Day 4 No.1 Hildesheim – 2010 Deutschland No.13

Date of visit: August 13, 2010, around 11:00 a.m.

This is my fourth day in Germany. It was a pleasant sunny day, a nice change from the previous day.

However, it’s northern Germany. It’s cold in the morning and evening, and even in August, it’s below 10 degrees Celsius. But it gets warm around noon and you can spend time in short sleeves.

Now, from Goslar, where we stayed the night before, we took the route shown here.

It’s about an hour’s ride north on the autobahn. I got there without getting lost.

Hildesheim, like Goslar, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with two old churches on the list.

「ヒルデスハイムの聖マリア大聖堂と聖ミカエル聖堂」で登録されています。ヒルデスハイム街と合わせた概要は、例によってWikipediaより。

ヒルデスハイムはハノーファーの南、電車で30分ほどの中規模の街である。メジャーなガイドブックには書かれていない街だが、きれいな旧市街がある。北ドイツ特有の木骨レンガ構造の美しい建物が並ぶ。世界遺産が二つもあり、その他にも美しい教会や中世の城壁などが残されている。ヒルデスハイムはハノーファーとゲッティンゲンを結ぶ幹線上にある大きな街なので、交通の便は良い。

It was not so famous in Japan and was not listed in “Chikyu no Arukikata”.

But I have iPhone here, so no problem! I went sightseeing with Google Maps and Wikipedia. But I could go to the church I wanted without getting lost, because there were guides like this in the city.

First of all, this is “St. Michael’s Cathedral.”

To be honest, I didn’t have an image of it being very old. I heard that it was destroyed in World War II. It’s a little sad….

But I felt the design of this church was very unique. I have not seen many churches of this type.

And if you walk for about 10 minutes to the south from St. Michael’s Cathedral, you will find another World Heritage Site, St. Mary’s Cathedral.

I actually had a little trouble finding this place. It wasn’t easy to find it on Google Maps. But there was a reason for that. Here’s another excerpt from Wikipedia.

大聖堂は現地では単にドーム(Dom)と呼ばれている。英語でカテドラル(大聖堂)と言ってもほとんど理解されない。

That’s why it seems to be the case.

It seems to have been destroyed in the Second World War. However, compared to the St. Michael’s Cathedral, this one seemed more ancient and strange, and I felt the weight of its history. If anything, this cathedral was more impressive.

After seeing the two World Heritage Sites, we came to the center of the old town. The central square is surrounded by lovely buildings which are also typical of North Germany.