Speyer

This is quite a small town with a main drag as wide as the River Rhine itself.

This time I will start with the food and drink. Wine tasting at 9:30am. Umm? Well, that is exactly where we found ourselves, in a wine shop to start our tasting of the local wine, mainly a sparkling and dry Reisling. To be fair, it wasn’t at all bad, but so early in the morning? Not for me, it is like drinking coffee after midday, there ought to be a law against it! Once I realised that the shop’s proprietor was coming on board this evening before dinner I could relax knowing that I would get another bite of the cherry. I could then fill my boots!

Unbeknown to us, we had arrived at the home of the pretzel, another doughy concoction that has a similar enticement to chewing on broken glass. Once again, my own opinion. We were furnished with a version of this so called delicacy, the shape and size of a car’s steering wheel, in fact I expected it would be explained away by saying that the word, pretzel, was Celtic or something for steering wheel. No evidence of that, I am afraid. In my view, the real meaning is somewhat mundane, stuck with a religious connotation as it is.

The word is translated from the German, brezel, which in turn is taken from the Latin, bracchiatus, meaning folded arms as if in prayer. It is punctured by three holes which are meant to represent the Holy Trinity. It was an unleavened bread developed in Speyer by monks during the sixth or seventh centuries, so that it could be fed to children during Lent without breaking the Christian period of fasting. It did get me to thinking, how many mothers would break a piece off to alleviate their own hunger during this sacred period? Who would ever know? Only God, I supposed, so given people’s fervent belief, I assume no-one broke the rules. If they did, they most certainly weren’t immediately struck down by a bolt of lightning. I assume their loved ones would never realise until they passed through the portals of Heaven themselves, and, when looking for them, couldn’t find them.

“Excuse me, St Peter, don’t know whether you can help me at all, but have you seen my beloved wife, Ursula?”

“Sorry,” Peter would reply. “She had a piece of pretzel during Lent one year meant for your child. She knew the rules.”

Well, I can tell you now that if cheating and eating a pretzel during Lent were the only measure of who goes to Heaven, I might as well pack my bags now, I am most definitely on my way, I would find it more appetising to chew on my own shoe leather than try another pretzel. Don’t understand the liking for them?

Another thing, if the Germans want to call it brezel, by the way, z is pronounced ts in German, why do we need to change it? I have never understood this. Place names, in particular, fall foul of this bizarre rule. We have travelled quite extensively through Italy, so why, oh why, oh why, do we need to change Napoli, Roma and Milano to Naples, Rome and Milan? Back to Germany, it doesn’t seem that difficult to call Munich Munchen, does it? I know it goes both ways, why is London Londres in France?

Whilst on meanings of words, what is it with lent? Well, lent, although taken on by English speaking Christians is, in actual fact, taken from the old English word, lengten, pinpointing the days during the year where the days grow longer. This was later changed to springing, the period where seedlings begin to spring from the ground, which became springtime before being shortened to spring. There you have it. Correspondingly, autumn hasn’t always been so named. Up until populations in England started to migrate more to cities and towns it was referred to as harvest. I think it is pretty obvious why. Then, after that it was recorded as the season of the fall of the leaf, later shortened to fall. So, despite what many think, fall is not an Americanism, but travelled across the pond during colonisation, after which autumn became more widely used in the home country. The term fall, therefore, is as English as roast beef, not as American as hamburger. It was us who changed it, not them. I trust you’ve gotten that?

Speaking of food leads me onto talk about one of Speyer’s most famous sons, a true larger than life character. I think he would have been a doctor’s nightmare. I’m not sure how much credence he paid to BMI, calory control and units of alcohol consumed, yet he lived to 87. He tipped the scales at a smidgin over 130kg, but to be fair, he was 1.93m tall, a big ol’ boy, and he strode like a colossus across German politics from 1982 until 1998, which meant that German Reunification was slap-bang in the middle of his watch. He was none other than Helmut Kohl. I don’t know why I like this little anecdote about him, especially when measured against some of his political achievements, but he had a fondness for saumagen, a dish consisting of a pig’s stomach filled with bits of pork, carrots, potatoes, onions and spices, which would be sliced and fried. It would be served alongside a side of sauerkraut, and he would follow it with sweet pastries, all washed down with copious goblets of wine from his home region, maybe the same as we had tried that very morning. He would serve it up to dignitaries, international and domestic, regardless of what they thought of it. He was a man of very simple taste when it came to food and drink. When I was looking up saumagen someone described it as similar to haggis but less gross. I have never tried this German delicacy but given I love the Scottish version I am pretty sure I would like it very much. There is a lifelike bust of him near the cathedral for posterity.

