I dedicate this post to our pal Sippican, who knows a lot more about archeetekcher than I do.
What does Pope Benedict have to do with Regensburg? Plenty.
Plus the town is Germany's medieval gem (and was not bombed by the Allies). It would be a very pleasant town to live in.
The great gothic St. Peter's (c. 1240) is fine, but we found this small parish church, not a tourist site, Ulrichskirche (also 1200s I believe), which is next door to the cathedral, interesting from a detective standpoint. Take a look at the bastardised architecture and decor.
What first struck us on entering was that the church organist was practicing, noodling on his old German pipe organ with comfortable recessional noises. Great.
Second thought was "What the heck is this?"
Well, clearly somebody in the 1700's decided to gussy up the old-fashioned, gothic-ish church with Baroque. Redecorating. Squared the old columns, added squigglies to them, new baroque pulpit, and painted over the old gothic paint and stone.
More interesting architectural detail below the fold -
Well, but is it a gothic structure? Romanesque bones, but with a rose window. It's a pastiche (finally - got to use "pastiche" and "bastardised" in a single post. Sippican will be proud of me):
Look at what somebody did to the old columns and arches in the 18th c. They thought it looked great, but it looks to be either Late Nevada Whorehouse or Early New Jersey Mafioso.
Seriously, tho, I can easily imagine what they were thinking in 1720: "Let's spruce this old pile of rocks up a bit. It's looking tired and outdated."
The Romanesque entry (with most of the paint faded from the pictures on it), with a view of the Baroque inside, is mentally confusing. It was good to see tons of church announcements and church kids' events scotch-taped to the walls of the entry. Bavarian RC churches aren't museums.
Inside is a gothic side altar, original paint I believe. I thought it was wood, but in my photo it looks more like stone. For some reason, the redecorators decided to leave this untouched. Note the gold stars painted on the blue sky on the inside top of this piece. We forget that the stone in some gothic cathedrals was originally painted, at least to some extent.
Just as we forget that all the old Greek stuff was painted in vivid colors.
