Danube Trip - Well, We're Here #1

Lindach Church

We got here safely enough yesterday. This morning we collected our rental car (it's a yellow Opel Corsa - they must have been looking for someone daft enough to take this one for a while) and headed off for the Eggmuhl battlefield. The battlefield is bigger than I expected, and our guide (Georg) gave us a few inside tales of how things are not always as they are represented. Examples:

(1) The church tower at Lindach is famous because Napoleon is reputed to have climbed up there to see where the Austrians were. In fact, he can't have, because the tower has no proper windows and you can't see anything from that position.

(2) General Cervone was hit by a cannonball, and is buried beneath a monument by the road. In fact, he is buried where he fell, on farmland, but the farmer became so fed up with visitors trampling his crops that he arranged to get the monument shifted. Thus Cervone is buried on the battlefield, but nowhere near his monument.

(3) There are many little villages on the battlefield, and the fighting lasted over two days. Exactly which bit was the battle of Eggmuhl depends on which nation's version you read and which days you include.

Whatever, it was a fascinating and rewarding morning's trip, and we are deeply grateful to Georg for his knowledge and enthusiasm.

This afternoon we wandered around Regensburg old town, and were particularly impressed by an establishment called Dampfnudel Uli's, which specialises in traditional Bavarian steam dumplings, served with custard sauce. If this does not sound particularly interesting, I assure you this is only because you have never tried them...

Tomorrow we visit the Bavarian Army Museum at Ingolstadt, and the battlefield of Abensberg. Here's some pictures from today.

Georg Schindlbeck, in the uniform of a fusilier of the Bavarian I.R. No.5, Graf
 Preysing, gives an impressive display of how to fire two aimed shots a minute with
a flintlock musket

Lend him a Bavarian helmet and a French musket, and old Max Foy can still turn
his hand to soldiering. The car is official Napoleonic army issue.

In our exchange of international gifts, Georg was kind enough to give me a musket
ball, which was found on the battlefield. It's small size suggests that it was either
an officer's pistol ball or - more likely - a Bavarian sharpshooter's rifle ball.

My valiant colleague. Simon the Bookseller on the old bridge at Regensburg. The Danube
 is absolutely raging, and there is about 4 feet clear below the top of the river walk in
the background

Inside DampfNudel Uli's - lots of photos of celebrity guests

Uli - while he was showing me some of the photos of guests, he
was delighted that I told him that, quite correctly, he was more
famous than Ronald Reagan