In the tiny WSA harbour in Straubing (Watercourse and Shipping Agency of Germany) we found a semi-legal spot for the night, locked the boat and had a lovely stroll through yet another picturesque Bavarian town.
The following morning, as no one had come to chase us, we pushed our luck a bit further and after breakfast left the boat a second time and pilgrimaged up into town again to see the Gäubodenmuseum. Straubing had been a major Roman military centre on the Danube Limes with associated civic settlements for a few centuries and had left ample archeological evidence from that time.
In 1950, during excavation works, a very generously sized copper basin was found upside down, covering a collection of beautifully crafted mask-like parade helmets, statuettes, horse head protection pieces, all made from brass, as well as a considerable number of iron tools, weapons, horse shoes and other things. It is the biggest treasure of Roman artefacts of this nature ever found, and of remarkable craftmanship as well as artistic quality.
Besides this famous find, a huge number of other items have been recovered over the last few decades, filling an entire level in the museum. This also shows artefacts from the Bajuwaren, a tribe that came about out of the mixture of the remaining Roman population after the Roman military had left, and Germanics that moved into the area. Their clay pots, for example, appear strikingly rawer, less decorated and altogether hamfistedly done compared with the Roman ones.
The Bajuwaren were the direct ancestors of modern-day Bavarians and this fact of being comparatively untouched by the upheavals of the great migration is reflected in the special status that Bavaria has even today among the fellowship of German states.
Thus drenched in history, we made our way back to the boat and carried on with our journey.
