Augsburg Things to Do

4 more images

Aside of the pillars dividing the nave from the two side aisles there are small altars with paintings about saints and sacred history. There are also paintings by famous German painter Lucas Cranach the Elder.

1 more image

Many houses in the Fuggerei are covered with ivy, which makes them even more beautiful and characteristic.
Moreover, almost every house in the Fuggerei has a small window with a statue of the Virgin, a saint or an angel. Devotion was, in fact, one of the conditions to live there.
However, many others buildings in Augsburg have religious statues on their façades.

3 more images

The green area outside the Dom is called Fronhof. It was the field for jousts and tournaments in the ancient times.
Just outside the Dom you can see Roman excavations. As I have written in the introduction to this page, Augsburg (Augusta Vindelicorum) was the most ancient Roman settlement to the North of the Alps.
I have been told that in another part of the city, an excellent settlement is buried underground but the works to discover it will be led only in 10-15 years for the temporary lack of money and of appropriate technical means.
Close to the excavations there is an exposition of Roman sculptures. The two sculptures above in this photo represent seeds of Swiss stone pine (pinus cembra), a tree that the Romans brought to Augsburg and that has later become the symbol of the city.

2 more images

The crypt of Sankt Ulrich und Afra is one of the richest crypts I have ever seen. It keeps the tombs of the two saints. Saint Ulrich's is very rich and has a highly decorated altar, while Saint Afra's is very simple.

3 more images

Open your eyes! Here are the three magnificent high altars. The one on your right is Saint Ulrich's, the one on your left Saint Afra's (you may make her tomb out under the altar) and the one in the middle... I don't know. You must look at the other photos of this tip, as they are extraordinary!

2 more images

If you want to see something really wonderful in Augsburg, not just wonderful as one could say about anything, you cannot miss the inside of Sankt Ulrich und Afra! In this and the following tips, I'll try to give you an idea of what a wonderful church is.
When you go in, a high steel gate divide the entrance from the rest of the church. The entrance also has something important to see: a nice windows, a beautiful incision of Pope John Paul II and pictures of all the other important people who visited the church.

The theater's motto, ...die ganze Welt ist eine Bühne, written in red neon script across the lobby, is the German translation of a famous line from act 2, scene 7 of the play "As You Like It" by William Shakespeare (1564-1616). This amusing passage is also the source of the now-proverbial Seven Ages of Man:



All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

4 more images

The Römisches Museum (Roman museum) is hosted in the Dominikaner Kirche and shows a wide collection of Roman findings. As I have already told you previously, Augsburg was founded by the Romans, which explains the existence of such a museum.
This wasn't the museum I enjoyed the most, because I'm more interested in art than in archaeology. Moreover, I had to pay the full fare because I hadn't got a student card, while I nearly all the museums and monuments I've visited in Bayern, I got a student fare simply by stating that I was a student.