#TBTTP – Bamberg

For this week’s installment of Throw Back Thursday Trip Pictures (#TBTTP), I’ve selected  Bamberg, Germany. Bamberg is the first stop on Viking River Cruise’s “Christmas in Germany” cruise after leaving Nuremberg. It is where the Main River connects to the Main-Danube canal, which allows cruise ships to go all the way from Amsterdam on the North Sea to the Black Sea via the Rhine, Main, and Danube rivers. We visited here on the Christmas cruise in December 2015.

Bamberg is known as the home of smoke beer (Rauchbier – definitely an acquired taste), but it also noted for its Old Town Hall, which is situated in the middle of the river Linker Regnitzarm, not just for its odd location (the island was the only land that the bishop didn’t control when the townspeople wanted to build), but for the stunning frescoes on the building:

If you look closely, the frescoes aren’t just 2-D. The artist himself included some 3-D medieval advertising for his services with the cherub pointing to his name:

Some other fun detail from the fresco:

The Old Town Hall wasn’t the only beautiful building in Bamberg. Here is the Bamberg Cathedral:

The cathedral is the home to a famous medieval sculpture of a knight on a horse that, though it looks small by our standards, is full size:

We also visited the Bamberg Christmas market. A couple highlights:

Christmas-themed meat stocking stuffers!

Just like the first Christmas – only 1800s German style.