St Michael's in Hildesheim is a church that was built to a vision. Bishop Bernward, a teacher and craftsman as well as a churchman, began it around the year 1010 and died in 1022, and the church was consecrated in 1033. He designed it with a double apse, with a choir at each end, and with two transepts and six towers, a symmetrical plan that is one of the best examples of Ottonian architecture. The layout reflects a view of the world in which the church was a model of heaven.
Inside, the pale columns and round arches have a calm severity, and above the nave a painted wooden ceiling, made around 1200 and showing the Tree of Jesse, the family tree of Christ, is one of the great medieval works of art in Germany. The ceiling was protected during the Second World War, while the building itself, bombed in March 1945 along with the rest of the old town, was rebuilt in the following decades. The church has been Lutheran since the sixteenth century, and the cathedral, with its famous bronze doors made for Bernward, is part of the same World Heritage listing. The ride goes on from here to the Carolingian Westwork at Corvey.
Against the apse of the cathedral grows a wild rose said to be a thousand years old, which was badly damaged in the bombing and sprouted again from its roots in the rubble, and the town has made it a symbol. Hildesheim itself is a lively place of about a hundred thousand people, with a reconstructed market square that gives some idea of how the medieval town looked.
For a rider, Hildesheim sits in a green, rolling landscape between the Harz and the Leine valley. Roads run through farmland, woods and small villages, with a good surface and gentle curves, and the Harz foothills, to the south-east, offer more winding stretches. The city centre is busy, with cobbles and one-way streets, so park outside the old town. Fuel and food are easy to find, and the local cuisine includes hearty north German dishes.
Choose a bright morning, when the church interior is lit by the windows, and take time to look up.