One city I have wanted to visit for a long time is the famed Kaiserstadt, the Imperial City known today as Aachen. (Ahh-chen, where the CH is pronounced with that scratchy back-of-the-throat growl). It is the westernmost city in Germany, and during WW2 Aachen was the first city in Germany to be invaded by the Allies in their eastward march. The first time Germany was directly attacked by ground forces was here! And it was the home for grand emperor Charlemagne for a while, and the cathedral of Aachen has crowned German kings for hundreds of years. The cathedral is quite amazing! The detail work is incredible, as the cathedral was built sometime around the year 796 under Emperor Charlemagne. It contains his throne up on the second floor, overlooking the grand octagonal chamber below, his fancy shrine – a large extremely ornate golden chest that contains his remains. Next to it is the famous Shrine of St. Mary, an equally grand chest which contains four incredible relics – the cloth infant Jesus was swaddled in, Jesus’ loincloth, the dress of Mary, and the decapitation cloth of John the Baptist.

We toured around the cathedral and took a tour (which you must do if you want to get up close to the shrines and see the throne). After seeing the church we walked around to see the neat Christmas Market for a while but all day there was a constant on and off rain. Eventually the rain started getting harder and heavier so we headed to the hotel, but not before getting our Aachen Souvenir Mugs!

This city is also known for it’s particular type of gingerbread, but don’t call it that! They call it Printen! It’s a bit different! Anyways, check out the images!

Images of Aachen!

Finally caught up on posting!!! … for now.