A Georgia Girl in Germany

The city of Ulm is only about an hour away from where we live, so it made for a perfect daytrip. Our first stop was to the Ulm Cathedral. When we first walked into the market square and craned our necks to look at the entire steeple, we all felt a little unsettled. The clouds were moving away from us at a relatively quick clip, so it gave the illusion that the 530-foot steeple was falling toward us! That’s a lot of steeple to have fall. Fortunately, it was just an illusion, but I wasn’t the only one who noticed it (both Zachary and MacKenzie commented on it as well).

It took several centuries to complete construction of the cathedral. It began in 1377, then the start of the Reformation caused a delay of more than 300 years before the West Tower was completed in 1890. We started our tour by heading inside the cathedral for a look around. The front part of the cathedral included magnificent 15th century carvings by Jörg Syrlin the Elder on the choir stalls. I’m not sure what the various expressions signified, but I liked their detail and variety. Benjamin liked this one and reciprocated the face back at it (unprompted!). XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
After our short walk through the cathedral chapel, we headed toward the steeple for our climb. The cathedral is the second-largest Gothic church in Germany and has the tallest steeple in the world, and I was impressed that Benjamin managed to climb all 768 steps on his own! There wasn’t much opportunity to stop along the way, until we got to the this open spot just before the last push to the top. It was a nice place to stop, rest a bit and allow others to pass us before we began our final ascent. Yes, that center column holds the spiral staircase leading to the very top of the steeple! It's rather steep and narrow, and since this section had two-way traffic, we moved a bit slowly.


There wasn’t much room at the top as we inched our way around the spire. After making the 20-minute trek to the top, everyone wanted to take their time enjoying the panoramic scenery. Since the walkway is wide enough for only one person at a time (aka, no passing), we had to wait for the people in front of us to fully enjoy the view before we could do likewise and head back down. It was so narrow that it was difficult even for the kids to walk past me to trade spots!

The photo below is of the view looking up. Yes, that’s how close we were to the tip of the steeple. It wasn’t very high above us!


The climb to the peak was well-worth it for the wonderful view it offered of the Danube River and into Switzerland. Fortunately, we made the trek on a clear day, and we were able to fully enjoy the scenery.It was also very windy up there. We barely needed our jackets in the city below, but we could have used heavy coats to protect us from the fierce winds at the top. MacKenzie tried to hide from the wind, but even crouching down didn’t do much to keep the wind away.

The photo below reminds me of a similar one taken of Nazneen and me from atop the Empire State Building during our high school trip to New York. It was just as windy as, and much colder than, that day many years ago (I won’t say how many though).


After taking in the magnificent view, we headed back below. Zachary and MacKenzie made good time heading back down, as did Benjamin…after he took a break to climb around the this rest stop once more. I was very impressed with his stamina since I only had to carry him for about 10 steps of the entire 1,536-step round-trip journey.


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After fully exploring the cathedral, we meandered around the city a bit and came across the Marktplatz with its elegant 14th century Rathaus (Town Hall). It was badly damaged in World War II, but has since been restored to its former Late Gothic and Renaissance splendor.
We even discovered the Metzgerturun (Butcher’s Tower), also known as the leaning tower of Ulm. Its more than six-foot lean isn’t as noticeable as in the more well-known Leaning Tower of Pisa, probably because the direction of its lean is front-to-back from the pathway below. It’s leaning away from us in the photo on the left, and toward MacKenzie in the one on the right. The tower was built in 1345 and was once used as a prison.
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We took a few minutes to walk along the Danube River that divides the cities of Ulm and Neu-Ulm, which belong to two separate German states. Ulm is part of Baden-Württemberg, and its smaller, younger sister-city belongs to Bayern (Bavaria). This section of the Danube also boasts the distinction of being the location of Albrecht Ludwig Berblinger’s unsuccessful attempt to fly. In 1811, the “Tailor of Ulm” attempted to glide over the Danube in the presence of the king with a flying machine that he had made, but instead landed in the river.And for those of you who aren’t familiar with Ulm’s most famous son, we discovered a small tribute to the genius. This statue marks the location of the house where Albert Einstein was born. Alas, the house is no longer there.



The kids didn’t allow me to forget our ice cream tradition, so we had to make a stop. I enjoyed this restaurant sign, and convinced Zachary to pose with Einstein’s famous equation on a rather large soup can as we headed back to the van.

One last interesting note, and in keeping with the massive height theme (although I didn’t get a photo of it), we passed the world’s tallest grain silo just off the autobahn at the Ulm exit. It’s so high it appears to have an elevator to the top and has flashing lights to warn aircraft of its presence!

Labels: Benjamin, Germany, MacKenzie, Travel, Zachary