The battle of leaning towers: Germany wins

Filed under: Europe, North America, Middle East




Germany and Switzerland have long been known as bastions of cool efficiency, where the trains run on time, locals scold visitors for jaywalking and everything works. But travelers might be surprised to know that these countries are also home to four of the world's most crooked towers, all of which lean more dramatically than the much more famous Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy.

Since the completion of a decade-long restoration project reduced the angle of the Pisa tower's tilt from 5.5 to just 3.99 degrees, a host of other towns have stepped forward to proclaim that their towers are the world's biggest leaners, in the hopes that tourists will follow. In 2007, Reverend Frank Wessels, the pastor of a leaning church in the northwest German village of Suurhusen, contacted Guinness World Records, which confirmed the church as the world's "Farthest Leaning Tower." (see image above)

Wessels recently told Der Spiegel that the church now receives about 10,000 visitors per year. Not bad, but still quite modest compared to the 426,000 tourists who visited the Leaning Tower of Pisa last year, according to a tourism official quoted in The New York Times. But a number of other leaning towers have emerged in the wake of Suurhusen's crooked anointment.
Gallery: Battle of the Leaning Towers

A medieval defense tower in Dausenau, in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, claimed a slightly greater tilt at 5.24 degrees, compared to 5.19 for Suurhusen, but Guinness rejected the bid because the tower is a crumbling ruin, not a functional, freestanding structure. A 12th century tower in St. Moritz, the tony Swiss ski resort, might have laid claim to the record, but a recent stabilization project reduced St. Mauritius' slant from 5.4 degrees to 5.08.

Meanwhile, a 174 foot tall church bell tower in Bad Frankenhausen, a spa town in the eastern German state of Thuringia, has its own claim. The degree measurement of its slant is more modest than that of Suurhusen's, but because its tower is nearly twice as tall, its total margin of deviation makes it appear even more crooked.Continue reading The battle of leaning towers: Germany winsThe battle of leaning towers: Germany wins originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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