Sightseeing in Braunschweig

This morning we went to town. We had breakfast at a café: two rolls each, a lot of cheese with chestnuts in it, other  cheese with chili and sweet pepper, salami and ham and boiled eggs and jam and nougat spread, some fruits, tomatoes and "lollo rosso" salad. I was allowed to sit on the table and got some ham and egg. 

We went to a large place. There were nearly no people because the shops still were closed. But I met six (!) horses. Some of them were on the roof of a big building. I wondered how they came up this high.

Mrs Schicke told me, they took a tower crane and were lifted to that place. They pull a chariot like on top of the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin.

 

There were two more horses in front of the building, carrying some dukes of Braunschweig.
They look very much like the one I saw in Hannover, but the horsemen got hats different from that, King Ernst August had.
The outer shell of the building has been the palace of the dukes of Braunschweig, but nowadays there are a big shopping mall, a museum and a library inside.

Next we went to the castle.
It is a very old building. Before, there was an even elder castle on this place, but during the 16th century the dukes "modernized" their castle in the new fashion style of their time, called Renaissance, and so it remained for the next 400 years until now.

Next to the castle there is a cathedral. It was founded by Henry the Lion, an important sovereign of his time. That was 800 years ago.

It took many years to complete the building.
Inside there are wonderful paintings. In those times only few people were able to read. So the walls were painted with pictures telling important stories of the bible. Now the people could "read" the bible by looking at these pictures.
Outside I found a ball in the wall.
I show you. Look here!

You can't see it? Let's take a closer look!

Mrs Schicke told me, this was the result of some giants playing basket ball.
But I didn't believe THAT!
Then she narrated, that this is a real cannon ball, sticking in the wall since a siege of the town in 1615.
I was VERY impressed!

Between the cathedral and the castle there is a free place, used as a market place in former times.
Just in the middle of it there is a lion's monument.

This is the symbol of Henry the Lion. He had installed this monument to present how mighty and rich he was.
The original artwork was covered with gold and is stored in a museum now (just use the door right to me, to enter the museum and see him).
But why chose Henry a Lion as his heraldic animal and not a bald eagle like me??

There is a legend, that once Duke Henry came to see a furial fight between a lion and a lindworm. Henry helped the lion and saved his life. The lion was so grateful, he never left the duke anymore. When Duke Henry died, he laid upon his grave until he himself died as well.

At the wall of the cathedral I met some more lions.

 A wild and grim one and a lioness with her cub.

The lioness was very friendly. I played hide and seek with the cub, but the cub was very young and the only good place to hide, it could think of, was beneath lion-mum's paws.
Not SO difficult to find a cub under a paw, when it forgets to reel its tail up...

Once more the castle - the big one in the background, a small one in the foreground.

Later on I met an owl.

She was sitting on the ground and looking around.
"What are you doing here?" I asked. "Owls should sit on branches instead of a brim of a well. And they should sleep during daytime!"
"Oh, we belong to an old fairy tale", she answered. "Would you like to listen to it?"
A monkey, also sitting on the brim, offered me a warm and cosy place. So I huddled against him and listened.

The owl told the story of Till Eulenspiegel, baking owls and long-tailed monkeys.
You can read it here on page 35.

The last place I visited today was the old guildhall.
Not so interesting, I thought. Just a lot of holes in the walls.

Mrs Schicke told me, that this house was full of mathematics and geometry.
Everywhere you can see symmetry and difficult circle constructions, like the trefoil and the quatrefoil.

The master builders of those times were very proud of being able to use a circle!
It was secret art!

Suddenly I saw a metal rod mounted to a column.
Curious as I am, I wanted to know the purpose of mounting a rod to a wall. 

Around the guildhall people organized a market.
There they sold everything (no potatoes and tomatoes and corn of course - guess why :) ).
They sold fruits and grain, wine and honey (and wine made of honey), pots and pans, brooms and brushes,
fabrics and ropes.
And everything had to be measured!
It is easy to measure the amount of pots and brooms - just count.
It is easy to measure fruits and grain - take a pair of scales and some balance weights.
It is difficult to measure wine. But they got bottles and jars: fill them up and  - count.
But fabrics and ropes were measured by ells.
An ell is the length from your ellbow to the top of your fingertips.
Have a look at your ell.
Then take a look at Mrs Amri's ell.
Do you see the difficulty in measuring with ells??

So the Lord Major of Braunschweig determined, that there should be a kind of consistent ell in the duchy of Braunschweig.
They just took someones ell (maybe, it was the duke's personal ell), made a  rod of this length and mounted it to the wall. So everyone could go there to measure the fabrics, he wanted to sell or buy.
As it was rather crowdy sometimes at the rod, they decided to make wooden rods of the same length, everyone could keep at his market stand.
But when a customer didn't believe, that this wooden ell had the correct length, he still could go to the wall to prove it.

Many, many years later, when the meter was invented in Europe, they measured the ell and found, that it was 57,07 cm long.
 But that is a very strange dimension and difficult to calculate with.
So they decided to measure length only in meters and centimeters from now on.
But they kept the name "ell" for a wooden rod to measure with, till nowadays.

After I had learned so much, I was tired.
Mrs Schicke wanted to do some shopping, what usually is really boring to me (except she buys tasty food!).
So I begged to go into the rucksack and have a nice nap.
I woke up, when all the shopping was over and we went home.
So I can't tell you anything more about Braunschweig today.