in the middle of may my parents visited me on vacation ( i had to work, unfortunately ) and whereas we didn't see as much as we normally do when being together, we made our way to worms on my day off and it outweighed the lack of adventures by far.
worms is full of myths & mysteries, history & beauty. it is a city that is said to have been the centre of the kingdom of the german burgundians in the 5th century and was probably the setting of one of the most famous german myths: the song of the nibelungs - which tells us about the story of siegfried, the dragon slayer. scattered all over the town are signs and sculptures of this beautiful myth, reminding you of siegfried's fight with the dragon and his love for kriemhild, the fight between kriemhild and brünhild at the cathedral of worms & hagen dismantling siegfried's secret of the linden leaf, killing him and then throwing the treasure rheingold into the river rhine. every year the nibelungen festival also takes place in worms, and it is a really big one! famous creatives of germany are showcasing the story on a big stage in front of the cathedral and i hear that it's a really splendid and grand spectacle everytime. this year the play will be called 'gemetzel' ( massacre ) - which appropriately summarizes what the nibelungs are about: a rather brutal story about love and hate, pride and death.
worms is also one of the oldest towns with jewish tradition in germany. jews came here around the late 10th century and the town was part of the schum-triangle - the cities of mainz and speyer were also main centres of jewish culture and thus cooperated with each other. the holy sands cemetery was by far my most favourite sight on this day. onethousand year old graves with almost unreadable inscriptions, the tradition of putting little stones on them as a sign of worship, the overgrowth of nature everywhere - it was surely a beautiful and very introspective sight. it was like a true oasis in the middle of a busy town - quiet and contemplative.
there are several such beautiful places in this city, the heylshof park, the backyards of church st. martin - they all provided little enchanted areas to relax and enjoy spring's sights and sounds.
as you can see i took quite a lot of pictures, so without further ado - enjoy a little touristic tour :)
the cathedral of worms - this is the north side of the cathedral which was apparently the place where the dispute between kriemhild & brünhild took place. kriemhild revealed that siegfried was the one who conquered brünhild, not gunther, brünhild's husband. brünhild does not believe this at first, but upon seeing the proofs of her defloration ( a ring and a belt that siegfried took from her the night she thought she was sleeping with gunther ), she dies away of shame and hate.
scattered throughout the town are these metallic birds by eckhard schembs. it seems he actively partakes in the design of the city as you can find a lot of his work everywhere.
a fountain on the schlossplatz.
friedrich I. ( barbarossa ) also was busy in worms, he presented the citizenry a so-called privilege of freedom, which was practically a protection act of the town worms.
the foundations of the cathedral are romanesque - which is something you can still see today. this architectural style appears very simple oftentimes, but in its simplicity there's a transcendance that is unequal to more 'embellished' styles like gothic or renaissance. and it's just awfully moving to stand in front of such old remains of the past.
the west side of the cathedral is easier to identify: gothic architecture.
rose windows. i really like how the window ornamentations look like astrological diagrams in some way.
funny sculptures can be found everywhere around the cathedral. apparently there's also a dachshund & rats incorporated somewhere.
inside the cathedral. i didn't shoot proper pictures of the interior space, because i simply forgot after i was too busy screaming and having a shock because my dad fell down a few steps. he got away with a few scratches and probably a little damage to his camera, though, nothing outrageous, but i still cannot forget the scene as he fell down and almost crashed against a wooden seating - head first. i really thought: this is it. wouldn't it be rather ironic to die in a church? it's as if god decided to even hate you in his holy halls.
these stone reliefs were really intricately done. i have big respect to those who can carve sculptures out of seemingly undestroyable materials.
death and rising of jesus.
the roots of jesus.
a miniature of the cathedral in the middle age.
the interior of the st. nicholas chapel. the light in there was really soothing. i'm really sad that i couldn't capture this special room better, it calmed me down after the little accident of my dad.
the windows were really modern. there was a nitrogen explosion in 1921 that happened in ludwigshafen quite a few kilometres away and the impact was so huge that the old windows were destroyed even in worms. talk about the power of chemicals.
a sculpture at the heylshof museum. it's an art gallery more or less. the surrounding gardens were quite beautiful. it was perfect for sitting down and processing what had happened in the church ;)
view onto the west side of the cathedral.
