Ulm: The Munster

Ulm is the birthplace of Einstein and the home of the Museum of Bread Culture, but the main thing to see there is the Munster (mit der umlaut; sorry), Ulm's cathedral.

Even though it fronts a large square, Ulm's Munster is so
large, especially tall, that it is difficult to get a decent photo;
here's a photo of the usual bronze model of the old city

Nave

Ceiling

Chancel arch, beautifully frescoed with a
Last Judgment

Detail; Hell, of course

While everyone else is getting damned, Mary seems to
have found a good book

Just outside the arch is the tabernacle, the
highest religious carving in Germany; 85 feet;
1470

In the choir, more beautiful carving

Thus

And the usual misericordia

A few nice old windows

The organ; we stayed for the noon organ concert

More painting

Ditto

St. Edward Scissorhands

Side aisles nearly as interesting as the nave

Late medieval door hardware

Changing a lightbulb

Ulm: The City

Next day we took the bus for the 5 minute ride into the city and spent the day there. It's a beautiful city, much new and cosmopolitan, and also much of the old.

The old Rathaus, beautifully painted and restored; the new
Rathaus is a totally modern structure that contrasts starkly
with the great munster (cathedral; next post)

Plague monument (?) with the pyramidal city
library in the background

Me at the city tourist office; we visited Ulm not least on
behalf of our old college and graduate school friend,
Mel Ulm

Relief on a department store entrance on the central
pedestrian mall

An old house sloping into the canal in the Fishermen's
Quarter

Thus

Something new, to us at least: a geocaching shop; geofashion?!

We spent some time at the Danube Festival that Ulm
hosts annually; here's a guy from Hungary doing some form
of goulash

It stretched along both sides of the river, Ulm and New Ulm,
with food, beer and wine, and hand-crafts from all the
countries the Danube passes

More of the Fishermen's Quarter: half-timbered heaven

Ulm: Attack Swan On The Danube

We drove next to nearby Ulm and stopped at a free municipal stellplatz in a huge public park right on the Danube. Before venturing into the old city, scarcely a mile away, we spent a few pleasant afternoon hours wandering in the park and along the river.

At the stellplatz; minimal, but legal and free, and with a nice
supermarket a block away

Vicki in the park

Outdoor sculpture all around, like most of the German cities
we have visited

Now again on the Danube, not far from its source in the
Black Forest

Already a sizable river, however

And a play place for Ulm's residents

But danger lurks...or stands in the middle of the path...in
the form of Papa Swan

Joggers could see what was coming and veered well off the
path; but few cyclists saw him in time to take evasive action

Thus

And especially thus; "It's a dangerous business, Frodo,
going out your door..."

Augsburg Churches

I had more than the usual cultural/historical interest in Augsburg. In the 1730s Salzburg Emigration, many Protestant families, including the Scheraus family, went first to Augsburg for a bit before traveling on to Savannah and the New World. I had read somewhere that Augsburg was the most Catholic of German cities at the time and have always been curious as to why their exile began there, of all places. As with most things, it's a lot more complicated than that, beginning with the Peace of Augsburg, 1555, which guaranteed peaceful co-existence of Protestants and Catholics for a time. Well, anyway, we visited a couple of churches in Augsburg.

Augsburg cathedral

In the courtyard, a relief of Roman textile merchants, found
in excavation around the church

Interior, nave and simple rib vaulting; I'll never understand
how that little can hold up the ceiling and roof

As we walked in, organ practice was
underway, and continued

What was most striking about this church
was that it still had much of its painted
walls intact, including this puppy at
the west end, which was at least 40 feet high

More painted interior

Nice windows too, some very old

And a Mary tympanum on the north side

After the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, the Catholics built a
church for the Protestants, a gesture, I suppose; it actually
adjoins the Catholic church, the gray structure in the
center there; kind of Counter-Reformation Baroque, I
suppose, but what the hey...

Interior of St. Ulrich's, now an Evangelical Lutheran church

Offering box my ancestors might have used;
I tossed in a few coins for the effort

On To Augsburg

There are a number of notable southern German cities we'd never gotten to, so we thought we'd take the opportunity to visit a few, beginning with Augsburg.

Things started well...that's a Tesla being recharged, right on main street; just
like the Bay area; we parked just outside the old city and walked in

Main square; statue of Augustus; Augsburg was first a Roman capital, then an
imperial free city; then the site of many Reformation/Counter-Reformation events

Rathaus and tower

Looking back up the main drag, Maximilianstrasse, from Ulrich's church,
more about which in the next post

Here Martin Luther met with Cajetan, the Pope's legate,
trying to sort things out; they didn't; Cajetan later helped
draft Luther's excommunication writ; Cajetan was sort of
an early 16th century Forrest Gump; he was there and
had a hand in a number of the most notable events of the
era, e.g., the Pope's refusal to recognize the divorce of
Catherine of Aragon and Henry the VIII; many other
Reformation era events transpired in Augsburg as well, 
the Augsburg Confession, the Diet of Augsburg, the
Peace of Augsburg; it is unfortunate that so few Americans 
know  anything of the Wars of Religion that  occurred in  
the 16th and 17th centuries; they have everything to do 
with the founding of our country, freedom of religion, 
separation of church and state, etc.

Augsburg also was home to the Fuggers, the greatest banking family  of the era;
the personal banking office is still open for business; the  Fuggers were the
financiers of the Hapsburgs, among others

Inside the Fuggerei, the small city-within-the-city the Fuggers established in
the early 1500s to provide care and residences for the indigent; still in
operation...prove need, pay less than a buck a year, and pray regularly for the
Fuggers; there's a long waiting list, one assumes

A bit more of the downtown, old city; many, many beautiful old buildings

Gate tower on the old city wall, dated mid-1500s

Built using recycled materials