Saturday in Münster, Germany (9/3/11)

Yesterday we took our first day trip in Germany (at least, first since I have been here). It was a 2 hour train ride each way which cost us a total of 38€ for both of us, both ways. Which is pretty good! I'll give you some "fun facts" about Münster and then I'll tell you about what we saw through all my picture captions. First of all, I was disappointed to find out this is not the same Münster where the cheese originated. That was in France. In 2004 Münster won an award for most liveable city, it is also the bicycle capital of Germany. There were hundreds and hundreds of bikes! Sometimes in Madison, I bike places to avoid the hassle of parking our car, but it appeared to me, in this city, that finding bike parking was just as hard as finding car parking! It was awesome though! In 2007 there were more bicycles in traffic than cars! 91% of the old city and 63% of the entire city were destroyed by allied air raids in October 1944, isn't that sad? Puts a little bit of a damper on seeing the buildings knowing that they have been rebuilt recently and are not purely original. However, it's really great that they did rebuild them to look original. I bet some of you are wondering what we have been eating that's delicious and German, right? Well, we're trying to save as much money as possible, so eating out is rare. For this day trip we packed sandwiches, but they were very German! They were on brötchen (a DELCIOUS German roll that seems hard, but really is just chewy on the outside, and very soft on the inside) with butterkäse (butter cheese) and ham. We were home in time for dinner, and we made macaroni and cheese with spätzle and homemade cheese sauce, it was really good! Enjoy the pictures and virtual tour of Münster!

Köln Train Station

Rhine River as our train went over it

St Lambert's Church

Interior of St Lambert's Church, we by chance arrived here just in time for a free concert by a professional organist who was only 18 years old! He was amazing!

This was the pipe organ he was playing.

This is the most interesting part about St Lamberts. In the upper right-hand quadrant you can see 3 boxes, those were the cages that displayed 3 anabaptist's bodies in as a deterrent to others after the catholics recaptured the city. The anabaptists were quite the destructive rebels at the time, but their take over only lasted one year.

This is Münster's Altstadt, or old city (St Lamberts on the right)

St Paul's Cathedral with open-air market on Wednesday and Saturdays. This isn't a great pic with the crane and market in the way, but St Paul's is also known as the Münster and houses an astronomical clock from the 16th century.

Interior of St Paul's (another one destroyed in the war and rebuilt)

Pipe organ at St Paul's

Another area of the interior at St Paul's

This is an amazing sculpture inside St Paul's that was carved out of ONE chunk of marble! Crazy huh!

Here is the astronomical clock from the 16th century! It was quite amazing, my ipod camera doesn't do it justice!

Rathaus, or town hall. This is where the treaty to end the Thirty Years War was signed

Here is the actual room in the Rathaus where the treaty was signed, again, ipod camera fail.

another wall in the room, but these were their seats lining the walls and the portraits of all the men who signed it.

This church is called the Überwasserkircheplatz. haha. It means the church over water. But it wasn't over water at all, sooo, not sure what that was about. Also there was a wedding going on so we didn't get to see the inside.

This is the garden of St Clement's Church, that silver ball was a fountain with water trickling over it.

Here is a fuller view of St Clement's

This is part of the front of St Clement's church, but there were trees and bikers and stuff in the way so I couldn't get a better angle.

Here is the interior of St Clement's Church. WOW it was breath-taking! So colorful and vivid!

The Ceiling at St Clement's. I don't think I would learn anything if I went to church here because I'd be staring at all the art around me the whole time!

This building is the last Baroque palace built in Germany by Johann Schlan, an architect who built many buildings around the city including St Clement's church. It was first built for the bishop, then was a government building, now it's the main administration building for the Westfälische-Wilhems-Universität. It also has a 200 year old botanical garden in the back which we didn't get to see because Skye was getting sunburned. hehe. true story!

The palace again, it is now called the Schloss

Very front of the Schloss close up