Ulm: Ascent of the Munster Spire

As interesting as it is on the inside, the Munster's surpassing feature is its 528 foot high spire, tallest in the world. You can climb its 768 steps for a mere 2 euros, and, of course, I had to do it.

Postcard view of the Munster and its spire

Ground view

Most of the 768 steps look pretty much like this

Looking out at the twin towers

More than life-sized gargoyles en route

Interior view heading into the final tower; talk about flying
buttresses!

At the top, looking down to the roof and twin towers

Ulm below; note the Ikea in the mid-distance

The Danube

Old city

Descent view

Upper reaches of the spire; I am not sure where you finally get to, but it was high
enough for me

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