Bamberg September 4-30 Part 3

The weather in September was delightful and a bit warmer and sunnier than average. Each weekend I went somewhere, usually getting a day-long train/bus ticket for travel throughout Bavaria. On Saturday September 12 I went to Kreuzberg (Cross Mountain), a hill that is a pilgrimage site for Catholics. A processional way of the Stations of the Cross lines the path up to the hill top. It is remarkable how many processional Stations of the Cross there are in solidly Catholic Bavaria.

The crosses at the top of Kreuzberg

One of the stations of the cross at Kreuzberg

I then walked to the nearby town of Bischofsheim, past a ski-jumping ramp. I had never seen the view from the top of a ski-jumping ramp before.

The ski-jumping ramp

I also noticed a public water fountain that its sign claimed had been used for baptisms by Saint Kilian in 686 A.D. Saint Kilian was an Irish monk who converted much of the area to Christianity at the end of the 7th century.

The fountain of Saint Kilian

Sunday September 13 was the Day of Open Monuments throughout Germany and I took part in two tours in Bamberg in the course of the day.

The participants in one of the Day of Open Monuments tours in Bamberg

On the next Saturday September 19 the volunteer societies of Bamberg set up booths in the Max Platz main town square.

The volunteer booths

The politician Karl-Theodor von und zu Guttenberg, the minister for economics and technology, was working the crowd there at the time, two weeks before the national elections in which he was reelected by the highest majority of any candidate.

Karl-Theodore von und zu Guttenberg

Nearby a political rally was underway, although it looked like most of the people there were enjoying the day more than paying attention to the politicians.

The crowd at the rally

After walking around the volunteer booths, I took a train to Ludwigstadt and the castle of Lauenstein at the extreme north edge of Bavaria along the border with Türingen, in former East Germany.

The castle of Lauenstein

After visiting the castle I walked a few kilometers to the nearby train station of Propstzella in Türingen. I noticed a sharp change in the posters for the upcoming German national elections once I crossed the border into former East Germany, when posters for the NDP, the neo-Nazi party, started cropping up all over the place.