Worms

On February 20th we headed to a small town called Worms.  This is a place were David's Uncle Bert was stationed long time ago.  David wanted to go and check it out before we left Germany.  Worms (pronounced vorms) is a city of about 85,000 people.  Before the Romans came, Germanic peoples had made Worms their capital.

AJ wanted a picture by the dragon!!  It is a cool statue!!!

I love this statue, there isn't anything significant about it, just cool!!

This is a small mock up of the Worms Cathedral - one of the three great imperial cathedrals on the Upper Rhine and is one of the finest examples of High Romanesque architecture in Germany.

The origins of Worms Cathedral go back to early Christian times.  The first Bishop of Worms was Berthulf, in 614 AD; his cathedral was much smaller than the present one.  The present one was started in 1125.

You know how much I LOVE my organs!!!  I wish I could have heard it, but it wasn't being played. 

The high altar is a Baroque extravaganza by the famous 18th-century architect Balthasar Neumann.  The opulent work of the gilded wood and marble was so large there was no place for a proper transept.

A closer picture of the front side of the church.

The other part of the organ!

The original stained glass windows of the church were destroyed by allied bombing in 1943.  In 1965 new windows were designed by an artist from Mainz, Alois Plum, and took 30 years to complete.

On the north side of the cathedral is the Kaiserportal, the emperor's door, where according to the German epic story of the Nibelungenlied, Kriemhilde and Brunnhilde argued about who could be first through the door - a dispute which led to the killing of Siegfried.

They had beautiful carvings all around the church.

A view from the back of the church.  The nave is over 100 yards long.

This is the culmination of the building program toward the end of the 12th century, including the zigzag arcades.

The cathedral crypt serves as the resting place of five generation of the Salian dynasty.

Each town seems to have an animal, and not sure exactly what this is, but we saw many statues of them around. 

This is another church that was re-built after WWII.

Shows the devastation after the bombing.

It is amazing to see the pictures of the town after the bombing and now.

You can see the front of the church here after the bomb. 

Another organ - love them!!!  It was a fun day in Worms and I am glad we were able to get there and see some of Uncle Bert's old stomping grounds.