Paternoster
One method of vertical transportation unknown to Americans is called a paternoster. A paternoster consists of multiple elevator cabins strung together on a chain, like beads on a rosary - hence the name "paternoster", which is Latin for "our Father". The elevator continuously moves in a circle carrying people upward and downward.
Since this was a unique experience, B looked up all paternoster rides possible in Germany and found a total of 8 just within the Goethe university in Frankfurt. We took the U-Bahn to the main university building and at first located two paternosters but they were not running. A student saw that we were disappointed and pointed out another one down the hall.
It's a cheap thrill and fun to hop into the small cabin (2 passengers only), be carried up six floors, move sideways to the "down" direction and hop off in time. Signs both inside and outside the cabin assure you that going sideways through the attic part and the basement part is perfectly safe. A commonly held myth is that the cabins turn upside down as they move through the top and the bottom.
We strolled through Frankfurt the rest of the day,took a couple of shots of the Old Opera theater and strolled down to the Main river before heading back home. Frankfurt is full of surprises - yesterday, we visited the Palmengarten, a beautiful botanical garden in the Westend part of the city and took a lot of pretty flower pictures.
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8 comments:
I've never heard of those! Cool!!
I always thought the name was because people were so frightened while riding them that they prayed! Thanks for the info- a
CN, Annonamoose,
Wiki link will give you a list of other paternosters in Germany - maybe one in your area?
Riding them is a far cry from bungie cord jumping...
Hey you two! I also thought that praying the "Vaterunser" = pater noster = our father (who art in heaven, etc.) Your explanation seems logical too however. I used to go to school in the IG Farben Haus and loved it there. Not only the Paternosters, but also the beautiful landscaping around the building, btw the university has an English speaking theatre group that performs plays outside the IG Farben Haus in Summer and inside in winter. They are pretty good. Here is the link if you are interested. There will probably not be any new info on the website until October when the semester starts. Greetings from German/Americans in Pennsylvania. Christina and Georg
PS I enjoy your blog very much, even though it makes me feel homesick.
I'm such an idiot. There I go on blabbering about the theatre group and forget to give you the link:
www.chaincourt.de
The group is called Chaincourt theatre group, because their faculty (Institut fuer England- und Amerikastudien) used to be in Kettenhofweg - Kettenhof = chaincourt. They'll be impressed that you know that, because usually only members of the group know where that name originated, or ex-members like myself.
PS the pater noster sentence got cut off too, so what I wanted to say was, that it may have not had to be as thrilling as a bungee jump to impress people in the 19. Century. Remember that they thought going 30 mph in a train was dangerous for your health ;-)
Hoping to have made more sense now
Christina
I so want to ride one; I've only read about them as history, never as a current event!
Chris,
thank you for the link to the English-speaking theater. We'll have to check it out.
TQE
some paternosters in Germany are open to the public and some to employees only. Check out the link in my posting.
Actually the paternoster lifts are CENTURIES old! Much older than any American lifts.
They were invented by German silver diggers in the Harz mountains.
Wikipedia: "The earliest known examples of this device were from the silver mining area of the Harz mountains, Germany, where they were driven by cranks connected to water wheels"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_engine
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