Bamberg May 6-June 5

After the conference in Warsaw I returned to Bamberg for the next two months to continue work on my various studies about Jerusalem. I focused my attention on the accounts of Western pilgrims and travelers who came to Jerusalem from the 14th to 19th centuries, and especially on what they wrote about the Masjid al-Aqsa compound. Hundreds of travel accounts are available for easy downloading via Google Books and archives.org. I also wrote an encyclopedia article about Roman-period Jerusalem and worked on some revisions to my Masjid al-Asqa article for Humberto da Silveira’s forthcoming book of photographs.

I stayed in the same vacation rental apartment where I had lived during my last stay in Bamberg a year ago. I went jogging occasionally in the public park / nature preserve area a short distance from my apartment; I had fallen out of shape once again after the jogging that I had done during last year’s stay.

For the first weeks of my stay in Bamberg I did not travel anywhere out of the city, but I did attend some of the events on World Heritage Day on June 3 and went on May 17, a public holiday for Ascension Day, to the State Garden Show, held on some waste land in a former industrial area that the municipality has reclamated as a public park.

Flowers at the garden show

A musical performance at the garden show with an interfaith relations pavilion in the background