Rose Tour of Hildesheim: St. Andrew's Church and the Upended Sugarloaf

We thought we should get to know Hildesheim a little more since we will be living here for the next six months. We have been to the historic Marketplace several times, but that is about the only tourist site we’ve seen so far. The Hildesheim tourist office offers historic guided tours of the city daily at 2:00 pm but only in German. So we did a little research and decided to give ourselves a little tour of the city. The tours always follow the “Rose Path.” There are white spray-painted roses numbered throughout the city for you to follow. It starts at the Historic Marketplace in the center of town and takes you by some of the most historic monuments in the city.
We joked we felt like we were in the Davinci Code…following the “Rose line” around the city. We didn’t follow the rose path exactly, but saw most of the sites along the way. Ainsley had a blast looking for the next rose each time. It was like a scavenger hunt for her and kept her engaged and distracted from the long walk. She behaved much better than normal which made it easier on all of us. So here are pictures and a little history from what we learned about Hildesheim.

The first site we visited on our Rose Tour of Hildesheim was St. Andrew’s Church which is right in the center of town. It is the tallest building in the city so we are always using it as a reference point to figure out where we are.

We learned it was the first and now the principal Lutheran church in Hildesheim. It was built in the 13^th century. It is gothic basilica style. Its tower is 376 feet tall and it is the tallest church tower in our state, Lower Saxony. The tower also holds four giant bells that you can hear throughout the city. When the weather gets nicer, we plan on climbing it because we’ve been told you can see a view of the entire city and surrounding countryside. Like most of the historic buildings here, it was bombed on March 22, 1945. Only the outer wall remained standing. It was completely rebuilt as almost an exact copy of the original.

Inside the church, there is the largest organ in Northern Germany. It has 63 registers and 4,734 pipes. They regularly hold organ concerts in the church. Hopefully we can go to one while we are here.





Across from St. Andrew's church is the “Upended Sugarloaf” the smallest half-timbered house in the city. It has a very unusual shape and is really cute. It is just off the main shopping street we go to every week and one block from the historic marketplace in the center of town.

Next on the Rose Tour: St. Michael's Church