the back of they heylshof building.
i loved all the puttos in the city, and also their strange symbolic display.
crying face and little owl.
rhododendron in full bloom. i'll never get over the fact how massively over the top they are, but still extremely beautiful to the eye.
love the little patterns.
the front door of the museum.
another metal bird of eckhard schembs.
these little beauties are unknown to me. strange looking things they are.
the next church we entered was st. martin's. it is said that this church was build upon the dungeon of st. martin who was imprisoned after he refused to enter military service. it is part of the pilgrimage route 'via sancti martini'.
a water spitting fish on the ludwigsdenkmal. the monument is dedicated to louis IV, grand duke of hesse and is situated right next to st. martin's.
church st. martin from outside.
the main entry of the church was in its backyard and, boy, was it a backyard. it was full of flowers and arrangements. imagine the pilgrims resting their feet after they walked a long way. it was like a little garden of eden.
part of the tabernacle was this huge ass stone. it was made by gustav nonnenmacher, another sculpturist who shaped the sculpture landscape of worms. he also created barbarossa's privilege of freedom over the north portal of the cathedral.
st. lucas's feet and the head of a bull.
st. michael & the devil.
i love places like this so much, can you even imagine?
we were slowly making our way to the jewish part of the town. the worms synagogue dates back to the 11th century, which proves that the jewish culture was deeply rooted in the town's history until the nazis took over. it is regarded as one of the oldest synagogues in germany. unfortunately you cannot just simply enter. there are fixed opening times and when we visited we were simply to late ( or to early ;) ).
the rashi gate of the jewish quarter. it was actually a wall that separated the quarter from the rest of town, but they made a concession after the city traffic grew more and more and opened it up.
more schembs sculptures :)
a bird family makes their way through town.
art nouveau building through and through! it was right next to the bird family.
before we went to see the holy sands cemetery we decided to have a look at the rhine. it is quite far away from the city center, i was actually a little bit surprised. when we arrived this beer dragon greeted us.
we found hagen and the rhine gold treasure!
the rhine's surroundings in the worms area are rather plain compared to the middle rhine valley i live close to. big rivers are still a good thing, no matter how plain the surroundings.
this is kind of 'the entry gate' into worms. it is called nibelungenturm ( nibelung tower ) and is part of the nibelungenbrücke ( nibelung bridge ). it is surely a landmark of worms, as you can already see it from far away. it houses a scout hostel and a water quality station.
little boat haven near the tower.
taking off back to the inner city.
this is the torturmplatz, which is said to be the place were siegfried was buried after he died.
this distinctive church tower is part of st. paul's. the towers were erected in byzantine design based on the towers of the church of the holy sepulchre in jerusalem. originally there wasn't a church on this area before, but a salian castle.
this church also is over 1000 years old.
the whole vibe of the church had this byzantine feeling. this was another church we didn't enter. we still want to save these places for another revisit :)
we had the idea to visit the nibelungenmuseum, but as we entered it we were told they were closing in 10 minutes. no problem at all, one more location to revisit in the future!
another church. yes, worms is full of them. this time it's the baroque trinity church.
and then we finally reached our last goal of the day and surely it was my personal highlight: the jewish holy sands cemetery. the oldest graves are dated back to 1058 but it is likely that the graveyard was already erected 30 years earlier. i don't know much about jewish culture, but i really like the stone tradition where you put little stones on the graves instead of flowers. it was extremely quiet and calm in this place and we didn't dare to talk much, because there just was something like an unwritten rule in the air that told us you had to be quiet as well as you entered the graveyard. all you could hear was the sound of wind and birdsongs. i won't add a lot of words here and just let these pictures speak for themselves.
that i'm not able to read hebrew is kind of bugging me, but it still is nice to look at these exotic characters.
those tree stumps seem to be quite common, i saw at least 3 more in the cemetery.
this was the old part of the cemetery. the tree in the back was really interesting. you also couldn't enter every part of the cemetery because of soil conditions.
and that was our trip to worms. i definitely will return to this town, i want to learn more about the nibelungs, want to see the festival and still visit the zoo and all the museums there. worms, you were quite enchanting :)
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