The Most Crooked Hotel in the World
Published in HautLife
Category: Travel
Hotel “Schiefes Haus” in Ulm, Germany, is registered in the Guinness World Records as the most crooked hotel in the world. For the price of about 100 shaky European banknotes per night you may lean there.
If your world is too square, too round, too vertical, or if you are feeling too ‘straight’ these days when no one else is, try this – The most crooked hotel in the world. You will be thrown off your daily balance instantly. Do not worry, it has been tilting around for quite some time. Precisely from the early sixteenth century if you insist on the details. The building was restored and secured in modern history.
Even if it crooks one or two degrees more, it will not go far. There is a brook, some people say a river let it be for them, called “Blau”. This Blau-water has been washing out the walls, not just of this hotel but of many buildings around, for centuries. It is narrow and not deep, you would find your way out easily.
The fourteenth century millstone turns constantly making the old log-streaked and out of shape buildings squeak, and the windows that stuck out from roofs clap, day and night. As a matter of fact, when you cross one of the stone bridges, you might feel lost, strayed directly into a fairy tale. Well, your prince or princess will appear eventually. However, if this medieval romance is not for you, simply take a different direction.
Just a few blocks up the street, the certain fellow called Albert was born. To this guy, it was all relative, though, because he reached for the universe with the name of Albert Einstein. His statue, wild-haired and tongue-poking-out, will greet you there.
If you walk down the street, just around the corner you will find a building known as “Rathaus”. This building was constructed in 1370. It was supposed to be a medieval “shopping mall”. But soon after it was finished, the city authorities transformed it into a city-hall. Such Gothic beauty could belong only to them, the real city ascendants, they decided. The building was then embellished with carved ornaments and frescoes by acclaimed masterbrushes. It still looks romantic and unreal. But nowadays you may have a locally brewed beer there, excellent food, and enjoy the combination of modern and medieval view, if the weather lets you stay outside.
When you finish your beer, walk to the “Ulmer Munster”, the Cathedral. If you do not do that you will offend the people of Ulm, deeply. It is very close, just around the other corner. Once you are done with it, they will let you stick to your beer as long as you wish.
The Cathedral itself is a masterpiece of human vanity, just like many grandiose things in this world. In the early 1370s, the citizens of Ulm wanted a church taller than one in the reigning city of Strasburg. “Ulmer Munster” is still the tallest church tower in the world. Its steeple is 161,5 m high. It is also the largest Protestants church in Germany. Those willing to climb all 768 spiral steps will be rewarded with astonishing view of the Alps and Black Forest.
Just a few steps farther, there is, what we have no excuse but to call, a river. The one that flows from the Black Forest to the Black Sea, swiveling occasionally into the waltz. But this Danube here is just about a hundred kilometers away from its spring in the hills of Schwarzwald. It is neither big nor deep. Down the stream it will pick up the strength needed to earn the reputation of a famous and mighty European river.
But still, if none of this is right for you, leave the aged downtown. Cross the wide street and you will find a modern city with its museums, galleries, restaurants, shopping malls. The city of Ulm always has a lot to offer. Even the location itself is perfect for many different day-trips around.
Photo by: Hans Splinter
