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!