Carnival and Architectural Heaven

One thing I did not realize about Germany until this weekend was how big of a deal celebrating Carnival is here compared to in the United States. In the U.S., aside from in New Orleans, it's not really a country-wide tradition to allow absolutely all hell to break loose for 6 straight days. In every major city, and even some minor German cities, people of all ages dress in full-body costumes and party in the streets from dawn til dusk... til dawn again. For those of you who aren't familiar with what Karneval is, it is the period before lent during which people are supposed to indulge in food and drink, and it's mainly a Catholic tradition. The most popular and wild place to celebrate "Karneval" in Germany is in Cologne, which is about 6 hours northwest of Munich, so I decided I had to go. I drove up with two friends on Friday night to Düsseldorf, which is about 30 minutes north of Cologne, and we stayed with my one friend's college roommate who now lives there.  I've realized that staying with people you know is a much better option than staying in hostels- they know the area, they will probably feed you, AND you can stay there for free. I wish I knew people everywhere... I'm working on that.

Saturday was really our only day to celebrate Carnival in Cologne, because my two friends had to go back to Munich on Sunday.  I saw every kind of costume you could imagine- Karneval is like Halloween x100.  People are much more creative with their costumes here than in the U.S. One of my favorite moments was seeing a man dressed in a full-body kangaroo costume hopping around against the backdrop of the beautiful, gargantuan Cologne Cathedral.  Since it was quite rainy and cold, there weren't as many people roaming the streets as usual, but instead all of the costumed folk congregated in bars.  We didn't feel like paying cover fees, so we resorted to dancing outside a beer tent that was blasting music.  Here are just two of my favorite pictures from the day:

After spending Saturday in Cologne, I decided not to go home with my friends on Sunday, and instead I went on my own little adventure. I wanted to go to Aachen, because I knew Charlemagne's cathedral was there somewhere, and I also wanted to see a few Franconian/Bavarian towns with some pretty palaces and fortresses. I packed up my backpack and went to the train station to see what my options were.  Aachen is only an hour from Cologne, so I headed there first. I got out at the main train station, got a city map, and went on a mission to find Charlemagne's cathedral. When I found it, I wanted to start dancing and jumping and singing, because seeing architecture in real life that I've learned about in my art history courses makes me the happiest person in the world. 

This building is of particular interest because the interior of Gore Hall at Delaware was modeled (loosely) after Charlemagne's central plan portion of the cathedral. I spent about 45 minutes there, and then roamed around the city a bit more before catching a train south. I was traveling on the "Schönes Wochenende Ticket," which allows up to 5 people to travel anywhere in Germany on a Saturday or Sunday between the time you purchase the ticket and 3am the next morning for only 40 euros. It's an amazing deal. The deal would have been more amazing if other people were traveling with me, but it was amazing nonetheless. I was train-hopping for about 6 hours before reaching Aschaffenburg, which, according to the brochures I collected on the train, seemed like a wonderful city. I got there at about 1am and decided to suck it up and stay at a hotel for way more money than I wanted to pay. But I made up for it by smuggling out about 20 euros worth of food from the breakfast buffet.  Aschaffenburg was almost completely destroyed during World War II, but everything has since been beautifully reconstructed and it was a wonderful city to spend the morning in. There is a very large reconstructed Renaissance palace called Schloss Johannisburg right along the river Main, and there is also a very quaint old city with lots of cute shops, houses, and churches.

After leaving Aschaffenburg I got on a train headed for Würzburg, which I had heard was a beautiful town with a fortress on a hill.  As a general rule of thumb, any town with a fortress on a hill is probably worth visiting.  Unfortunately my iPhone died right before I got to Würzburg, so the only pictures I can offer are the ones you can find on google image and wikipedia.

I won't say much about Würzburg, other than it is one of my favorite places I have ever been. This is mainly because of the Residenz, which was the palace of the Prince-Bishop of Würzburg. This is one of my favorite buildings I have ever seen in real life, and I could have easily spent 4 hours in it. Unfortunately, not all of the rooms are open for public viewing, but the rooms that we were able to see on the tour were incredible.  It's definitely my favorite palace. I even bought a book about it at the gift shop afterwards! Above the grand staircase is the largest continuous fresco in the world by the Italian artist Tiepolo. It is completely uninterrupted by structural supports- it's just one giant vault. It was incredible. What makes it more incredible is that this ceiling withstood WWII bombings because of it's masterful construction, whereas both outer wings of the palace were almost completely destroyed by fire.

All in all I had an amazing spontaneous weekend, and I'm really excited to go on more adventures throughout Bavaria and elsewhere!