Limburg Cathedral

Yesterday we drove to Limburg, which is an hour down the Autobahn on the way to Mainz. We had seen its cathedral from the road on the way to Mainz and had to go back to check it out.

We found convenient (just downhill from the cathedral) but somewhat dingy parking at the City Parkhaus and ventured out into the cold. Limburg is a great town. It's on a hillside overlooking a river and the old town is very well preserved. Winding cobblestone streets are lined with crooked half-timbered houses, and lovely smells greeted us as we walked past old restaurants. (Speaking of smell, this Limburg is not the home of Limburger cheese. That comes from a region of Belgium called Limburg.)




Limburg Cathedral is perched on a rock at the highest point of the town. Some really great views of it can be had from across the river below, but we never found the right spot and the weather wasn't very pretty anyway. We hope to make it back again on a sunnier day.



The cathedral is Late Romanesque, which is one of the reasons I was excited to see it. Not many cathedrals have this colorful paint job anymore, but it does reflect its original appearance and helps protect the stone at this exposed location.


The door has some great Romanesque (12th century) sculptures, colorfully painted like all of them once were. The man sitting on the right is thought to be the builder of the church.


The interior is very impressive, with slightly pointed arches indicating that Romanesque is on its way out and Gothic is on its way.


Soaring pillars and ceiling under the central tower.


The cathedral is filled with faded murals from the 13th century, including this ceiling painting of the archangels Michael and Gabriel.


One of the coolest sights was this tomb of the church's founder (910 AD), Count Konrad Kurzbold. The sculptures on the supports (four clerics, a lion and a bear) are 11th century; the slab and effigy are 13th century.


Count Konrad



The four clerics were some pretty goofy-looking fellas!


Another highlight was this 13th-century baptismal font, covered in strange and interesting sculptures.


Some apparent smooching going on at the bottom of the font. Who are they? No idea! This is one of the reasons I love medieval art - it's always so intriguing, like a window into a mysterious world.

There's more information (though not yet my own photos) on Limburg Cathedral on Sacred Destinations.

Church crawling in Cologne

David has been sick with a nasty cold all week, so we haven't been on any further car trips since my last report. As bad luck would have it, this week has had beautiful weather - clear and sunny every day, although very cold. Highs are in the 20s and the frost is building up in layers so it looks like snow.

Blue sky is hard to come by in the winter, so on Wednesday and Thursday I took the tram into Cologne by myself and visited as many of the city's twelve Romanesque churches as I could. I managed five churches on Wednesday and two on Thursday. It was quite the adventure, as I carried both hefty cameras around my neck and walked for hours in the cold.

But it was well worth it. I really enjoyed all the churches and thanks to the good weather and equipment, I came home with some nice photos too. It was the first time I'd used two cameras at once, but it was easier than I thought it would be. I sure got the looks, though - David's long lens especially attracts stares. Kind of fun to masquerade as a professional photographer for a day.

The two days "work" yielded 800+ photos, which I've been captioning and tagging and turning into articles in the evenings. But I actually enjoy the churches and art all over again when organizing and editing the photos, so it's not a bad job. Here are a few highlights:


Interior of the church in the photo at the top of this post, called St. Aposteln. The architecture is very old (1100s) but the murals and furnishings are ultra-modern.


St. Maria in Kapitol, the largest of the 12 churches


Inside St. Maria in Kapitol


West front of St. Maria Lyskirchen


Mythical beasts in the doorway of St. Maria Lyskirchen


Side view, St. Maria Lyskirchen


Misericord with a drinking man in St. Maria Lyskirchen.


West choir and font in St. Georg. West choirs are unusual in churches but there are several in Germany, where they were used by the Holy Roman Emperor.


12th-century carvings of Adam and Eve and a guy with a harp at St. Georg.

While I was taking the above photos a man about David's age shyly pointed at my cameras and said something in German. I said apologetically that I only speak a little German, and he said "Ah so!" (Germans really do say that and I love it), then switched to English after a moment of finding the words: "I also like to make pictures but I do not have such nice equipment as you." Aw.