We had a very good guide who was a cross between German and English. He had spent his formative years in Sussex, enjoying a pretty privileged upbringing, but had broken with family tradition by not going into the legal profession, instead taking a degree in History, much to the consternation of his father, although they do talk again now. It wasn’t long after gaining his degree that he went to visit the maternal homeland, I think it was his mother who was German, and ended up staying. He has now taken a German wife himself. Whilst we were, in the main, on a wine tour, he confessed to preferring beer. It seems quite peculiar, he was very well spoken although his faultless English carried heavy hints of German.

“Do you know who he reminds me of?” asked Jane.

Unsurprisingly, I answered in the negative, guessing it was a looks thing. I certainly couldn’t tell from his voice.

“He looks very similar to Graeme.”

"Really?” I suppose he is as close as you can get. He comes from Sussex and he likes beer. There is definitely a familial similarity. I can go with that.” Chuck in a touch of pedantism as well and he could have been a twin!

I do know that Graeme happens to read these pages and I don’t think I have offended him, at least I think not, after all, he is a self-confessed pedant and I know he hails from Sussex and he, most certainly, cannot deny that he likes beer.

By this juncture, all the excursions were walking tours, no buses from the ship anymore so, if it suited, we could come and go as we pleased. During the early part of the tour, our guide was telling us about the cathedral, “Another Bloody Cathedral,” as one of our Australian friends would say, informing us that when Pope Urban II called for crusade many of the peasants of Germany and France would gather along the Rhine. Whilst the main target of the crusades was to rid the Holy Land of Muslims, there was a massive anti-Jewish feeling epidemic through Europe at the time. Rumours, hitherto unproven, started to spread that the Jews had boiled a Christian alive and had tossed his putrefying corpse down a well, thus contaminating the water supply. This occurred in the town of Worms, but unrest spread along the Rhine Valley as anti-Jewish sentiment grew. In the end it boiled over and a few thousand were massacred up and down the valley. This did not come as a surprise to me as I have read much about atrocities committed by both sides during the crusades. The thing is, technically, at any rate is the Jews were not the enemy, it was the Muslims. Devout Christians, even then, over a thousand years after the execution of Jesus blamed the Jews for this betrayal and didn’t need a second invitation to slaughter a Jew.

One lady on the tour turned to us, of all people, appalled by the guide’s assertion that this had taken place. “This is the problem with our universities these days.”

Not understanding what her gripe was I asked, “What is?” I was searching for the catch in her statement but couldn’t see one.

“Changing history to make us sound like the wrongdoers.”

“Really,” I said. “I think it is plausible, after all war crimes were a part of everyday life in battle back in those days, by all sides as well.”

“Not the Christians,” she insisted.

I pointed out Richard the Lionheart at Acre, where he ordered the decapitation of 2,700 Muslim men, women and children. I would urge you to look up Charlene Newcomb, www.charlenenewcomb.com, who provides incredible accounts of The Third Crusade including some contemporary views. It is truly fascinating.

The lady huffed and puffed a little, clearly not impressed that I was siding with the woke view of the lunatic left. Oh well, we know what we know. Just bear in mind, the slaughter was carried out under divine grace, as if that, in some way, justified it. There were good reasons why he did what he did but whether that condones such barbarous behaviour, especially when looking back from the 21st century, well, that’s another matter.

Let’s speak about the cathedral itself. The construction was ordered by Conrad II and remains the largest Romanesque church in the world, dedicated to St Mary and St Stephen. Apparently, if you draw your eyes upwards, if they work, you will see that the stonework towards the eves is far more intricate. This was because the view at the time was that the closer to God you were he would be more appreciative of you spending more money in His honour. It is an amazing structure, though, boasting four towers and two domes, and to think it was built in the eleventh century. The guide pointed out a tactile model of the building so I was able to go and feel my way around the massive church, even if it was scaled right down, this sort of innovative modelling is, slowly, becoming more prevalent and it gives people like me a brilliant facsimile of what everyone else is looking at. Well done to all of you who have such a model, and to all of you who are thinking of commissioning one.

