Here are 6 fun facts you may not have known about BAMBERG, Germany
Growing up in this beautiful cozy Bavarian town my heart will always have a home in Bamberg. Without exaggeration, I can honestly say that I believe the quaint little town on the river Regnitz is the prettiest small town in Germany (Hamburg winning the city contest here!)
Though other southern German towns are way popular for foreign tourists, I am not quite sure why. Maybe they were just better at marketing their city? In fact, I cannot think of a reason why any of the places like Heidelberg, Rothenburg ob der Tauber or Nuremberg should be preferred to Bamberg. The beautiful gem hidden on 7 hills, just like Rome, is all you would ever want in a fairytale dreamy town.
To pique your interest in this beautiful quaint little town and make you come visit (My mom will hate me for this post, she thinks there are way too many tourists already, but my mother is a tourist grinch in that respect J), I made a list of some of the coolest fun facts you should know…
#1 In Bamberg, lies buried, the only Pope north of the alps. Kind of special, I would think. Good old Clemens II wished to be buried here in the 11th century.
#2 Bamberg is the center of the universe, or at least was… Picture it: 11thcentury Europe, in the midst of the dark ages, Emperor Heinrich, pronounces Bamberg to be the navel of the world. Pretty big deal!
#3 1907 the so-called “Beer war” took place in Bamberg. A war over beer? I could relate to that! Due to taxation a bottle of beer experienced a markup from 10 to 11 pfennig. After boycott of the beer, the price was overturned. Talk about a revolution!
#4 Kingdom of the 1000 Beers…Bamberg is set in “beerconia”, the part of Franconia with the highest density of breweries in the world. In Bamberg alone, there are 11 historic breweries. That is 1 per 7.000 people! Though the new emerging Craft-brewery cult, especially in the US, may shift these numbers, Beerconia will forever be an Icon, with even our Bamberg Malt, from the Weyerman company being exported all over the world. Chances are that you have already drunk at least one local craft beer made from Bamberg’s exported malt.
All together in the space of only a couple of square miles, you get a humungous variety of different sorts of the beer spectrum like the natural cloudy Zwickl beer or the smoky bacon tasting Rauchbier (made with smoked malt) from Schlenkerla, there is not much missing on the beer scale here.
Naturally, people from Bamberg consider themselves beer connoisseurs. So, don’t mess with us, we know beer, like Paris knows macarons.
#5 Also known as the Franconian Rome, Bamberg, like Rome, is built on 7 hills with a church on top of each of them. (Cathedral Hill, Michaelsberg, Kaulberg/Obere Pfarre, Stefansberg, Jakobsberg, Altenburger Hill and Abtsberg.
#6 Bamberg used to be a hot spot for witch-hunts. In roughly about 35 years up to 1631, over 880 people were executed on witchcraft related charges. What used to be a dark and well-kept secret of the town now gained more recognition with even a monument at the Geyerswörth Garage, erected in 2015 to commemorate the hundreds of innocent people that have suffered injustice and paid with their lives 400 years ago.
Even if you’ve been to this most picturesque place in Bavaria before, I am sure there was at least one fun fact you haven’t heard of!
Do you know more interesting fun facts about Bamberg? Let me know!
AMASNEME 