2nd August 2008
Yesterday we decided that today we would come to Ulm for lunch. So we did. We bought our tickets this morning at Zürich main railway station and left on the 09:16 and caught our connecting train in Memmingen around 2½ hours later.
We
stopped for lunch at the Wirtshaus
zur Brezel (Ulmer
Gasse 8) - a short hop from both the Bahnhof and Old Town
of Ulm. I took the Bayrischer Schweinsbraten for lunch which
came with a Brezelknodel (a type of dumpling with bacon) and
Weinsauerkraut. To drink? A Müncher Dunkle - a delicious
dark beer. Service was not only polite and hospitable but delivered
with the kind of efficiency one has come to expect from the
Germans.
After lunch, we continued to the Ulmer Münster which is an impressive piece of German-Gothic architecture. The spire of the Cathedral, at 161 meters, is the worlds tallest spire. For 3.50Euros, you can climb the 768 steps to the top for views over Ulm and Neu-Ulm. Apparently on good days, you can see as far as the Alps.
The
interior of the Münster, while clearly Gothic in style,
lacks the austerity of other constructions including, interestly, Berne
Münster. I say interestingly as both Matthäus
Ensinger and his father Ulrich von Ensingen were involved in
both Cathedrals.
The vaulting, essential to the structural integrity of the
building and ceiling, is elegent with white painting between
the ribs and, comparativly, new paintings close to some of
the points. The nave, while retaining all the essential elements
of the Gothic style, gives
a much greater appearance of elegance than many other Gothic
structures, especially those in the High Gothic style, which
tend to be more imposing and darker than the Ulmer Münster.
