Friday in Ulm

So on Friday I went on my first (and most likely last) true solo day trip. I got to the train around 10, and it took about an hour to get to Ulm. I had intended to work on the Honeybee Stole, but I'm reading The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber and I got absorbed in it. It's really good. So good, I didn't actually knit AT ALL on the train! I'd recommend it for anyone who likes literature, New York, adventures happening to ordinary (or not-so-ordinary) people, making fun of the ivory tower, and/or cheesy suspense writing. I got into Ulm, which is pretty easy to navigate even without a map, because the town is dominated by the enormously tall Münster. I arrived around 12, missing a lunchtime organ music concert by minutes, and decided to explore the rest of the town before doing the Münster.

I bought some yarn from a fabulous local yarn shop called Heike Redlinghaus. The proprietress was exceedingly kind, and I found a very interesting yarn and some woven-ribbon labels. Ulm was pretty busy, it being a rather fine Friday afternoon.



So, one of the lessons the significant other and I have learned (or are still learning...) about travel is remembering to eat on time. We have a hard time choosing where to eat when we're out together (do all couples do this? or just us?), and by the time we've settled on a place, both of us have typically been famished for about an hour already and we're ready to cut someone. It was pretty funny, because I started getting hungry-cranky while in Ulm, but there was nobody to get cranky at except myself... it was a little weird. But I did finally eat lunch.

After lunch was the Alter Freidhof, or old cemetery. This was really more like a park with a few old gravestones than a cemetery. But it was fabulous, quiet, and very restful compared with the busy-feeling center of town.



I saw maybe ten other people in the park (which was pretty big), and all were either walking or riding their bike swiftly on their way somewhere else. I stopped there for a few minutes after wandering around and just rested my feet.



Another of the locations on my itinerary was the Rathaus, which was very colorful compared to the green-on-green of the cemetery park and the stone-on-stone of the Münster.



From the Rathaus, I found the Danube. I did not know that the Danube starts in Germany! There are little bits of split-off river that run through the town, creating some truly charming views with bridges as you get into a more shops-and-restaurants area.





By now it was about 3, and my train back was at 5, so I had nothing left but the church. It's pretty impressive. In fact, it's so impressive, I was apparently unable to capture the entire thing in one photo.



The steeple is supposed to be the tallest one in Europe, and I indeed shelled out 4.50 euros to climb to the top. But that's a story for a second post!