12 October 2023 Speyer

 

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 17^th 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 15^th 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 19^th 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 60^th birthday.