In Ulm

As I write this in our room, Chris is on a conference call with an international group of engineers based in Sweden. Chris signed in as the Archbishop of York, which made the Swedes laugh and embarrassed the Englishman who's trying to moderate the call. Another chap is joining in from Ottawa.

Last night we slept for 13 solid hours at this modern hotel which is in the Dichterviertel of Ulm, the poets' district, the streets being named after Goethe, Schiller and company. We're on Mörikestraße. Mörike was Swabian, though not from Ulm. Ulm is only just in Baden-Württemberg, and you can stand on the bridge over the Danube here, as we did yesterday afternoon, with one foot in Bavaria; the Bavarian side of town is called Neu-Ulm. Today we have done less exploring than we meant to, first because of our late start and secondly because the weather is off-putting, with a bitterly cold wind and sleety downpours between the clearer spells. The German word for gusts or squalls is Böen. They are in the forecast for the whole of this week. One Böe, this morning, broke Chris' precious folding umbrella that he bought in Hangzhou in 2011 and thought indestructible.

Yesterday felt less chilly. We crossed the railway bridge three times, first with our luggage, using a glass lift straight up from the platform. There are six such lifts at the station; we're always impressed with German thoroughness. The bridge crosses numerous railway tracks and in the other direction from the Dichterviertel leads to the tram stops and thence into town where massive reconstruction has been underway for the last few years, rather like the area behind the main station in Stuttgart. Within the city centre the shopping streets are pedestrianised and not crowded with tourists at this time of year, which feels relaxing. The old town was 80% destroyed by the bombs dropped by Lancasters during the wartime raids, when 25,000 people lost their homes.

Some old buildings still stand or have been rebuilt along attractive streets, the town hall is complete with medieval-looking frescoes on its facade and the historic fountains are all in place. The Minster, apart from its 15th century stained glass windows, remained intact till the end of the war, because the bomber pilots needed its spire (to this day, the tallest in the world) as a waypoint for their missions. The Minster's broken windows are still being replaced. There's a display there about the latest windows, not yet installed, one of them entitled Lichtwerdung (=becoming light) and the other Weltbetrachung (=contemplating the world). The church is trying to raise half a million Euros to pay for them. We entered the church both yesterday, when too exhausted to take it all in, and this morning, when we noticed more detail. The dimensions of the interior are breathtaking; the pews would seat well over a thousand people and the height of the vaulted canopy over the nave is incredible, 41.6 metres high. I just read that in the Middle Ages, 20,000 people could be accommodated in this church! Being a Lutheran (evangelische) church since 1530, it's not ornately decorated, but traces of its original Catholicism can still be seen, such as the faded frescoes on some of the stone pillars.

Wooden sculpture in the choir:
 a portrait of "Virgil" or the sculptor himself?

The 15th century carvings in the choir by Jörg Syrlin the Elder are extraordinary, life-sized, expressive faces of both men and women, striking individuals all.
Much more of downtown Ulm remains to be described, but I'll add just one more paragraph before we go out again with Chris' colleagues this evening.

Above the western end of the nave in the Minster hangs a massive bronze sculpture of the Archangel Michael, raising his sword to smite the forces of evil. The trouble is, this sculpture was commissioned and paid for by the Nazis, in 1934. The church authorities today have deliberately allowed the controversial work of art to remain in place, in spite of its origins, in order to force people to think about it. By contrast, by the west door outside the church, is a placard reminding everyone: Selig sind, die Friede stiften. (From Luther's translation of the Beatitudes: Blessed are the peacemakers.)