I visited Regensburg during my semester abroad as a day trip from Munich. I went with one friend.

I got to Regensburg by train, so my first experience was the train station. The city mall is directly connected to it by a walkway, which is nice, and immediately in front of the station is a huge park with a very nice pedestrian/bike area. Eveything is very clean and well-kept, especially for a central station in Germany.

Walking to city center, there were tons of pedestrian streets, and lots of street stalls. At this point, we realized that we had decied to visit, completely by chance, on the day of the city festival. That meant that there were street vendors, from which I bought ice cream and a traditional bavarian hat, traditional live music, and way more people than I would usually expect there to be. On the famous stone bridge, for example, a UNESCO world heritage site, the crowd was too dense to overtake other walkers. It’s difficult to say whether the crowds made our experience better, but it was still really enjoyable nonetheless.

There was also quite a few people swimmming in the Danube, and after testing the water temperature with my foot, there could hardly be a bigger difference between it and the Isar. Even in late June, the Isar is cold and does not make for a good swim unless you desperately need to cool down from the heat. The Danube, by contrast, was warmer than most public pools. Had I brought my swim shorts, I think I would have just spent the whole day in the river.

Our first proper destination was the free UNESCO museum about the city right on the south entrance to the old bridge. There is a paid museum on the second floor going into more deatil on the bridge itself, but unless you are very interested in the history, I think that the ground floor museum tells plenty about it.

The second place we visited was the Dackelmuseum, aka the Dachshund Museum. They had thousands and thousands of tiny statuettes and photos of dachshund dogs, focusing on their role in european royal traditions above all. The museum is rather small, but the collection is almost overwhelming. There were hundreds of glass models, hundreds of porcelain ones, pipes, medals, jewelry, furniture, and all of it in the shape of dachshunds. An interesting place, and I would say it’s worth a visit.

The third place we visited was the Bavarian History Museum. It alone is worth the trip to Regensburg, and feels like something you would only find in national capital with its level of quality. The exhbits feature tons of historical artifacts, including replicas you can touch, and span a time period from the napoleonic wars to the 1980’s. There were also two temporary exhibits when we visited, one about playing cards, and one about the Danube, which were both very nice. And despite the crowds outside, the museum was pretty empty.

Lastly, we visited Walhalla, the temple to famous german-speaking people originally built by King Maximillian II. It is a good ways outside the city, but there is a bus which goes directly to it, and I think it is certainly worth the trip. Entry is cheap, and going around googling the names you see is a nice way to learn german history. The architecture is very classical, like an example temple you’d see in art history class, but since it’s a relatively recent construction, all the colorful bits inside are still well preserved. The surrounding landscape is beautiful too.