Worms, Imperial City
This goes under the category: world city centuries ago, just another small town in the 21st Century for tourists to joke about, with punchlines dealing with the fields of fishing and/or diseases. Personally, I have always found Worms fascinating, for the (to foreigners) least obvious reason: the Nibelungen Saga, to be mentioned later.
Since Worms is about an hour's drive away from Frankfurt, we decide to gather the kids on a Sunday morning and take the train along the Main river and later down the Rhein toward Worms. It's a little colder than we thought it would be, but that's the Rhein for you. In the summer, it will be as welcome as a natural humidifier, while in winter it will feel like the Rhein alone was responsible for the temperature dropping by a few degrees.
We arrive in Worms just around noon, so people are still in church or on their way out of it and on their way to lunch. We walk along the pedestrian zone leading through downtown, which is small but charming and, more importantly, with little to no access to cars. We walk toward the St. Peter's Dom, the large Romanesque cathedral that was once a key city during the reign of Charlemagne. Worms itself served dozens of bishops from the 5th until the 19th century and still remains quite a presence, judging by its four towers and two cupolas. Next to the Dom is the former bishops' residence featuring large statues of Martin Luther, who was notoriously declared a heretic in the 16th century. Symbolically, there is a pair of large shoes cast in iron to remember him. Axl gives the shoes a go, and I'm guessing his knees could fit in there. The shoes are more symbolic, of course...there's no way Martin Luther had size 30's.
My fascination for Worms lies with a different kind of history: this used to be the kingdom of Burgundy and the stomping grounds of the famed Nibelungen, forever perpetuated in history and literature. The Nibelungen was required reading in the 6th grade in the year 1981 and might still be today, for all I know. Aside from its colorful characters - Siegfried, Kriemhilde, Brunhild, Hagen - there remains the legend of the Nibelungen treasure that was allegedly dumped into the Rhein river. Think that doesn't make an impression on a sixth-grader? Heck, I still believe in some twisted way that that treasure may be out there somewhere, although I doubt it is guarded by the dwarfs so amply depicted in the book. The Nibelungen Museum is part of the old city wall that visitors can walk along, although the new building is as 21st Century as iPhones.
The hiking trail along the Rhein stretches for miles, although we need to cut it short due to the cold weather. The kids forget about the weather the moment they locate a playground.
Worms is worth the trip, although it's probably best to wait for the summer to visit if you prefer a long walk or hike. Personally, I prefer a free-running Rhein over a glazed, frozen Rhein.
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