More Churches

I'm realizing that a majority of my posts have to do with churches or Half-timbered houses, and I hope that I'm not boring the heck out of you with the repetition. While the winter months have not been nearly as bad as I anticipated them being, I have begun to look forward with more eagerness to the summer months, with flowers back in full bloom and the warmer weather luring one out to breath its fresh air. In the meantime, churches it is. My semester has largely been occupied with the subject not only because it's often the thing to see in each town, but most of my courses have focused in one way or another on the Church, its ecclesiology, history, and architectural development and symbolism. It's been great to have this time to be occupied with these thoughts and to visit so many, seeing the symbolism as well as oddities that lie within their walls.

Not wanting to waste a rainy Sunday afternoon, myself and travelmates traveled to Hildesheim in search of more churches. If nothing else, we could at least sit on the train and play a riveting game of cards, providing afternoon entertainment. Our visit in Hildesheim became a comedy in itself.

We knew the way to Hildesheim, and we knew that there were old churches dating back to the 11oo's, one of which was mostly untouched in the war. What we didn't know was where exactly they were. Like good tourists, we found a city map in the train station to get our bearings and headed towards a large church. Before reaching our destination, we came upon another, small church with Romanesque architecture, circled around it and tried to get in, only to be denied entrance, so on we went. We came to the city center with another church, with similar architecture and a little larger. The door was open, but we were greeted on the other side by a man who informed us that we could come back in 10 minutes, but they were not yet ready for visitors. So, out we went finding signs pointing to the Dom and St. Micheal's. This was for sure a better direction to be heading in.


We came upon another church that we thought was the Dom, larger than our first two church sightings, but still oddly small from what we had read about on the Internet. It was open and we explored its insides getting a taste of a Romanesque middle, and baroque and Gothic side ships. However, another visitor to the church, eager to talk about the wonder of all three architecture types in one church, informed us that the Dom was yet further on.


So on we traveled to the Dom, which was much more in line with what we were expecting and got the treat to see a supposed 1000 year old Rose bush. Due to the wet, damp weather and hungry stomachs we decided it best to catch the next train home.


It was then on our return journey to the train station that we came upon St. Michael's, the church undamaged in the war. This was the church we were really in search of, but not wanting to spend another hour in the rain we agreed to come back in the summer months to explore it further. We returned to the train station, passing the first church we had come across on our way, and chuckled at the larger revelation each church brought to the day and looked forward to another round of card games on the ride back home.