Hildesheim is a city of about 100,000 people half an hour south of Hanover, and it holds two UNESCO World Heritage monuments in a town most visitors to Germany have never heard of: St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Church, inscribed together in 1985 for what they contain from the Ottonian eleventh century. It also holds the thing people come away talking about, which is a rose bush. The old town was destroyed in about twenty minutes on 22 March 1945. The rose on the cathedral apse flowered again the following spring.
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What Is Here
THE THOUSAND YEAR ROSE IS THE CITY'S OWN SYMBOL AND THE STORY IS DOCUMENTED, NOT FOLKLORE. A wild rose, Rosa canina, grows against the cathedral's eastern apse and is held to be around a thousand years old, which would make it among the oldest living roses in the world. The 1945 bombing brought the cathedral down on top of it. In 1946, out of the rubble, the root stock put out twenty five new shoots, which were recorded and numbered at the time, and the city took that as the sign to rebuild rather than clear the site. It flowers for a couple of weeks in late May or early June. The rest of the year it is a bare thorny thing on a wall, and it is still the most affecting object in the city.
THE CATHEDRAL HOLDS THE BEST OTTONIAN BRONZE IN EUROPE. The Bernward Doors, cast around 1015 in a single pour, carry sixteen panels of Genesis and the life of Christ and are the first monumental figurative bronze doors cast in the West since antiquity. The Christ Column beside them is the same workshop and the same ambition. These are not replicas and they are not behind glass in a distant museum, they are the doors. The cathedral treasury alongside holds reliquaries of the same period and is part of the inscription.
ST MICHAEL'S IS WHY THE WORD OTTONIAN IS WORTH KNOWING. The first image is it. Built in the early eleventh century, it is the clearest surviving statement of that architecture, square-based, flat-ceilinged, severe, and the painted wooden ceiling of around 1230 is one of only a handful of medieval painted ceilings left anywhere. It is a Lutheran church and free to enter, and the Catholic cathedral is ten minutes away, which is its own piece of local history.
THE MARKET SQUARE IS A RECONSTRUCTION AND IT IS BETTER TO KNOW THAT BEFORE YOU STAND IN IT. The second image is the Marktplatz. The Knochenhaueramtshaus, the Butchers' Guild Hall, was reckoned one of the finest half-timbered buildings in Europe and burned on 22 March 1945. The square was cleared, built over in the postwar decades, and then rebuilt in facsimile from drawings and photographs, with the guild hall finished in 1989. So the square is at once genuinely beautiful and about as old as a modern office block. Saying so is not a criticism of it. It is a deliberate decision a city made about its own past, and the honest version is more interesting than the pretence.
AND THE REST OF THE CITY IS ORDINARY, WHICH IS WORTH SAYING PLAINLY. Outside the cathedral precinct, St Michael's, the Marktplatz and the handful of surviving timbered streets, Hildesheim is a working postwar German city of shops and ring roads. One full day covers everything listed above comfortably. It is a superb day trip from Hanover and a thin three night stay.
When to Go
Late May and early June is the one date that is genuinely better than the others, because the rose is in flower and the cathedral garden is open.
June to September is warm, long-evening weather with everything open and no crowds to speak of, because this is not a town with crowds.
December brings a small Christmas market on the reconstructed square, which is the best use of that square in the year.
January to March is grey, cold and quiet, and the two churches are the point in any weather, so a winter visit loses less here than it would in a hill town. Check opening hours, which are shorter, and note that both churches close to visitors during services.
Getting There
Hanover to Hildesheim is about thirty minutes by train, several times an hour, which makes this one of the easiest day trips in northern Germany. Hildesheim is also on the high speed line, so some ICE services stop here directly: Berlin is around two hours, Frankfurt about two and a half, Hamburg around an hour and a half.
From the station it is a ten to fifteen minute walk to the Marktplatz, flat and straightforward, and St Michael's and the cathedral are a few minutes further.
Everything is walkable and a car is of no use in the centre. Buses run from the station if you would rather not walk.
The Hildesheim Packing List
A cool damp northern German climate, two cold stone church interiors, and a flat city you will cross on foot repeatedly.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women suits the rhythm of this particular day: a heated train, a cold cathedral, a warm cafe, another cold church, and a walk back to the station in the dark. Stone interiors in Lower Saxony stay cold through the summer. From November to March add a heavyweight merino base layer.
A Columbia Fast Trek II fleece across three seasons, and a Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket, because this is one of the damper corners of Germany and the rain is the fine persistent sort rather than the dramatic sort.
Walking shoes with grip, for the cobbled streets around the cathedral and the worn stone floors inside both churches.
Merino glove liners from October, thin enough to keep on while handling a camera or a guidebook in an unheated nave.
An insulated water bottle, since the walking here is urban and continuous and the city has public fountains rather than many places to stop.
Not linked and worth packing: SOMETHING TO COVER YOUR SHOULDERS for the cathedral and the treasury; CASH IN EUROS, because the treasury, the smaller museums and plenty of cafes prefer it; AND A FOLDING UMBRELLA, which in this climate earns its space more reliably than a hood does.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Hildesheim
Emergency numbers: 112 for police, ambulance and fire, free from any phone including a locked mobile, with operators who will find an English speaker. It is the single number across the whole European Union.
