Worms Travel Guide

The Cathedral of St Peter (German: Wormser Dom) is the principal church and chief building of Worms. Along with Speyer and Mainz, it ranks among the finest Romanesque churches along the Rhine. This magnificent basilica, with four round towers, two large domes, and a choir at each end, has an imposing exterior, though the impression produced by the interior is also one of great dignity and simplicity, heightened by the natural color of the red sandstone of which it is built. The Catholic Prince-Bishopric of Worms ceased to exist in 1800. Only the ground plan and the lower part of the western towers belong to the original building consecrated in 1110. The remainder was mostly finished by 1181, but the west choir and the vaulting were built in the 13th century, the elaborate south portal was added in the 14th century, and the central dome has been rebuilt.

The ornamentation of the older parts is simple; even the more elaborate later forms show no high development of workmanship. Unique sculptures depicting salvation stories appear above the Gothic-era south doorway. The baptismal font contains five remarkable stone reliefs from the late 15th century. The church's original windows were destroyed by bombing in 1943; between 1965 to 1995 new windows were made by Mainz artist Alois Plum.

Hours: April—October: 9am—6pm, November—March: 9am—5pm.

The Jewish Cemetery in Worms or Heiliger Sand, is usually called the oldest surviving Jewish cemetery in Europe, although the Jewish burials in the Jewish sections of the Roman catacombs predate it by a millennium. The Jewish community of Worms was established by the late tenth century, and the oldest tombstone still legible dates from 1076. The last was in 1940. Situated close to the entrance, the gravestones of Meïr of Rothenburg (d 1293) and Alexander ben Solomon Wimpfen (d 1307) are among the most significant sepulchral monuments of the cemetery and are a place of pilgrimage for Jews from all over the world.

Other areas of Jewish Worms are the former Jewish quarter with the synagogue and its mikvah, or ritual bath, and the Jewish Museum, based in the community’s former Dance and Marriage house, today’s Rashi House, giving the visitor an impression of the history and culture of Jews in Worms.

Hours: Open daily, except on Jewish holidays: summertime: 8am—8pm, wintertime: 8am to nightfall.

Herrnsheim castle, situated in Herrnsheim suburb, goes back to a fortress built in 1460. Remodeled into a baroque castle from 1711 on, it was severely damaged in 1792. The ruins were used to build today’s empire-style castle, and in 1840 further alterations were made. Around 1790, the lord of the castle, Wolfgang Heribert von Dalberg, commissioned one of the foremost landscape gardeners of his time, Friedrich Ludwig Skell, to lay out a park around the castle. Skell made an English landscape garden of it, supplying it with meadows, outlier groves, ponds and an island. The outbuildings of the castle were built in the 18th century, the orangery, now housing a café, in the early 19th century. The castle’s interior design is particularly remarkable. Large part of it is preserved on the ground floor, including wall and ceiling paintings. Rare French wallpapers from the first half of the 19th century feature a panorama of Paris and a scene from the Bosporus (first floor). Another highlight is the library tower.