Expat Bloggers meetup - Aachen Cathedral

When our group of English-speaking bloggers in Germany met last year (in Cologne), some of us took an afternoon side trip to the city of Aachen.   In the prior post we shared photos of a unique children's fountain, a fantastic torte-like treat from one of the best cafes in town, and a glimpse of the Rathaus (town hall). 

The walk through town was nice, but the headline attraction that day was the Aachen Cathedral.

In the photo above, there is a store on the right side called Nobis Printen - I remember them from my semester studying at the university here... in 1992!  Printen are Aachen's version of lebkuchen (like gingerbread but denser).

Of course we took a minute (or 10) for some photos outside...

...and bracketed & tonemapped as well (HDR) to see how it looks with exaggerated details:

Wikipedia says that it is the oldest cathedral in Northern Europe.

Charlemagne apparently liked the mineral baths in Aachen, and spent a lot of time here.  He began construction of the Palatine Chapel on this site in 792 AD - it was expanded in the 10th century.  He was laid to rest here in 814. (Two later kings had his vault re-opened.  In 1000, Otto III took one of Charlie's teeth!)

Then, for about 600 years between 936 to 1531, 30 German Kings and 12 Queens were coronated here.

In 1978, it was one of the first 12 items to be named a UNESCO world heritage site.

Here is the entrance, on the other side of the cathedral.

There is an interesting feature on the cathedral entrance -- a decoration on the door of a lion's head, whose "nose" is open from one side to the other.  This is the earliest known bronze casting north of the Alps, and also has a traditional tale about it, relating to the construction of the cathedral.

As the legend goes, at some point in the construction, the people ran out of money.  The devil himself offered to fund the rest, but his price was this:  he would get the soul of the first mortal to enter after its consecration.  So the Aacheners caught a wolf, and chased it into the cathedral first.  The devil blindly grabbed the living soul of the first thing that crossed the threshold.  As soon as he realized he was tricked, he became enraged and slammed the door... but with such force that his thumb was ripped off in this decoration.

If you reach a finger into the lion's nose, you feel something shaped like a thumb.  Here is Frau A checking it out:

Stepping inside (souls intact, I think), you are hit by a wave of lovely detail and lots of GOLD:

Coming completely inside, it feels smaller than many newer, larger churches... but that makes the decorations more visible, more 'accessible'.  The dome, for example, is something we stared at for minutes at a time.

Here's a wider view, without the chandelier but showing more of the upper levels, columns, and arches:

Moving all the way forward to the apse, you now see the large stained glass windows that we glimpsed from the outside.  And if you didn't notice in the foreground in GOLD, the altar (which dates from the 11th century).

Here's the same view, but again bracketed, merged, and tonemapped for HDR output in Photomatix...

...and another HDR composition of the apse:

The cathedral was also known as the Royal Church of St. Mary at Aachen, so she has a strong presence as well:

It was really a traveler's and photographer's delight.  We spent a relaxed while soaking it in (and me, remembering bits and pieces of my time here 20 years ago) before finally returning to the train station.

Interestingly, this was the perfect "warm up" because the next day (and next blog post) is at the Cologne Dom!