Last of the Rose Tour

Next we walked to St. Mary’s Cathedral which is an important medieval Catholic cathedral in Hildesheim. It is the second UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site. It was built between 1010 and 1020 in Romanesque style. It is famous for its many works of art including the Bronze doors commissioned by Bishop Bernward in 1015, with reliefs from the history of Adam and Jesus Christ; a bronze column 15 feet tall dating from 1020, two large wheel-shaped candelabra from the 11^th century, historical baptismal font from the 1200, and much more. It sounds amazing, but unfortunately we will never see it while we are here in Hildesheim. It is currently undergoing a huge renovation project and won’t be completed until 2014.

So we walked around the outside of the construction site and just viewed the outside of the cathedral from a distance. But they did have one small area open to the public to see the most famous part of the cathedral which is the 1000 year old rosebush. The rosebush, which is now the symbol of Hildesheim is supposed to represent the prosperity of the city of Hildesheim. According to the legend, as long as the bush flourishes, Hildesheim will not decline. In 1945, allied bombers destroyed the cathedral, yet the bush survived. Its roots remained unscathed beneath the rubble and soon the bush was growing strong again. Since it is winter, all we could see was the branches, we’ll have to go back again this spring. But they have marked with little signs when each new branch has grown. We saw branches dating back to 1945 when the rosebush regrew after the war. It was really neat, but sadly they did not allow us to take any pictures so this is a picture of the 1000 year old rosebush from Wikipedia.

(pic from Wikipedia of the 1000 year old rosebush, since we couldn't take pictures)

From St. Mary’s Cathedral, we followed the Rose trail to Lappenberg, a historic street in Hildesheim. It was the center of the Jewish community in Hildesheim since 1536. There was a synagogue in the area, but it was destroyed in 1938. There is now a Star of David monument on the original site and you can walk around to see the foundations of the synagogue.

The half timbered and wooden houses in this neighborhood were built in the 16^th and 17^th century. Some houses have decorative wood carvings and the year of construction on their facade. Luckily, the Lappenberg neighborhood received very little damage during World War II and so most of the houses are still original.

Also in the neighborhood is the “Kehrwiederturm Tower” which is the last remaining tower that was part of a medieval wall around the city. It is 30 meters high and was built in the 14^th century. Not far from the tower, is the “Neues Tor,” an old city gate which was built in the 14^th century.

We walked around Lappenberg, saw the tower and gate, and ended our tour at one last church called St. Godehard. We didn’t learn much about this church other than what was written on the brochure of our map that it is a “Romanesque church that has remained virtually unaltered in its original form today.” Nevertheless, it was a beautiful church. We were tired, cold, and grouchy at this point of our tour…so we quickly walked back to town. Grabbed some lunch and headed home. We are excited about living in Hildesheim. There is so much more we haven’t seen or learned about the city, but hopefully we can in the next few months.