Regensburg, Germany

Yan had the day off and kindly offered to be my tour guide around the centre of Ulm for the day. We wandered down to the Muenster – although I made it clear she wasn’t dragging me anywhere near its rickety-looking, open-to-the-elements spire – and went inside to take a pew. The church had a magical feel; it was peaceful, cool, and tastefully understated, with plenty of pale sandstone and very little Christian Bling.

We then wandered in the general direction of the river, where Yan pointed out the gilded Ulm Town Hall and the schiefes Haus (literally, “lopsided house”), a wonky 15th century half-timbered building which was now a hotel commanding extortionate room rates which in my opinion were as crooked as its wooden beams.

Breaking out onto the river we strolled down the bank and headed for the clinic where Yan worked, which she was keen to show me. It was new, clean, large, airy and had a “healthy” feel – a world away from my local GP’s stuffy building with its tiny waiting room lined with rows of seats of spluttering patients.

Continuing the local theme, Yan suggested we eat lunch at a place offering local Swabian food, and we both ordered Maultaschen, a typically Baden-Wuerttemberger dish that looked a bit like giant ravioli and tasted glorious (if heavy on the old diaphragm for the next few days in that stodgy Germanic way).

It had been lovely to catch up with Yan again and receive such homely hospitality, as well as to have a good old natter in German, but the time had come for me to move on. Late that afternoon after saying our goodbyes I wandered back to the station and onto a train heading eastwards.

The most sensible choice was for me to head to Munich for a convenient overnght stop, but having already passed through there before Christmas with Ron I instead made my destination the city of Regensburg, slightly further north but still firmly in that land of Lederhosen and Oom-pa-pa music, Bavaria.

I had never been to Regensburg, and had read nothing about the place. I expected it to be a functional stop-off before my jaunt into the Czech Republic, and for it to share similar characteristics as other German cities I had visited, with perhaps a small Altstadt (old part of town) with a couple of original buildings and many others reconstructed and restored after being destroyed by bombing in the Second World War. But I was surprised to find that Regensburg, tucked away down in the south-eastern corner of the country, had only experienced air raids twice during the whole war, and quite unlike the other main cities of Germany, its historic medieval centre had been left remarkably well-preserved.

I arrived at nightfall and stepped quietly between the lush old buildings of the quiet centre heading for the river, beyond which the YHA hostel was located. It was a grandiose building, floodlit by huge lamps on the lawns. Coming out of the dark with my huge beard I managed to scare the crap out of the guy on reception, who was quietly reading and hadn’t expected anyone to be asking for accommodation; the hostel had only just reopened earlier that day from a long winter break.

Predictably, I had a dorm all to myself. In fact, there didn’t appear to be a single other soul in the whole hostel, but that was fine by me. After my nigh-on four hour journey I was just happy to fix myself a quick meal and sort my stuff out ready for an exciting jaunt into a new country tomorrow.