An Extremely Outdated Update: Worms, Schwetzingen, Speyer

Since I don't have much else to say today (I'm going to Amsterdam in an hour), I'll just leave you with a sampling of some photos I took back in July during my bike trip around Mannheim. I was in Worms on Saturday (stayed the night there) and went down to Schwetzingen and Speyer on Sunday. A lot of very pretty, old towns, as you'll be able to see from the pictures. More updates to come after the weekend (including some more pictures from trips I took a long time ago)!

The dragon seems to be the "city mascot" of Worms (Berlin has a bear, for what that's worth). Oh, and that's just the Cathedral of Worms in the background.



A museum in Worms. And by museum I mean old rich estate where you can pay to go in and look at their fine china.



Worms Cathedral: the interior.

Worms has the most beautiful Jewish cemetery I've seen. It's also the oldest in Europe (graves from the 11th century!)

Oh, just some pigeons sitting on a statue of Martin Luther.



Yeah, there's a Mikvah in Worms. Not that there's anyone there to use it these days...




Again, Worms likes its dragons. And its biergartens, apparently.




It wouldn't be a weekend in Germany without a random Weinfest in front of a giant church.




The view from the Apollo Temple at Schwetzingen's Schlossgarten.



Contemplative-looking statues.




I think this is the Temple of Athena. That or some other Greek goddess.




You may be an extraordinarily wealthy German nobleman, but does your palace have a totally impractical and out-of-place mosque on its grounds? Didn't think so.




The actual schloss at Schwetzingen is actually kind of underwhelming after walking around the gardens there. Nice artsy photo, though, right?




I wish I could remember which artist this is, but he had a pretty cool exhibit in the orangerie at Schwetzingen.



The Speyer Dom, overlooking the Rhein in all its glory.



Speyer's got some nice old buildings.




Like I said...



The Jewish quarter in Speyer.



Speyer's synagogue: the hipster monument of German atrocities against the Jews -- this baby got burnt down during a progrom in the 1200s. Take that, Worms's still-standing synagogue that was abandoned during World War II.



This is like the fourth-most-famous church in Speyer.