St. Pantaleon, which also has a west choir - this is the south side of it


St. Pantaleon's stripy details. This set of a little arches is a distinguishing characteristic of early Romanesque and is called a "Lombard band" because it originated in Lombardy, Northern Italy. That's your useless fact of the day! But I've been enjoying learning about stuff like this because I harbor dreams of publishing a photography book on Romanesque churches one day.

The Church of St. Cecilia was one of the ones I visited yesterday. It is a cool Romanesque church in itself and has some murals and carvings still on its walls, but also houses an excellent museum of medieval art.


Reliquary from c.1200 France, depicting the murder of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. This was a fun connection since we were recently there, and I've been organizing our Canterbury stained glass photos this week.


Nativity and Annunciation scenes in a beautiful ivory diptych by the court artists of Charlemagne, c.800. Note the weird beady eyes and the animals looking in the manger - the latter is a common (and very cute) element in medieval Nativity scenes. They appear in stained glass windows too.


Ivory reliefs of the Nativity and Crucifixion from Cologne, c.1170. Nearly four centuries later, and the animals are still peering in the manger! Another fun pattern I've started to notice is that Joseph always looks rather overwhelmed. Understandably so.


Inside St. Cecilia Church and Museum

Once in the museum, another lady came up to me with her eye on my cameras and asked if the pictures would be for me and not for commercial use. I managed to respond, "Yes, for me," then concentrated really hard to try to come up with a further German phrase in order to convince her. I finally managed to say, very slowly, "I love Romanesque churches." She understood and smiled (but continued to watch me with suspicion the entire time - good thing I didn't have a tripod!).

At St. Cecilia I had some very basic German conversations with the museum staff, and it was still pretty thrilling to communicate without resorting to English. The Germans are so much more fun to practice their language with than the French. The French tend to look horrified if you don't get it exactly right, then immediately reply in English because they can't bear it anymore. By contrast, my crappy German has met with nothing but delight at my effort and many people whom I'm sure speak English have instead spoken slow, simple German back to me so I can learn.

On Wednesday, my most ambitious day, I ended the evening at Cologne Cathedral:






The Gero Cross (Gero-Kreuz) in a chapel on the north choir aisle. Carved in 976, it is the oldest surviving monumental crucifix north of the Alps.


The Shrine of the Magi (1180-1230), made of pure gold and studded with jewels pillaged from Constantinople during the Crusades.


Then I rested my weary bones and camera-carrying neck on the 45-minute tram/U-Bahn ride home.

Related articles and galleries I've published so far on Sacred Destinations:

• St. Cecilia Church and Museum


• St. Pantaleon Church


• Romanesque Churches of Cologne


• Cologne Cathedral


• Romanesque Churches Index

Mainz

On Saturday we took a day trip to Mainz, a cathedral city about an hour and a half southeast of us. David really enjoyed the drive, as it was on the famous Autobahn the entire way. We drove along at about 85mph most of the time, with people whizzing by us in the fast lane at 120mph! It didn't feel very scary, though, since (knock on wood) people seem to be paying attention and do obey the speed limit when there is one.

In Mainz we finally found paid parking in a garage beneath the Hilton hotel and as we walked towards the cathedral in the freezing cold we saw a few snow flurries. Mainz is a large city and its main attractions are the big, red Romanesque cathedral, a church with windows by Marc Chagall, and several good museums including the Gutenberg Museum. Below are a few photographic highlights.


View of the cathedral taken later, near sunset.


The Christmas Market on the south side of the cathedral. It is so nice to know that in any German city in December, all you have to do to get warm food is locate the cathedral.


The market continued around the west side.


Some nice Romanesque carvings next to the west door.


The ceiling inside.

The cathedral was a bit of a disappointment despite being my beloved Romanesque. Neither of us are big fans of red stone, it was very dark inside which made pictures difficult, there weren't many decorations of interest, and the side chapels were filled with the not-terribly-interesting tombs of archbishops.

But it was still worth the visit thanks to the cathedral museum, which is housed in two large rooms off the cloisters. We had the whole place to ourselves and everything was well-lit and nicely labeled (although in German only).

