Regensburg
The mighty Danube begins in the park of the Furstenberg Palace and flows eastward for a distance of 2,000 miles across ten countries on to the Black Sea. Last weekend, Prince and Princess Heinrich von Furstenberg, the titular heads of the family who live in that palace, gave us a little tour of Walhalla, the German Hall of Fame situated further down the river from their park, in Regensburg, the perfectly preserved medieval town where a wonderful party celebrating Maya Schoenburg’s 50th birthday has left me feeling all of my 72 years. Make that 102. But first Walhalla.
As everyone knows, it was the dwelling place of the Gods, into which warriors chosen by the Valkyries were admitted. Ludwig I of Bavaria decreed in 1842 that men and women of great achievement, not necessarily German, both in times of war and peace, should be commemorated in the temple he had built and bequeathed to the Fatherland.
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