Day 8: Today was our final day in Enschede as we were heading to Münster, Germany for a day trip. I woke up early, finished packing, ate breakfast, and met with the group to begin our bus ride. After a little over an hour on the bus, we made it into central Münster, a city filled with history and beauty. We started off at Fürstbischöfliches Schloss Münster, a castle now used as an academic building for the University of Münster. This castle for them is the equivalent of our Cathedral of Learning!
After the castle, we toured the churches as Münster has many churches with beautiful, historic architecture. It should be noted, that Münster was heavily bombed on October 10th, 1943. This led to multiple historic buildings needing to be rebuilt following the war. Because Germany was not the richest, they chose to reuse the building materials and to preserve the previous gothic style. With that being said, both of the churches we looked at had remnants of the bombing as seen in the first photo. The stones include holes carved out from shrapnel hitting off the ground and lodging itself back into the building. On our tour, the first church we visited was St.-Paulus-Dom, a Roman Catholic cathedral. Due to the early morning, we were able to visit during mass, and we were able to hear the organ and worship music.
Following this church, we walked to St. Lamberti, a Roman Catholic church. This church is famous for having three cages hoisted above the clock, as seen in the photo. These cages were used to house those executed by the church. The church removed people who spoke out against roman catholicism, and used their dead bodies to teach the other citizens a lesson about what would happen if they speak out. However, on a more positive note, the church has gargoyles on the gutters whose mouths are open to allow water to come off the roof and promote circular water systems.
After our tour, we went to a local cafe where I got an iced latte and a pretzel. Both were delicious and fueled me for our next adventure, the Piacasso Museum. This museum featured works from both Picasso and Christo and Jeanne-Claude, a duo inspired by Picasso. These artworks were interesting to see, and I definitely took my time examining each piece. My favorites to see were the Over the River project by Christo and Jeanne-Claude and The Bull by Picasso.
This museum worked up our appetites, so we headed to a local restaurant where I tried German snitchzel! Once we finished eating, Aleks and I went to the archaeological museum that featured ceramics, statutes, old coins, and more. This museum was free to visit, and was very informative. After this, we met back with the group where we got on the bus and headed for Rotterdam. It took us roughly three hours to get to Rotterdam where we settled down in the hotel, grabbed a bite to eat, and watched the swans in the nearby pond. Overall, today was amazing especially with a day trip to a whole new country!
