Mainz, Germany

We had planned to take the train from Berlin to Mainz but our friend, Klaus, had business in Mainz, which is his hometown, so he drove us there.  We stopped along the way in Eisenach which is where Martin Luther translated the Bible into German.


Mainz is on the Rhine River and is the wine capitol of Germany.  Just my kind of place.  It is also a very historic place.  It was the home of Johannes Gutenberg and we toured the Gutenberg Museum.  We saw two original Gutenberg Bibles from the mid-15th century there as well as a history of printing with a demonstration of how the Gutenberg press worked.  It was a very good museum.  No pictures allowed, however.

Mainz also has a cathedral (the Mainz Cathedral, of course) which was originally built in 975 under Archbishop Willigis so the area is quite old.  The Cathedral has suffered over the centuries from fire and destruction as you would expect but has also undergone many restorations.  It is a central part of the city and has lots of art treasures in its' museum areas. 





It also sits on a big market square.  We were there on market day and had a nice breakfast from the various stalls.  Language was a small problem and pointing didn't seem to work for Doug as well as he hoped because he ended up with carrot and orange juice instead of just orange juice.   He said it was okay.  We also had some nice pastries.


We walked a lot around the old quarter.  There is an area of houses that are a great example of half-timbered construction.  They date back to the 1400's.  It was also very interesting how they did the roofs.

Mainz also has an annual three day carnival that would be something like our Madri Gras.  This fountain is the Carnival Monument (Fastnachtsbrunnen).  It is THE monument in Mainz.






St Stephen's Church also draws visitors and has blue stained-glass windows by Marc Chagall.  I liked the churches because they had these peaceful center areas with the church buildings around them.

And there were lots of Roman ruins since the area was once very important to Ancient Rome.  Doug is standing by what is left of the aqua-ducts.  They were originally two levels high so this is just part of the lower support.  I forget how tall they actually were.  It is a very interesting and beautiful area.