Speyer

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Trip 2: Speyer (October 9th, 2010

We decided to take the train to Speyer over the weekend. It was our first train ride. We are now living in the town of Leimen so we took the bus over to St. Illgen and caught the train there. We ordered our tickets and had about a 30 minute wait. While we were waiting one of the ICE trains came speeding by and nearly gave me (Tiffany) a heart attack. The ICE trains travel between 180 to 200 mph. It is crazy to watch them fly by the train platform. Once we got on the train we had about an hour train ride. At first the train was very crowded but we lucked out b/c after we passed Mannheim it cleared up and we were able to find seats.

After arriving in Speyer we walked about a kilometer to get to where the cathedral is located. On our way we passed a beautiful little park and stopped there and took pictures and just sat for a bit. Once we reached Speyer's main street we were excited to see that they were having a wine fest. Just our good luck. :O) The main street was a beautiful sight with the Speyer Cathedral at the very end. To this day Speyer Cathedral remains one of the largest Romanesque churches in the world. It was gorgeous it seemed like were walking into a fairytale kingdom. Of course we stopped and had some wine. Just a glass though b/c we wanted to spend sometime in the cathedral and the museum they have.

As we stood outside the cathedral we stopped to take some pictures and just take in how big it was before heading inside. We thought it looked big from the outside but it seemed even bigger on the inside. The cathedral was covered with paintings of 24 scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary. Inside at the back of the church is a crypt with the remains of 8 kings and bishops. It was just recently built in 1900's when the remains were found in another part of the cathedral.

After we went to the cathedral we crossed the street to the museum. We were really interested in going there b/c we had read online they had a wine museum. Once we were in there we made our way to the ticket counter and paid for 24 Euros for 2 tickets. We thought it was expensive but o-well. As they pointed us towards the door of the exhibit, we saw large statues of female warriors. Luckily we bought English audio tour as well. We soon realized that what we paid for was a special exhibit on Amazon women. LOL! We still did get to see the wine exhibit and even an exhibit on Speyer but we found out afterwards that was free. LOL! O-well. Go amazon women!!!!

We made our way back to main street and did some wine tasting and ate some bratwurst before heading back to the train. It as a great day with great sights, wine, and food!

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Photos

ICE train
They are fast!!!