Ring Out Wild Bells

That may or may not be the same title I gave our New Year's Eve post last year!  I can't help it - it's entirely appropriate!

After spending the majority of our Christmas break at home in pajamas, we decided to get out of the house on Saturday the 30th and make a quick trip to a place that I've been wanting to go to for a while -- the Abbey library at Waldsassen.  It's about an hour away on the Czech border and it was cold and snowy but it felt good to get out.  We were there about an hour before the first tour and so we went into the Basilica for a while to try to stay warm - just a note, large churches are never warm!  Its not wonder church is only an hour!  It's also no wonder that many charge for tours, they need all the money they can get for upkeep.

The Monastery is a working Abbey although with the weather we didn't see too many nuns out and about.  The building is fairly modern, 1700s, but the Monastery was established in the late 1100s when a knight settled in the woods there and established his order basically in order to do penance for killing his friend in a tournament.  Turns out that he didn't kill him and the friend happened upon him in the woods one day because it was on the friend's land.  He gave the monks all the land that could be covered by a donkey in one day and thus Waldsassen was born!  Fun history!

No good angles of this awesome spiral staircase.

The Basilica was amazing!  The stucco work was fabulous and the statuary was pink but not too much to be terrible.  This church has TEN glass entombed saints - that's the most we've seen in one church.  The kids have ceased to be creeped out by this and instead find the poses and the ornamentation funny.  I'm sorry if this offends people and we don't laugh openly but it is very different to us.  One of them was missing teeth and the kids thought that was great.

I always wonder who they are and why they're there though -- there aren't usually explanations.

The church had some of the most amazing wood carvings that I've seen.  The ends of the pews were nuts and fruits, the choir stalls were all topped by cherubs, even the banisters were gorgeously carved!  

I always wonder who gets the job of painting the ceilings!

More saints

Banisters!!!

As close to the choir stalls as I could get because we couldn't enter that area.

I love the simplicity of the straw ornaments and now I want some.  They're actually really common around here though.

Trying to get a close up of the stucco work!

When we walked out of the Basilica we were in for a treat -- it was snowing!  That kids were so excited.  We have had snow in Hahnbach but nothing that has really stuck and it's been followed by warmer weather and rain so really our winter so far has just been soggy.  They really enjoyed playing in it. 

This is the only picture I have of the library and it's a picture of a postcard! No pictures were allowed inside.

It's one room and it isn't really large although it does have a balcony of books as well as the ground floor.  There are also two staircases which can be hidden behind moving shelves.  This was also extensively carved and each figure holding up the balcony had certain features that showcased the faults of man. The books are all originals and printed - not handwritten - but not original to the library.  The whole collection of 15,000 was moved years ago and they don't know why.  About 4-5,000 are in Amberg (hey that's our city!) and the other 10,000 have disappeared!  The tour was in German but they did provide English information and so I feel like we did learn quite a bit about it.  The kids favorite thing was wearing the one-size-fits-all slippers over their shoes and sliding around the floors.

After the library we left but decided to try to find one other church that looked interesting.  We drove about a mile and half out of town and went through the snowy woods until this popped up over the hill.  Megan declared earlier that today was not a day for adventuring but this was just magical!! 

It's the Church of the Holy Trinity with one spire for each member of the Trinity (or Godhead in our case). 

This one was cold enough that we could see our breath!  And no one around.  The other one had lots of visitors.  Each cupola (?) had paintings depicting each member of the Trinity and they were lovely.

We were prepared for New Year's this year and the weather wasn't too bad.  We told the kids we would wake them up when the fireworks started.  Even Megan went out with us which is very impressive given that they are sooo loud since they're basically being set off all around us.  William didn't want to - he wanted to sleep - but I knew I would have complaining in the morning so I made him get up and after about 10 minutes he asked to go back to bed.  I was glad - I thought he'd be wired from all of that!  In addition to the fireworks, the church bells peal for about 30 minutes once midnight hits and it's an amazing New Year's.  I think my favorite honestly!  Partly because it happens right in the comfort of our own home.  All of Germany goes nuts though - I think it's the one time of year you can buy fireworks and they're good ones.  The next day though Chopper was telling me about all the deaths and medical emergencies that resulted.  But for us it was great!