Saturday – Osnabrück
Ok, another cool, rainy day. But we braved it and caught the train for the hour trip northwest to Osnabrück. The city is called the City of Peace, becau
se this is where the Peace Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648, to end the 30 years war. There is a wonderful historic room in their Rathaus where the Protestant side of the warriors signed their copy. Even though they were signing a Peace agreement the two sides still did not want to be in the same room together so the Catholic side signed their copy in Münster.
Ok, another cool, rainy day. But we braved it and caught the train for the hour trip northwest to Osnabrück. The city is called the City of Peace, becau
se this is where the Peace Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648, to end the 30 years war. There is a wonderful historic room in their Rathaus where the Protestant side of the warriors signed their copy. Even though they were signing a Peace agreement the two sides still did not want to be in the same room together so the Catholic side signed their copy in Münster.
But I digress; we walked from the train station to the town square, where they also were setting up for some kind of festival. May is a big month for spring festivals. We were to meet our guide at the Rathaus. We did and she whisked us off to show us the inside of the Dom of Osnabrück. Another amazing and beautiful church. I am always amazed at how large these places are and wonder how they possibly built these things without modern equipment. I was reminded by “Mr. Know It All” (inside joke, you wi
ll have to go with us to find out who this is) that pyramids and Roman palaces were built long before this, also without modern machinery. Still, I wonder???Anyway, Heather (our guide) had us traveling around the city,
before ending up at the Rathaus and that historic room. We visited several rooms in the Rathaus before the tour ended and we sat down to lunch in a local Brauhaus. At lunch we
were met by a few members of the Osnabrück Genealogical Society who would drive us to their library after lunch. They were very congenial people and so nice of them to go out of their way to meet us. We w
ere surprised too when we got there at the number of Society members and researchers who came out to meet us. We were able to browse through their library which had some church books, emigrant lists and other good things to view. But of course within not too long of a time we were herded upstairs for Kaffee und Kuchen and talk with the hosts. I got some emails of profe
ssional researchers for this area if anyone is interested. It was a nice day in spite of the weather and we were driven back to the train station by our hosts so we could get back to our hotel and eat again. Even though we walked a lot, it seemed like we were always eating! 
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