Friday, April 27, 2007

Ulm Sweet Ulm

After the sidetrip to Pisa from Florence turned out
to be so easy and cheap, I had been hoping I could do
a quick sidetrip to Ulm this morning and then go to
Salzberg this afternoon, but it turned out both
tickets were much more expensive than I thought, and I
wouldn´t really have enough time to make it worth it,
so I had to choose just one.

I heard many great things about Salzberg, and what I
saw of Austria coming through it on the train really
made me want to go back. The only thing I heard about
Ulm from people I´d asked was ´its like Des Moines,
but with a few gothic buildings´.

Well, nonetheless, I chose Ulm. I believe I have
family roots here, as my Great Grandmother´s maiden
name was Ulm, and I do have relatives living in this
general part of Germany to this day. In addition, my
Grandfather apparently always had a fascination with
the Ulm Cathederal. After seeing it, I can understand
why. So Ulm won out on the personal and sentimental
vote.

Overall, Ulm is actually a rather pleasant city. Not
quite a tiny town, but easy enough to walk and cover
most of the city in a few hours...

A couple of interesting highlights beside the
cathederal... its birthplace of Einstein! Also, you
may have you seen a commercial recently (I think its
for a bank or credit card company) guy with a homemade
glider is going to jump and try and fly across the
river with the whole town watching. An old guy says
something like ´ah, but can he swim?´ He jumps and of
course, lands in the river.

Well, that really happened, just a few hundred yards
down the Danube river from where I´m sitting right
now!

Pretty cool... There are some other neat buildings,
around town, too.

Maybe Des Moines wouldn´t be that bad, either.

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