Germany - Day 5 - Stuttgart / Ulm

Day 5, Dec 9 - Stuttgart / Ulm

View of the Black Forest on the road from Stuttgart to Ulm

We slept in the next day and headed out from Stuttgart. Our next destination was the small town of Ulm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulm

Ulm is a small town nestled along the Danube River and was founded in the mid 8th century. Internationally, Ulm has 2 major claims to fame.  The more important being that Ulm is the birthplace of Albert Einstein.  The other being Ulm Minster.  When planning our trip to Germany there were two churches I was really interested in seeing: one was Cologne Cathedral (too far away), the other Ulm Minster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulm_Minster


Ulm Minster is a true marvel of it's time. It was begun in the early Gothic era (1200-1600AD) and not completed until the 19th century.  It is the 4th tallest structure built before the 19th century and stands an impressive 530 ft, all of which is open for the public to climb.  It's funny, when we got to our hotel the nice guy at the front desk asked us if we were going to climb the Munster.  We told him that was our first stop he mentioned that you have to be in pretty good shape to make it to the top.  Ha, that reminded me about the scene in 'In Bruges' with the large American family who wanted to climb the church tower... 

side of Ulm Minster.

Gothic-style Ulm Minster from below

One of the statues going up the
side. They were all very detailed

When we arrived at the city center it was hard to miss the Minster.  It dominates the surrounding area. I have to admit that I'm not much of a church person, but I really love the Gothic architecture. It seems like everything is so detailed and I really like the complex geometric shapes that are formed. The sheer number and detail of the statues attached to the church is also astounding.  It definitely makes sense why it took a few hundred years to complete this place.

Gothic style architecture is so intricate. Notice the statues
on the sides going up the arches. Impressive.

I'm sure Bob would appreciate this door. There
were 2 doors like this, extremely detailed.

Interior of the Minster. It's weird saying this, but we've seen so many old churches
that they seem to blend together. For the most part they are quite similar.

After looking around inside the church, we began the ascent. We didn't know it at the time, but it was 768 steps to the top and it definitely got a bit scary towards the end.  The weather was decent (not raining yet) but it was pretty windy (I'd say gusting to about 30-40mph) which made it scarier as we got towards the top. I took quite a few pictures on the way up which should give a pretty decent idea of the height. 


Thinking about the height a bit more, the grain bins at my parents' farm in Kansas are 43 ft tall.  They seem pretty tall. At 530 ft, that's 12.3 grain bins stacked on top of each other...

~1/2 way up

~3/4 of the way up

At the top - freakin high...

On the way up we couldn't really see much aside from a seemingly neverending spiral staircase and the occasional window. We finally reached the base of the spire (pics below) and it was quite impressive.  I never really knew what a Gothic spire looked like and it was well worth the journey. I mentioned the wind and you can tell it was pretty open to the elements.  We were so high, and the structure kept getting smaller and thinner as we went up. I have to admit I got a bit cautious as we kept going up. This final staircase was a pretty tight squeeze.

View up into the top of the spire.
Awesome Gothic architecture

Notice the stairs we climbed toward the top...

This looked like a monk or abbot
hanging off the side

We made it!

It was colder than it looked.

Spiral staircase all the way up.

Gothic details on one of the side spires.

After spending some time at the top, we started getting cold and headed back down to explore the rest of Ulm. From the picture below you can tell the Christmas market was relatively small, so we decided not to spend much time there and explore the city.

Main Christmas Market from ~3/4 up the Minster. The circular
building on the left is the tourist info center and meeting hall.

Schweinshaxe at Barfusser brewhouse

Yuka enjoying the food

We stopped by the tourist info center and found out where another local brewhouse was and had another nice lunch.  Yuka had the Schweinshaxe (on the right).  It's a pork shoulder with a crispy skin, but nice an tender on the inside.  You can tell it was good because Yuka ate all of it and had a big smile on her face. It was quite tasty, and as usual the beer was good.


We stopped by the tourist info center and found out where another local brewhouse was and had another nice lunch.  Yuka had the Schweinshaxe (on the right).  It's a pork shoulder with a crispy skin, but nice an tender on the inside.  You can tell it was good because Yuka ate all of it and had a big smile on her face. It was quite tasty, and as usual the beer was good.


The old part of Ulm was quaint and really nice.  There was a small canal running through this part of town with lots of little bridges and old contemporary looking houses. One of the houses we really wanted to see was the Schiefes House, otherwise known as the Crooked House. The name says it all... It's just a really crooked house. I'd say the entire thing is leaning a good 5 to 10 degrees. 

Old Ulm and the Canal

This house was surrounded on both sides by water
We saw quite a few houses like this in Ulm.

Another view of the canal.

Schiefes House (Crooked House)

After seeing a few more of the sights we headed to the Christmas market.  It wasn't that impressive so we decided to go check out the 'famous' Einstein statue.  Yuka had heard about it online. We asked for directions in the info center and thought it would be easy to find.  This started a rather irritating journey that had us walking all over Ulm.


We followed our map to where the info center person told us the statue was. We couldn't find it. We did happen upon a rather unimpressive statue that looked like a rocket with some crap on top so we kept pressing on. Apparently this part of town was famous for Einstein and when we asked a young girl where the Einstein statue was, she proceeded to walk us several minutes to a pub called 'Einstein's'. After asking a few more people we ended up back at the unimpressive poop statue. Upon further inspection (we looked at the other side) we saw the Einstein face on the back of the poop. I was pissed that we had walked around so much for such a farce of a monumnet.  I was really surprised and disappointed that someone would let a statue be placed in their town that had Einstein's face on the back of poop. WTF.

Disgraceful statue that's supposed to be a tribute
to Einstein. Shit (with Einstein's face) on top of a rocket...

After the trek to see the statue, we were pretty much worn out and uninspired to see more. We headed back to the Hotel and relaxed the rest of the evening. Ulm was a nice little town and the Minster was definitely worth seeing. (Don't go see the statue if you're thinking about going, definitely not worth it).


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