12
October 2023 Speyer
Note:
11 October was devoted to touring Strasbourg. However,
as we had been there twice before, I decided I needed a rest and
relaxation day so I stayed on board the ship.
Bill did go on the walking tour but, unfortunately, he did not have a
camera. Six years ago on our first visit
to Strasbourg I posted a blog on the city that does contain pictures. If you are interested just search my early
blogs for Strasbourg – The “toilet seat” City that is dated 28 October 2017.
Today’s blog will feature our visit to Speyer.
Speyer, one of Germany’s prettiest and oldest cities, was
our next stop. In about 50 AD the Romans
founded the town over the ruins of an ancient Celtic settlement. It became a significant religious center in
1529, when the Diet of Seyer united its followers of Luther in a protest
against the Church of Rome. Much of the
city was destroyed during the Palatine War in the 17th century with
the French, but has been restored.
Speyer is built around the Kaiserdom (Imperial Cathedral). Dedicated in 1061, it is the largest
Romanesque basilica in all of Europe. Inside
its large crypt are the remains of eight German emperors or kings, four queens,
and many bishops. Although this church
has been damaged through the years by fire and wars, it was finally restored to
its original shape during a restoration period from 1957-1961.
During the Middle Ages, the town also became an important
Jewish community. Jewish people began
settling here in 1084, building synagogues and a mikveh (ritual Bath), the
oldest of its kind still existing in Europe today. Speyer also claims to have invented the
brezel (what we call a pretzel). As the
story goes, a priest was trying to make it easier for young children to worship
God. Instead of having them hold their
hands in prayer, he said it would be easier for them to cross their hands over
their chest. An ingenious local baker
saw this and took the shape of the crossed hands and made it into a
bretzel. Today, one of the statues that
adorn the front door of the church has a bretzel in his lap. Needless to say, Bill and I had to try one –
they are good, but we like the soft Philly pretzels better. While the bretzel has the same shape and size
of our soft pretzels, it has a much harder, denser consistency.
Our first stop on our walking tour was a statue of the 8
Kings that helped German defeat Napoleon.
Legend has it that one evening 8 men approached a ferryman and asked him
to sail them across the river to Speyer, wait for them, and then sail them back
across the river. They did this every
night. The captain was curious but he
never asked them where they went or why.
Curiosity got the best of him so one night he followed them to the
Kaiserdom where they would spend the night.
The ferryman learned that these were the ghosts of the 8 kings that had
saved Germany from Napoleon and although they were now dead, their spirits
wanted to return to the Church where they were buried.
There is another beautiful statue next to the Kaiserdom –
The Mount of Olives Statue. It was
originally made in the 15th century to depict the biblical event
that took place on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. But over the years it was destroyed and in
the 19th century a Speyer sculptor recreated the figures and
restored the statue.
While we were at the Kaiserdom, our Program Director told us
the story of Dr. Edith Stern who has been canonized by the Catholic Church and
is buried in the Kaiserdom. She was born
a Jew, but, became an atheist in her early teens. She became a nursing assistant and continued
her studies to become a Doctor of Philosophy.
She became interested in the teachings of the Catholic Church and
converted to Catholicism after her education was complete. She then taught at a Catholic school in
Speyer for several years, but because of the Nazi rule that only “Aryans” could
be civil servants, she was forced to quit.
She then entered the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Cologne where she
became a nun in 1934, taking the religious name of Teresa Benedicta of the
Cross. She remained at the Cologne
monastery until they relocated her to a monastery in the Netherlands for her
own safety. It was there that she was
arrested by the Nazis on 2 August 1942 and sent to Auschwitz where she died in
the gas chamber on 9 August 1942. Stein
was beatified as a martyr on 1 May 1987 in Cologne, Germany by Pope John Paul
II and then canonized by him 11 years later on 11 October 1998 in Vatican City.
The miracle that was the basis for her canonization was the cure of Benedicta
McCarthy, a little girl who had swallowed a large amount of acetaminophen,
which causes hepatic necrosis. The young girl's father, Rev. Emmanuel Charles
McCarthy, a priest of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, immediately called
together relatives and prayed for St. Teresa's intercession. Shortly thereafter the nurses in the
intensive care unit saw her sit up completely healthy. Dr. Ronald Kleinman, a pediatric specialist
at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who treated the girl, testified
about her recovery to Church tribunals, stating: "I was willing to say
that it was miraculous."
We then walked around the main square of Speyer and along
part of the main street. Our Program
Director told us about the statue of the Pilgrim of St. James. It is dedicated to the people who make the
pilgrimage or Santiago De Compostela (the Way of St. James) as it is called at
least once in their lifetime. There are
many different trails that Pilgrams can take throughout Europe but they all
lead to the Cathedral of Compostela where the remains of the Apostle St. James
are buried.
While standing near the building housing a civil court, we
saw several bridal couples on their way to get married. Thursday must be the day for civil marriages.
 |
| Our Ship The River Rhapsody |
 |
| The Walk/Don't Walk Man holding a Pretzel |
 |
| the 8 Kings Statue |
 |
| The Kaiserdom |
 |
| The Kaiserdom |
 |
| Palace of the Elelctor's Bishops |
 |
| Town Hall |
 |
| Statue of a Priest Holding a Pretzel |
 |
| Part of the Old Medieval City Wall |
 |
| Pilgrim of St. James Statue |
 |
| Maypole in the Center of Town |
 |
| One of Several Brides we saw |
 |
Inside Kaiserdom
|
 |
| Inside Kaiserdom |
 |
Front Entrance way to Kaiserdom
with 3 of the 8 Kings buried there |
 |
| Looking down the main square |
 |
| The Kaiserdom |
 |
| The Kaiserdom |
 |
| The Mount of Olives Statue |
We then returned to the ship for lunch and to get ready for
our Home Hosted visit with a family in Speyer.
There were four of us in our little group and our hostess was a woman
who lived with her “man” as she put it.
They are not married because she would then loose her pension from her
first husband’s death, but they have been together for many years. She has one daughter that works in Berlin as
a translator. She has a tiny, but very
nice house with a beautiful backyard and a dressing room with huge closets and
drawers that I would die for! While they
have a car, her “husband” rides his bike or takes the train to work. She also rides her bike if she needs to go
into town (it is about a 10 minute ride into the medieval center of
Speyer). She said she only uses the car
if she has to go to the big supermarket outside of town to buy large bulky
items like toilet paper. She served us a
delicious cake that was made like our marble cake and within the chocolate
swirl she had embedded cherries. The
cake was then covered with a buttercream and topped with a chocolate
ganache. I had to have 2 pieces. As we were waiting for the bus to take us
back to the ship, we got to meet her significant other as he returned from
work. They were a very nice couple who
are planning a 6 week tour of Canada next year to celebrate her 60th
birthday.
