Today’s weather report said that it would rain in Munich and would be partly cloudy in Augsburg so Alex and I decided to pack our work material and jump on the train to Augsburg. It was a cloudless day, a bit windy, and yes it did rain, that is, it rained pollen! Pollen on my Käsespätzle, in my beer, in my hair, ridiculous. But you cannot beat this excellent weather. Overall, Augsburg is a quaint city, a little bigger than Regensburg in size, with the twisty corridors and a fast moving canal through the center of the city.

The history :: Augsburg was founded by Romans 15 years B.C.E., which makes Augsburg the oldest town in Bavaria. That blows my mind when I think the oldest est. settlement I visited in Florida/U.S. was St. Augustine, which was founded in 1559 C.E.

Marionettes are the ambassadors for Augsburg. I was never a fan of marionettes until I saw ‘Being John Malkovich’, much respect to the hand puppeteers. The city is also very much conservative, Roman Catholic based but there is good mix of young punks on the streets to balance this out.

A little while ago, Alex read a book by Aschbach called “The Trillion Dollars”, which describes the ‘Fuggerei’, augsburg pics the world’s oldest social housing. The Fuggerei is in city center of Augsburg so we decided to take a visit. It was founded in 1516 by Jakob Fugger the Rich (insanely weathy weaver, tradesman, and banker) for industrious, innocently impoverished Augsburg citizens of Roman Catholic faith. The annual rent is 77 cents! The residents must still pay for monthly utilities but the 3-room apartment is really quite cozy. Jakob Fugger heavily financed the Roman Catholic church, including 3 different Popes. Martin Luther gave Fugger a lot of flaq for his excessive wealth, which may have been one of the reasons the 147-apartment establishment was build. Of course, the Fugger’s were also interested in securing their souls into heaven, so the residents are required to pray three times a day for the founders’ souls.The facility was completely destroyed by the bombs during WWII, but later rebuilt and now houses mostly older people.