Just north of the Alps, on the border between Germany and Switzerland, lies beautiful Lake Constance. And on the northwest shore of the lake is the lovely small city of Constance, Germany.

Constance is well worth a visit. A lot of German cities have rather bland or unattractive centers, thanks to the American and British air forces. But Constance escaped these attentions entirely, because the Allies didn’t want to risk any bombs landing in neutral Switzerland. So Constance has an unusually intact Old Town with lots of interesting old buildings, some going right back to medieval times.

Constance also has this:



A nine meter tall, 18 ton statue of a medieval sex worker.  She’s down at the harbor, on the lake.  She rotates once every four minutes.  Her name is Imperia.

You may reasonably ask, what?  And part of the answer is, she’s memorializing the Council of Constance, the great political-religious council that happened here 600-some years ago, from 1414 to 1417.  And you may ask again, what?

I’ll try to explain.  
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