This week's excursion was to Aachen, which is quite handily located about 45 minutes directly west, near the Netherlands border. Like Trier, we had visited it in 2005 but felt was well worth a re-visit.
The weather was generally grey and cold as usual (what is this, winter?) but fortunately nearly all of the attractions were indoors.
The Aachen trip was the first real test of our new camera and new lens, and they performed very well! David used his "old" zoom lens on the new camera body and I used David's old camera with the new 50mm prime lens and also carried my standard wide angle setup. We had such fun.
Aachen was popular since Roman times for its natural hot springs (the hottest in Northern Europe, apparently). But it really found fame when Charlemagne ("Karl der Grosse" to the Germans) took a liking to it and made it his capital. He built a palace there, which no longer survives, along with a "Palatine Chapel," which survives fully intact as the heart of Aachen Cathedral.
Side view of Aachen Cathedral, with HDR (High Dynamic Range) treatment by David in Photomatix.
This venerable history means that Aachen Cathedral is exceptionally old and very unique. The chapel was built in 786 to a design inspired by Byzantine churches Charlemagne had seen in Ravenna, Italy, which are also still there. It has an octagonal shape, striped arches, and a ceiling covered with (modern) golden mosaics, all of which give it an exotic, eastern feel.
Aachen Cathedral is also known for its incredible collection of treasures, which sure impressed us. Most of them are made of gleaming gold, which presented a good challenge for our upgraded cameras (and the new skills required for operating them!).
There are six big treasures (by my count) in the cathedral itself, and we joined a guided tour in German so we could have closer access to all of them. It was great.
- The Golden Pulpit, which dates from c.1020 and was commissioned by Emperor Henry II. It is covered in gold and studded with jewels - and big ancient bowls! Besides the dishes are other unusual decorations: rather sensuous pagan Egyptian ivory panels from the 6th century AD. It definitely wins the prize for most interesting pulpit so far.
- The Golden Altar, a.k.a. Pala d'Oro, which dates from around 1020.
- The Marian Shrine, containing the impressive collection of relics obtained by Charlemagne during his lifetime.
There are just four relics in there, but they are biggies:
- The cloak of the Virgin Mary;
- The swaddling-clothes of the Infant Jesus;
- The loin-cloth worn by Jesus on the cross;
- The cloth that wrapped the head of John the Baptist after his beheading.
Impressive, eh? These relics attracted thousands of pilgrims in the Middle Ages, and some still trickle in today. They are taken out and shown to the public every seven years - the last time in June 2007. We just missed it!
- The Shrine of Charlemagne, which contains his remains. Charlemagne became a semi-saint (never officially endorsed by the pope) thanks to the promotional efforts of Frederick Barbarossa in the 1160s. Charlemagne was originally buried somewhere in the cathedral, but Barbarossa exhumed him and spread the rumor that he was found miraculously sitting up with his crown on his head and a Bible open on his lap. Then he had his bones placed in this specially-made golden reliquary.
These house-like golden shrines are a lot like our Shrine of the Magi in Cologne Cathedral, pictured below, which was made around the same time (1180-1230). The Cologne version wins out for biggest and best, though, I think.
- Barbarossa's Chandelier, which was commissioned by Barbarossa for the occasion described above. It was made in 1165-84 in Aachen; its towers represent the Heavenly Jerusalem as envisioned in Revelation.
It is huge (4.2m diameter), and I seem to recall reading somewhere that it pulled the whole ceiling down when it was first installed. This may be the reason for the replacement ceiling mosaics!
- And finally, in the upper gallery and accessible only a guided tour, Charlemagne's throne can still be seen in its original position. It is made of simple marble slabs held together with bronze clamps. It was used in coronation ceremonies by all Holy Roman Emperors after him.
Tacked onto Charlemagne's chapel is a Gothic choir (added in 1414), where the two golden shrines are displayed. It has the tallest wall of stained glass I've ever seen.
Then there was the Treasury itself, which is located down the street and around the corner. It was full of great stuff, including more gold reliquaries, Charlemagne's hunting knife, early medieval ivory carvings (I love those - the figures on them are so tiny!), various altarpieces, and the like. Here's a few of my favorite things:
After all this excitement we had a delicious lunch right next to the cathedral at a place called Nobis, which we highly recommend should you find yourself in Aachen.
It's a casual bakery-restaurant, the sort of thing seen all over Germany, but our sandwiches were exceptional...
...and they are known for making the best version of Aachen's local specialty, a gingerbread cookie called Printen. They get their name from the former practice of imprinting them with an Aachen logo.
We bought a bag of those with assorted toppings and we are seriously considering going back to Aachen just to get more! It's a soft but very chewy gingerbread cookie, with some kind of spiced hard sugary stuff (it's a secret recipe) in the center. Not too sweet; just perfect.
On our way home there was some lovely evening light that we would have really enjoyed in Aachen, but I made do with the subject that was available:
Most of the drive between Aachen and Cologne looks like this. And also between Bonn and Cologne. But it has its own beauty, I suppose.
Not too far from home is a huge furniture store, which has a message on it that we see often but that never fails to crack us up:
"Wir Wünschen gute Fahrt" means "We wish you a good journey," but it looks to us like they're wishing us something else altogether.
Home and Cologne
The rest of the week we've mostly stayed at home, with David hard at work on mastering Photoshop and relating things and me working on a big web project on Canterbury Cathedral's stained glass windows.
David took a solo trip into Cologne yesterday, mainly to wander around electronics and camera stores, and he had a very nice time. He took a camera along and brought back some fun shots:
