is really lovely, Everything is so clean and neat. The market square was large and had a section of fountains where children were running through the water jets coming up from the pavement. There were lots of cafes with outdoor seating.
St. Stevens’s Cathedral, high atop a volcanic rock, was originally built in the 12th century. It’s not a very ornate church, but it is stately.
This is a photo of a drawing of how Braisach looked in the Middle Ages.
The inside of the church was not terribly glitzy, as many Catholic churches.
The amazing thing was the faint murals painted on the walls. Martin Schongauer painted The Last Judgment on the back wall in the late 1400s. There were other paintings on the side walls as well. What a shame that the paintings were ruined during a restoration attempt that used varnish. The varnish dried and peeled and took the original paint off during peeling. Fortunately, some of the paint was saved and the images are faintly visible. It must have been amazing.
It was a very nice, low key couple of hours, strolling at our own pace and doing what we wanted to do on no schedule. We spent the afternoon back on the ship getting ready for our departure tomorrow, where we’ll be totally on our own navigating through Switzerland, Italy and Malta. Should be a great adventure.
I promised a few photos of the ship, so here they are.
