In the Middle Ages, three Rhineland cities, Speyer, Worms and Mainz, were the centres of Jewish learning in northern Europe, and they gave their initials, in Hebrew, to a community known as ShUM. The Jewish communities of these cities developed traditions, laws and customs that influenced Ashkenazi Jewry for centuries, and their monuments were listed together by UNESCO in 2021. In Worms, the synagogue compound includes the synagogue, rebuilt after its destruction by the Nazis in 1938, the women's synagogue, the mikveh, a ritual bath dating from the twelfth century, and the Rashi house, now a Jewish museum, named after the great medieval scholar who studied here.
Just outside the old city walls, the cemetery known as the Heiliger Sand is one of the oldest surviving Jewish cemeteries in Europe, with gravestones dating back to the eleventh century, tilted at odd angles among the trees and grass. It is a moving, peaceful place, and visitors often leave small stones on the graves of the famous rabbis buried there.
Worms is also famous for other chapters of history. Its great Romanesque cathedral, built in red sandstone, is one of the finest in Germany. In 1521, Martin Luther appeared before the Imperial Diet here and refused to recant his writings, a key moment in the Reformation, and a large monument in the town commemorates him. The city is also the setting of much of the Nibelungenlied, the medieval epic poem, and the Nibelungen Museum explores the legend.
For riders, Worms lies on the left bank of the Rhine, in a flat, fertile plain, and the roads around it are fast and busy. To the west, however, the Palatinate offers excellent riding: the German Wine Route, the Deutsche Weinstraße, winds through vineyards and wine villages at the foot of the Palatinate Forest, and the forest itself, one of the largest continuous forests in Germany, has many twisty roads through hills and valleys. To the east, across the Rhine, the Odenwald offers more winding roads through forests and villages.
Worms, a city of over eighty thousand people, has fuel, shops and restaurants. The region is one of Germany's great wine areas, and Worms is the home of Liebfraumilch, a sweet white wine whose name comes from the vineyards around the Liebfrauenkirche in the town. Try a plate of Saumagen, stuffed pig's stomach, a speciality of the Palatinate, with a glass of dry Riesling, and take a walk through the quiet paths of the Heiliger Sand.