Day trip to Worms

Yesterday I took the train down to Worms for the afternoon. I had heard about the town, and decided it would be nice to go somewhere small and pretty for the day: see the cathedral, walk around the town, stop for a snack somewhere. It was an easy trip on the train. An SBahn to Mainz and then a regional train to Worms - all in all about an hour and a half. But of course, being Germany there was something to see even at the stop in Mainz:

Mainz Römisches Theatre: The remains of a roman theatre, partially recreated and right beside the platform!

From the train station in Worms, I walked into the centre of town. On the way I passed the Lutherdenkmal.

The Luther memorial. He stands in the middle, surrounded by other historical figures, women representing historical events and the crests of various cities and states. I need to read more on the importance of all that.

From there I walked around, and first approached the cathedral from the back. It was one of the imperial cathedrals in the Holy Roman Empire and according to Wikipedia one of the "finest examples of Romanesque architecture." 

The Worms Cathedral

The cathedral is very nice inside. It has beautiful stain glass windows and quite an impressive structure. At the back they still had their Christmas nativity scene, complete with a waterfall, lots of greenery and many figures. They also have huge stone relief carving of the life of Jesus, which were once in a cloister.

The stain glass windows, but of course imagine the colours a bit more vivid.

One thing I discovered during the afternoon, is that Worms has a lot of churches. I went inside Martinskirche, Pauluskirche, and Dreifaltigkeitskirche (Holy Trinity, and the only protestant one). The Dom was my favourite, not surprisingly, and I went back again before leaving.

As for the rest of Worms, I was not super impressed. I had sort of expected a cute Altstadt with cobbled streets and old looking. Well, it was unfortunately a big target at one point in the war, and a lot of the rebuilding was done in modern styles. One reason I do not have a photo of the front of the church is that the buildings in front of it are hideous. They have some pedestrian streets for shopping, but they were not as nice as Trier. It does not even have as nice a main square as in Frankfurt! 

In walking around, one thing I did find were two sections of remaining town wall. One of them was right by the old Jewish quarter. 

Judengasse running along a remaining section of town wall.

I visited the little synagogue, walked through the streets of the Jewish quarter and then headed back to the station, wanting to catch a train before the sun completely set. I took a different way back,  first taking a small commuter train two stops (it only does two stops, then back again) to Biblis. Then an older regional back to Frankfurt.

A sleek new train

One more place on my list checked off. I really enjoyed taking a simple day trip somewhere. I need to find some more places close enough to go! 

Städel Exhibit

On Friday my friend Regina and I spontaneously planned a visit to the Städel. They had an exhibit on called Dialog der Meisterwerke (Masterworks in Dialogue) which closes next weekend. It was an interesting exhibit, unlike any I have been to. Instead of having the exhibit in its own space, it was spread throughout the entire museum. In most rooms, there was an extra painting or two brought in to connect with a piece from their permanent collection. They had sourced works that connected by artist, theme or subject. We had an audio guide that explained the connection and what can be learned from viewing them together.

Here are some of the paintings that they had in the exhibit:

van Eyck's Annunciation and the Lucca Madonna, the second belonging to the Städel.
Photos from the internet. 

We started in the Old Masters gallery. They had paintings from Rembrandt, Gentileschi, Botticelli, to name a few famous artists. One interesting piece was a winged altar. The wings both are part of the Städel's collection, but the centre had come from two different galleries to finally have it complete and on exhibit again.

The next level was modern art. Not to be confused with contemporary, this is from the impressionists to Picasso. Here they had a series of three Degas paintings. Here are two of them, the first from the Musee D'Orsay and the second from the Städel.

The one on the right is an earlier painting, and you can see that it focuses more on the musicians. In the second one, Degas originally made it the same, before adding more canvas to the top in order to finish the dancers.
Photos from the internet. 

Also on this floor were some Max Beckmann paintings of Frankfurt from the 1920s. I was really taken with this one below, as it is a scene that I am very familiar with. The church in the background is the Dreikönigskirche, and is less than a ten minute walk from my house. The bridge is the Eisernersteg, a pedestrian bridge across the Main which has become a popular place for people to leave locks.

Photo taken by me, before I realized we weren't suppose to take photos ...

The last floor was the contemporary art. While I have more appreciation for that than I used to, I still am not a big fan. Some of the exhibit paintings were a bit disturbing, so much that Regina and I just looked at each other and walked away. The one set I found interesting were actually photographs. They were photos of famous paintings, but of people in museums looking at them. One of them happened to be people looking at my favourite painting, The Coronation of Napoleon in the Louvre. 

Home for the Holidays

Unfortunately I had to teach until December 22nd this year, so I didn't get home until the 23rd. Which meant I headed right into Christmas celebrations, still jetlagged. On the 24th we celebrated Robert's birthday. He came over for dinner, and we made cheese fondue. Then on Christmas we had our normal routine (presents, breakfast, walk to the beach, lunch) at home, before heading over to North Van in the afternoon. Spent some time with Robert and then went to his friends' house for dinner.

Enjoying all the company being home ... or rather Chase is enjoying all the people to pet her!

Family photo down by the beach, Christmas morning.

Dad snapped this photo while I was driving over the Lion's Gate Bridge, on the way to North Van. It was so nice to see the mountains again, and amazing how much snow we could see.

As close as we got to a family photo this Christmas.

After Christmas was done I managed to stay pretty busy. Most days were taken up with things planned with my family, or outings to meet up with friends. My dad and I got one bike ride in, between frosty and snowy days. We took our normal route downtown to the New Town Bakery for lunch. After that we got ambitious, and kept going across and around Canada Place, and finally all around Stanley Park along the Seawall. By the time we made it back to the 8th Avenue hill I wasn't sure I would make it back up!

View of the mountains from Trimble Park

One day we took the ferry over to Nanaimo to visit Pat. It was the perfect weather to ride the ferry: pretty cold, but clear. We had a great view of the water and mountains, though I missed the dolphins that my dad saw! We then had a nice visit and lunch, before heading back home. Of course, I had a BC burger on the ferry ride back.

Waiting for the ferry in Horseshoe Bay

New Year's Eve I celebrated with my friend Melissa, and her sister and their friends. We had a great evening playing board games and eating all the food people had brought. At midnight we watched the fireworks in Seattle, and then the ones in Vancouver. It was a fun and relaxed way to bring in the New Year. Then, just in time for everyone to go back to school and work, it actually snowed in Vancouver. And it stayed for a couple of days!!

We went on a lot of different walks the rest of the time I was home. Most of the photos I have to share are from my dad:

The view from Trimble Park again, overlooking downtown with the fog.

Thanks to a 2 hour flight delay, we had one final walk down to the beach.

Now I am back and settled in Frankfurt. One week done and it feels like I never left. I guess that is the nice thing about routines. It was a busy week though, with various meetings and lots to do planning the new term. I handed in my resignation on Tuesday, so now I can look forward to moving back to Vancouver in the early fall. But before that I am planning on enjoying my time in Europe. I have already started planning a trip for Easter, Portugal anyone?