THERE IS NO DESTINATION-SPECIFIC HAZARD HERE, AND SAYING SO IS MORE USEFUL THAN INVENTING ONE. Hildesheim is a quiet mid-sized Lower Saxon city with no terrain, no water risk, no advisory of its own and no district a visitor has reason to avoid. What applies is national. The FCDO states that terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks in Germany and lists markets, places of worship, shopping centres, crowded public spaces and sporting and cultural events among potential targets, which is a national assessment and is worth holding in mind at the Christmas market rather than anywhere else. CRIME IS AT UK LEVELS, with the FCDO naming mugging, bag-snatching and pickpocketing, and in a city this size the practical version is ordinary care around the station late at night, which is true of every German station town. IT ALSO WARNS ABOUT COUNTERFEIT CURRENCY and advises using banks, ATMs or official exchange offices and checking your change when paying cash. THE PHYSICAL RISKS ARE DULL AND REAL: worn stone floors in two medieval churches, cobbles in the cathedral quarter that are slick in rain and ice, and a continental winter that goes below freezing. BOTH CHURCHES ARE WORKING PLACES OF WORSHIP and close to visitors during services, which is the thing most likely to disrupt a day here.
US State Department travel advisory: the Germany advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/germany, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Main hospital: St Bernward Krankenhaus and Helios Klinikum Hildesheim both have emergency departments in the city, and Hanover is half an hour away for anything requiring a university hospital. Dial 112 for ambulance and fire and 110 for police, both free from any phone, and 112 works from a mobile with no SIM. Pharmacies, Apotheken, post the night and Sunday duty rota on the door under the heading Notdienst. Germany is in the EU, so a UK Global Health Insurance Card or an EU European Health Insurance Card gives you state-provided medically necessary care on the same terms as a resident. That is not the same as free: German healthcare involves patient contributions and the card does not cover repatriation or private treatment, so travel insurance sits on top of it. German hospitals are excellent and English is widely spoken in them, particularly in university cities. An Apotheke, marked with a red A, handles minor problems without an appointment and the duty rota for out-of-hours is posted in the window. Tap water is drinkable everywhere. Dial 112 for an ambulance and 116117 for the non-emergency medical service.
Official health authority: the Robert Koch Institute, Germany's public health body, covers the national health service information and the pharmacy duty rotas
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Berlin.
Official tourism authority: the German National Tourist Board, covers Lower Saxony, and the city office publishes the cathedral and treasury opening hours, the service times both churches close for, and the fortnight the rose is expected to flower
Takeaways
Two UNESCO monuments, both free or cheap, both ten minutes apart.
The Bernward Doors of 1015 are the single best object in the city.
The market square is a 1980s reconstruction. Beautiful, and not old.
Thirty minutes from Hanover. A perfect day trip and a thin long stay.
Solo women safety assessment: Hildesheim is about as low-stress as solo travel in Germany gets, and the honest reason is that nothing much happens here. It is a quiet working city of a hundred thousand people where the visitor attractions are two churches and a museum, the centre is flat and walkable, the trains to Hanover run several times an hour until late, and there is no nightlife district, no tourist-targeted scam economy and no area a visitor has cause to avoid. Eating alone is completely normal. The one piece of ordinary urban sense is the station surroundings late at night, which is true of every German city of this size and is not specific to this one. Germany's crime levels are comparable to the UK's and the FCDO names mugging, bag-snatching and pickpocketing along with a counterfeit currency warning worth heeding where you pay cash. The national terrorism assessment names markets, which applies in December and not otherwise. THE REAL RISKS ARE THE GROUND AND THE WEATHER: worn medieval stone, cobbles that are slick in rain and treacherous in ice, and a winter well below freezing. AND THE PRACTICAL ONE IS OPENING HOURS, since both UNESCO churches are working parishes that close to visitors for services, so a day built around them wants the times checked. 112 REACHES AMBULANCE AND FIRE AND 110 REACHES POLICE, free from any phone, and two hospitals in the city have emergency departments.
Reading On
Hildesheim pairs naturally with the other northern German cities that were flattened and rebuilt on their own terms. The Kassel packing list covers the Hessian city that chose modernism instead of facsimile, and the Bremen packing list covers the Hanseatic city whose UNESCO town hall and Roland came through. For the ones that did not burn, the Lubeck packing list covers brick Gothic on the Baltic and the Erfurt packing list Thuringia's intact medieval capital. Further afield, the Hamburg packing list covers the port city an hour and a half north, the Leipzig packing list Saxony's music city, and the Berlin packing list the capital two hours east. For the country, the Germany travel guide for women carries the transport, the regions and the seasons in full. For why wool suits a cold nave and a heated train in the same hour, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection. Published alongside this one: the Goslar packing list covers the imperial mining town an hour south in the Harz, and the Quedlinburg packing list covers the abbey founded in 936 by Mathilde, widow of the king whose house built the churches here.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