In the centre of the city is an amazing bronze statue of a pilgrim making his way along the St James’ Way. What is the St James’ Way? You will have heard of Santiago de Compostella, the shrine dedicated to San Tiago, St James, in north-west Spain? Well, there are routes starting out from all over Europe for pilgrims to take the Camino de Santiago, St James’ Way. The British journey commences at Reading Abbey for those of you who might be tempted to give it a go. Whilst there is no definitive setting off point from Germany, Speyer is considered one of the main jumping off points, hence the statue. It does sound like quite a grand trek, taking in, as it does, the German Rhineland, through the Alps. Across France, through the Pyrenees and, finally, on through Spain to Santiago itself. Having been to the city previously, although I don’t get the religious or spiritual bit, I must admit the cathedral dedicated to one of Jesus’ right hand men is as grand as they come. If anyone fancies guiding a blind man one day I probably wouldn’t mind giving it a crack.

Weatherwise, this was probably the worst day of the cruise. We awoke to rain laden skies which, in the end, started spitting on us as we strolled along the paths leading from the riverport, through a very attractive urban park, and on into the city. The rainfall was intermittent during our visit and when it came to time to return, although it had lightened up quite a bit, we were dancing around puddles. It really was an enjoyable stroll back to the Geoffrey Chaucer, and, even though we took a slight wrong turn, it was very tranquil apart from one delivery truck delivering beer to a riverside hostelry: how dare these people carry on working when Jane and I are in town? Don’t they know who we are.

On stepping aboard the ship we headed for the restaurant for a light lunch and some welcome coffee. We were due to depart the town during the early afternoon, during which I was to attend on the only celebrity on the cruise, radio presenter, Jason Forrest of Wolverhampton Community Radio, just tell your smart-speaker “Play WCRFM” and it will oblige you. The interview was to take place on the top deck and, no word of a lie, it was perishing. Because Jason and his technical man, Richard, were also filming our interaction for posting up on social media and, I think, their YouTube channel I dressed the part. I have a T-shirt adorned with the cover of Wish Dead List. Mistake! As we steamed out into the middle of the river it became blinking obvious that I was severely underdressed, we had abandoned any shelter that had protected us close to the bank, and were exposed to bitterly chilled winds out of the north along with a scything rain buffeting us horizontally under our gazebo shelter. My legs and arms caught a nasty case of goosebumps, definitely a tad nippy.

We were broadcasting live back to the UK and, I must admit, I had every sympathy with Jason and Richard, for each time we went under a bridge we lost contact with the mothership, and all sorts of rebooting was going on. They both remained so calm, in what I thought were trying circumstances. I would have been throwing my toys out of the pram by this stage, and a few moments later I might well have thrown my pram out of the ship. On the face of it, it seemed like Fred Karno might have done a better job and I really feared we might have to abort. Despite everything, we soldiered on, my Stanswehorn hoodie coming to the rescue, I sent my assistant down to the cabin to retrieve it, for the second half of the interview, it was now down to 38 Swiss francs per wear, really was becoming value for money. We got there in the end, and I couldn’t actually believe it when I listened to the finished product back, it was brilliant, apart from my chattering teeth, but it was clear that Jason and Richard were as cool as cucumbers, producing something that sounded every bit like a professionally produced radio show. A massive thank you to the catering crew of the MS Geoffrey Chaucer for keeping us topped up with hot drinks. Apologies to Riviera, you must have taken a giant hit to your hot chocolate budget! I had a ball though. The hot shower was most warming and we took an early saunter to the lounge to ensure the best place for the wine tasting.

Can’t recall too much more of the evening but it is safe to say we all had a wonderful time.

Find Out More
Speyer: www.speyer.de

White Cane Ratings
City Centre: quite accessible; good - * * *(3)
Pretzel: didn’t see the point!