That's exactly what I did together with the friendly tour guide Sandra Wilhelm. She showed me hidden details and personal favorite places and revealed why the Worms Cathedral is the center of great drama once a year.
At the center of the action
I'm on my way to Worms to visit one of the three imperial cathedrals in the Rhineland. Since it was built in the 11th century on the highest point of the city center, its towers show me the way from afar. In front of the imposing north portal, also called the Kaiserportal, I have an appointment with Sandra Wilhelm. She has been a tour guide for the city of Worms for over 20 years and knows the church like no other. She was born with a love of churches and sights. Her father always liked to visit new places on the weekends and her mother was herself a tour guide in Worms, she laughs.
My gaze wanders over the Schlossplatz. While the citizens of Worms go about their daily business, visitors to the city try to capture the mighty dimensions of the church in a photo. There is a hustle and bustle and it has always been like this, Sandra Wilhelm tells us. Then as now, the cathedral was a central place in the city, where people lived, acted, justice was dispensed and faith was visible. And it was a place where people argued ...
Drama at the cathedral
The "quarrel of the queens" in the Song of the Nibelungs took place on the north side of Worms Cathedral. How fitting that exactly here on the Schlossplatz once a year the stage of the renowned Nibelungen Festival is set up. Top-class actors tell the medieval heroic saga of Siegfried, Kriemhild, Brünhild and Hagen from ever new perspectives, while the lavishly illuminated imperial cathedral constantly provides an impressive backdrop.
Sandra Wilhelm goes into raptures when she tells me about her annual visits to the open-air theater festival: "The ambience around the cathedral is very nice, especially when you go to Heylshofpark in the evening, have a glass of wine and meet friends." While we walk around the cathedral, the tour guide shows me where to find Outdoor stage, dressing room and catering and how the small park in front of us is transformed into what is probably the most beautiful theater foyer in Germany.
Hidden details
We enter the church via the southern main portal, a masterpiece of Gothic sculpture. "The special thing about Worms Cathedral is that you can experience over 1,000 years of history here, especially architectural history and art history, in a very small space," says the tour guide. In the arched field of the portal, she first explains the stone picture bible to me and then points to a small dachshund, which I only now notice.
I'm amazed when Sandra Wilhelm reveals the story behind it. The faithful dog of the cathedral's master builder Philipp Brand, who renovated the building in the 1920s, had warned him of falling rocks and thus saved his life. In gratitude, the dachshund was immortalized at the main entrance. She smiles and remarks that this is what she enjoys most about guided tours: drawing attention to things that are not always immediately obvious.
Rooted culture and unique history
Now she leads me to her personal favorite place in the cathedral, the stone images in the north aisle. She stops in front of the relief of the Root of Jesse, a family tree of Jesus Christ in the form of a real tree, and looks at it with fascination. Here, she says, it is always particularly clear how the Christian foundations of our culture run through various areas such as art and music. The lineage depicted before us is musically immortalized every year at Christmas in the popular carol "Es ist ein Ros entsprungen". The cathedral makes these cross-connections particularly visible.
We encounter an important chapter of Worms history on the opposite side of the imperial cathedral. Sandra Wilhelm shows me a stained glass window that depicts the history of the city. The Diet of Worms in 1521 should not be missing, of course, because that was when Martin Luther refused to recant his theses. The image of the reformer in a Catholic church is unique in the world, the tour guide emphasizes. And 'unique' is also the word that comes to mind to describe this wonderful building after my visit.
Your guided tour of the cathedral to Worms
If you also want to get to know the 1000-year history of Worms Cathedral with a friendly tour guide like Sandra Wilhelm, you have the choice between public tours and bookable group tours. All information about times, meeting points and online booking options can be found at this page.
