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Ulm, Germany
The soul and the spirit each have got their own limit
Between Stuttgart and Munich, Ulm is famous for one thing and one thing only (if you don't count that whole Albert Einstein was born here thing). Ulm's glorious cathedral (the Ulm Münster) has the singular distinction of possessing the tallest tower of any church anywhere. At 530 feet high it is not only the tallest cathedral (take that Cologne) but it was even the tallest building in the world for a while, until the now demolished Singer Building was finished in Lower Manhattan. After a construction period that took over five hundred years (yet seemed oddly faster than current WTC site redevelopment plans in New York), the cathedral was even able to survive World War II, thanks to supposedly regular local foggy conditions that were not evident during my all too brief visit.
One of the interesting thing about the spire other than its height is its open air construction. This is from about two thirds of the way up, above the bells and where the convenient one way stair ends and the somewhat less convenient two way central spiral stair begins.
Looking out over the not so blue Danube, a close up view of a gargoyle- a carefully carved amenity that somehow still survived whatever value engineering demands were imposed during those five hundred years of construction.
Everyone loves plan views. A few things to note include a well received Richard Meier's building (the white one on the left that looks like a Richard Meier building) and a row of giant, temporary, occupiable footballs- part of the local Ulm World Cup celebration.
The ascent (and inevitable descent) of the spire consists of 768 risers in just about all imaginable configurations. Whenever I see a tower or spire that is climbable I am usually a sucker unable to resist- this trip saw me make similar ascents in Munich, Prague, Dresden, Copenhagen and Tallinn. As far as ascents usually go this one (while considerably higher) wasn't all that bad. First of all no one really goes to Ulm to visit, there were only two or three other people climbing at the same time I was. Second (and more importantly) was that despite the expected summer weather, the open construction allowed for some nice cooling breezes through most of the tough parts.
This is a view on the way down, somewhere along the spiral staircase and features approximately one percent of the stair treads you can expect to encounter should you decide to descend from such great heights.
Four more quick pictures in and about (and out) of the Münster, a few with cameos of the Willy Wonka and the Chocalate factory rooftops scattered all about Ulm. I think I can see Charlie Bucket’s house from here.
