Hildesheim Cathedral and St Michael

UNESCO World Heritage Site: St Mary'S Cathedral And St Michael'S Church At Hildesheim (1985); Ottonian Architecture With The Bronze Bernward Doors And Column Of About 1015, And A Rose Said To Be A Thousand Years Old In The Cathedral Cloister · Hildesheim, Lower Saxony

Hildesheim holds two of the most important early medieval buildings in Germany and almost nobody goes. The cathedral and the church of St Michael, inscribed together by UNESCO in 1985, are the key surviving monuments of Ottonian art: the bronze Bernward doors of about 1015, cast as single leaves with scenes from Genesis and the life of Christ, the spiral Christ column of about the same date, a great wheel chandelier, a Romanesque font, and in St Michael a painted wooden ceiling of the thirteenth century that is one of very few to survive anywhere. On the cathedral's apse grows the rose said to be a thousand years old, which put out new shoots from the burnt ruins after the war. That war is the other fact about this town: an air raid in March 1945 destroyed most of the centre, the churches were gutted, and what you walk through now is reconstruction of several different periods and qualities. Who it suits is specific. If medieval art interests you, this is a serious half day. If it does not, it is a short stop on the way somewhere else, half an hour from Hanover.

Domhof and Michaelisplatz, central Hildesheim, south-east of Hanover, Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, Germany

Both churches are working parish and cathedral churches and open daily, free, outside services; sightseeing stops during mass, prayers, weddings and funerals, and the cathedral closes the nave to visitors around its main Sunday morning liturgy. Expect broadly morning to early evening access with shorter winter hours - confirm, and note that the quietest looking hour, early afternoon, is usually the best. The Cathedral Museum in the cloister charges admission and normally closes one weekday, as most German museums do. The thousand-year rose is in the cloister and visible on the museum route or at posted times; it flowers for a couple of weeks in late May or June. The St Andreas tower climb and the Roemer-Pelizaeus Museum keep their own seasonal hours - confirm.

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