The lower room was a cellar built in the 11th century and it had the oldest artifacts - stones, sculptures, and paintings from Roman times to the 13th century. The upper level held paintings and sculptures from the 14th century to the present. Many of the artworks were originally from the cathedral and of very high quality.


Stone window frame with carvings, from c.900 AD.


Detail of the Twelve Apostles (c.1240), artfully captured by David.


The Damned (c.1240), from a large sculpture of the Last Judgment that includes the apostles above.


Stoning of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr (Acts 7:54-60). Note the big rock hitting his head from the left!


Painting of St. Catherine, c.1310.


The Good Thief at the Crucifixion. Above the sculpture is an angel carrying his soul up to Heaven. For those not familiar with the story, two thieves were crucified on either side of Jesus. The one on his left cursed him and told him to climb down if he was the Son of God. The one on his right said he believed, and Jesus told him he would see him in Paradise.


Detail from a painting of four saints called "Help in Time of Need," c.1470.


Detail from a painting called "Christ Blessing the Children." Note the lack of a halo - this was painted after the Reformation (around 1550) by Lucas Cranach, who also painted portraits of Martin Luther.

It was a short uphill walk from the cathedral to St. Stephen's Church, where the main attraction is stained glass from 1978-85 by Marc Chagall. These were some of the last windows created by the famous modern artist, who was in his 90s at the time. The windows mainly depict biblical scenes, but their overall theme is said to be reconciliation between Jews and Christians and between France and Germany. (Chagall was Jewish and lived in France.)


St. Stephen's Church


One of the Chagall windows, which appears to be Joseph with his coat of many colors.

Our final stop was the Gutenberg Museum, which we toured quickly just before closing. It was surprisingly cheap (only 3 euros each) and had five floors full of exhibits related to Gutenberg and printed books. Definitely worth a stop should you find yourself in Mainz.


Early printed books on display on the first floor.

Johannes Gutenberg (1400-68) was from Mainz and is famous for inventing a printing press that used movable type. It revolutionized printing and allowed books to be quickly and widely published. This was a timely invention for Martin Luther, who came along in the next century - it allowed him to quickly distribute copies of his German Bible, sermons and propaganda. I remember from church history exams that "Gutenberg's movable type" is considered one of the main factors in Luther's success.


Illustrated book printed in Paris in 1498

The earliest printed books were made to look like the manuscripts they replaced, and were very beautiful. The most famous of these early books was the Gutenberg Bible, printed in 1455. Being pre-Luther, it is in Latin, and around 180 copies were produced.

As the inventor's hometown, Mainz proudly owns the two earliest copies, which are in a vault in the center of the second floor of the Gutenberg Museum. The vault was really something, with metal doors two feet thick and a glass display box with wires embedded in it everywhere. David was really impressed. The Bibles were beautiful, with perfectly uniform text patterned after manuscript calligraphy, enhanced by hand-painted letters at the start of each chapter.

Another highlight of the museum was the collection of printing machines, which included examples from Gutenberg's time to modern newspaper presses. Some of those from the 19th century were beautifully decorated as a marketing technique.

Back in Bonn

On Sunday we were ready to take a break, but it was a beautiful day so we took a short trip into Bonn. We drove this time, mainly to avoid waiting for the tram in the cold. We had lunch at the Christmas market (David tried some Hungarian Paprika Gulasch in a bread bowl and loved it) and I took lots of pictures of the east end of the Munster, and then we headed back home.




David now has a bad cold, so our only outing today was a trip to the grocery store and the drug store for some NyQuil equivalent ("MediNait," also made by Vicks).

In Germany you can only buy drugs from an Apotheke, whereas you get your toothpaste and shampoo from a Drogerie or a grocery store. We found an Apotheke on the road into Bonn and the pharmacist was very kind. He did his best to speak English for us and gave David two packages of pocket tissues for free. Aw.

It continues to be quite cold here - lows in the 20s and a high of 30 - but the forecast says it will be clear and sunny for most of the week. Hooray!