Iron Birds
by antistar
All around the city I found these wonderful iron bird sculptures. They were dotted around at various sights in the city, and I counted four, but there were probably more. They ranged from little irons birds perched on metal trees, to the giant striding iron ostriches in the grounds of the Stadt Museum. This one is from the front of St Paulus, but I spotted two more in the Schlossplatz under the cathedral and another in front of the Kunsthaus Heylshof, which you can see in my picture of that.
Do your sightseeing on the run
by christine.j
A sightseeing tour of the special kind is the Nibelungenlauf.
It's a run which takes place the second Sunday in September. This is really not the best date, as it coincides with heritage day, and I had a hard time making up my mind which event to choose. I decided to run in Worms and had a great time.
The course takes you through Worms, you pass most of the old historic buildings, surround the cathedral, run through a nice and shady park and end up near the Rhine harbour.
There are several distances to choose from, half-marathon, 10k, 5k, a women-only run of 5 k, a above 60 run and one for children. Since the half-marathon does the same course twice - something I don't like too much -, I chose the 10k and enjoyed it very much.
All the announcements were in German and English, a very good idea, when there are runners from more than 20 countries participating. As for all runs, the only thing you really need are good running shoes, and they shouldn't be brandnew.
Jewish Cemetery
by christine.j
The Jewish cemetery is the oldest in Europe and it's open to the public. This is quite different from the one in Frankfurt which is locked. In Frankfurt you can get the key in the musem, after leaving some kind of ID.
In Worms, all you have to do is open the gate to enter the cemetery.
There are more than 2000 grave stones, the earliest from 1076.Shortly after entering you can see two stones which are usually covered with small stones and notices. These are the graves of two important Rabbis, Rabbi Meir and his pupil Alexander ben Salomon Wimpfen, from early 14th century.
When you have the chance visiting here, don't stop near the entrance but walk further down. Some of the gravestones from 19th century are beautiful to look at and it's a very special atmosphere.
Male visitors are asked to cover their head when walking there.
Liebfrauen Church
by wroclawiak
When I visited Worms the church was closed. :-(. The church is worth visiting because of its location. It is situated in the middle of the vineyards where the noble grape "Liebfraenmilch" is produced.
Visit the website listed below if you want more informations about the church.
St Paulus
by christine.j
The church St.Paulus belongs to the Dominican cloister of Worms, still a working cloister. We had seen the church from the top of the Nibelungenmuseum and wanted to go there. There are two spires looking more like oriental towers than the usual church spires here.
It's not as well-known as the cathedral, but I though it was more beautiful. Inside there was less than in the cathedral and so there was more.( This sounds crazy, but that's how I felt.)
I liked the stucko at the ceiling and the colourful carvings. But the most impressive part of the church is the door.This is a huge door which has been renovated recently. It illustrates in reliefs stories from both the old and the new testament. I was reminded of the famous door to the baptistry in Florence.
We couldn't use this door to enter the church and were ready to give up, thinking the church was locked, when some other tourists discovered a small side entrance and told us.We were lucky, as otherwise we would have missed the beautiful inside of St Paulus.
Green man on a door
The Cathedral
Museum displays
3D model on GoogleEarth (from the west)
