Dear All,

while I live in a fairly tiny town somewhere in Western Germany and said town doesn’t offer a lot in terms of sights, there are still other places that can be easily reached by train and car and offer some beautiful sights to go.

One of those very nice and historic places is Münster, about 70 kilometers up north from where I live (and funnily the city I almost moved and went to university when I left high school five years ago). Münster is seriously the bicycle capital of good, old Germany (Wikipedia is not lying about that!) and a few years back was voted to be the most attractive, livable city in Germany. It is a city full of students riding around their bikes and full of beautiful, ancient buildings.

St Paul’s Cathedral is one of those buildings.

And why do I tell you all of this?

Well, not too long ago, my family and I took a trip to Münster to do some shopping and have a lovely day away from home. Towards the end of our little excursion, I managed to drag everyone into the cathedral as they’d never actually been! I have been before, on several occasions: with school, with friends on my own.

I’m in love with churches. Does that sound ridiculous? I’m just so stunned by the constructions, the size, the effort put into building those large, beautiful buildings. I also really like the atmosphere inside: Don’t you know the feeling of walking into a church and feeling at easy and so utterly calm? I only ever get that in All Hallows in London but every time I walk into a church here, I am reminded of the feeling just a little bit.

In 1225, the current church was built and was only severely damaged in the times of the Second World War (and then fixed in the years leading into the 1950s). Inside are many tiny chapels that are all dedicated to different saints, and the Cross above the altar dates back to the 13th century. The organ is apparently a rather new one, but a little further down the aisle you find the very old astronomical clock.

The orginial clock from 1408 sadly fell prey to the iconoclasm during the Anabaptist Rebellion in 1534, but a couple of years later a new one was built and installed and has been in the exact same place ever since. And it is actually still working. The Perpetual Calendar that goes along with it runs until 2071 – isn’t that amazing?

In any case – here are a couple of pictures from inside that I took. I completely forgot to take some of the exterior – the beautiful Paradise Gate and the two towers!

I guess what with my obsession for churches, it is a great thing I’m going to work as a member of clergy at one point in my life, right?