For a day in which we were not checking out of the hotel, we sure had to get up early-6:30. Then again, I guess, we should be glad there was a world to wake up to. Brane had told us the plans for today, "if the world is still here". That's the problem with traveling now, we can still get the news. I believe we've seen CNN every single night, which means we have to hear about the escalating tensions between the US and North Korea every single night.
On a bright note, the breakfast buffet was another good one. It's nice to be able to fortify oneself for a day of sightseeing with such a wide variety of foods, some of it even healthy.
I'd been checking the Weather Channel app nightly and I had been getting concerned about the rain predicted for today, as it was becoming more of a sure thing. I guess someone from Globus noticed, because the plans for the day were changed. Instead of going south to Worms and then north to Bingen for the 1 1/2 hour Rhine cruise and then continuing north back to Mainz after the cruise, we were doing the cruise, then Worms and then back to Mainz. That's not as practical, unless you consider the weather forecast.
We boarded the bus at 8:15 with the weather sunny and cool. We were off the bus in Bingen at 8:56. We had time to kill, so my husband and I strolled along the river walk. I found an open kiosk and bought the only Rhine postcards I'd see all day. We had a good view of the Niederwalddenkmal across the river above Rudesheim and Brane told the group it was a guy up there, specifically the Kaiser. When I realized one of my postcards had a good shot of Germania, the woman who is actually up there, I showed it to other members of the tour, just saying it gave a good view of the statue. There were nice flowers along the bank, so I took a shot over them before taking a zoom photo.
I was able to take a pretty good shot of Ruine Ehrenfels, the remains of a castle just downstream, as well one of some lovely flowers.
Finally, at 9:30, our boat, the Germania docked and we were on board in just two minutes and she quickly departed. It was mostly tourists, but I did see a few Germans using her to get to another town.
We headed for the top deck, as did almost everyone else. Our busload had to unstack chairs from the front and try as best as possible to dry them off before squeezing them into what little space was left.
Meanwhile, I spied this neat little train on the other bank. I have no idea what its purpose is.
Just north of Bingen, at the confluence of the Rhine and the Nahe, stands the Mäuseturm. I was impressed that the narrator told its grisly history, which my students used to read about in their textbook. I'm afraid that right now its paint job is not as pretty as in the postcard.
Whenever we came upon a castle, town or other noteworthy spot, the narrator would tell us about it in German, English, French, and Japanese. We thought, we may have heard Spanish, too. We passed pretty little towns, like Assmannshausen with vineyards on the slopes above.
One can go crazy trying to keep track of all these as you take photos. Luckily, the towns tend to have signs on the bank of the river or on a hillside. For the castles, it is easiest to just find a map of the Middle Rhine castles and go from there. Here are Burg Rheinstein and the Clemenskapelle with Burg Reichenstein above it.
We floated along truly enjoying the scenery. I'm really hoping that this cruise and seeing the boats last night help to inspire my husband to want to cruise the entire Rhine sooner than later. Our tour guide sees no point to doing the entire river. He thinks this is the only part worth seeing. Yes, this is the World Heritage Site, but I think there is a lot to be said for seeing the river from its point of navigability in Switzerland to its mouth in the Netherlands. My husband does agree with that. Too bad it was a morning cruise. Even though others were sampling Rhine wine, we thought it was just too early.
Hereare the charming town of Lorch on the right bank of the Rhine and my favorite Rhine castle, the old toll booth, Pfalz bei Kaub. I even built a paper model of it that sat in my classroom for years.
Here are Oberwesel, the Lorelei, about which Heinrich Heine wrote his famous poem, and Burg Katz above St. Goarshausen. The Lorelei is the German version of the Greek Sirens. I like the wall in Oberwesel and you have to include the Lorelei. If I'm going to put in the Mouse Tower, the Cat castle has to be here, too. Besides, I like the look of modern houses on the hill behind it.
It's going to be really hard to pick photos for the Shutterfly book from this little cruise. I took photos of every castle and they are not all in this blog!
We disembarked at sunny St. Goars at 11:05.
We climbed up to the bus lot, which had a lot of buses in it. We found ours at 11:12 and were on the road just 3 minutes later. At 12:22, we stopped at a rest area near Wonnegau, which featured a Nordsee inside. I don't do fish, so I chose a baguette with salami and cheese for 4,99 and my husband got one with turkey. There was a very pretty cheesecake, so we got a slice to split for 2,99. Once again, a 1 liter Coke Zero Sugar for 3,49 +0,15 for deposit was the best deal. We saved 1 Euro from restroom vouchers after we'd paid the usual 0,70 each. We ate at a high table with a couple of the Wyoming ladies. The sandwiches weren't bad, but the hard baguette did scratch the top of my mouth.
Not sure when we'd have a restroom again, I used it again and bought a Rittersport Halbbitter (semisweet chocolate) for 2,49-0,50 credit. And we were back on the road at 1:11.
We continued south to the city of Worms, site of the Diet of the same name in 1521. We were off the bus at 1:11.
Our first stop, interestingly enough, was the Catholic Cathedral of Worms. It is in the Romanesque style and next year, they are celebrating the 1000 anniversary of the first cathedral built there. The current building was started in 1110. They are in the midst of getting it ready for next year. It was really quite impressive inside and out.
This interesting sculpture, called
Der Streit der Königinnen, is one of a series by Jens Nettlich, which were made for towns along the Nibelungen-Siegfried-Straße. It depicts Kriemhild and Brunhild.
The next stop on our walking tour was the Lutheran Trinity Church, which is much more modern inside than out. I love the choir loft. That's the Diet of Worms up there.
We were lucky enough to be there during the limited run of the exhibition of Suna TOP's
Steinernes Buch-Reformreise. As it traveled around, new messages were added, which she painted and burnt on the tiles. One panel is not enough to show this. So, here they all are.
I'm wondering, whether the thoughts written by people on the last panel will now be turned into the latest panel. Really cool!
As we walked up the hill to our next destination, I noticed a dragon outside of a bridal shop. I wondered aloud, whether this was this town's choice for artistic animal to go with the Nibelungenlied. Sure enough, I saw another dragon and soon others were spotting them. I photographed as many as I coudl.
Our next stop was a small park, where the building once stood that was the site of the Diet of Worms. There was a three- part sculpture: a quote from Luther from the Diet; his"big"shoes; and a sculpture of the town with a lightning bolt through it signifying the schism.
Now, here's the thing: we'd been told several times on this trip and even Brane said it today, that Luther said, "Here I stand, I can do no other". And yet, it wasn't until I read this picture, that I found out that wasn't true. (Once again, just took pictures of signs to read later.) If we'd noticed this then, we could have pointed it out to everyone and my husband and I would have had another point to discuss. It is very much like the nailing of the theses. It makes for interesting reading of Google results, though.
When we went across the street to see the ginormous Reformation statue, I took photos of every aspect of it. I will not put all of them here, because that is just too many photos. However, I noticed that this one has that Luther non-quote on it and so it is included.
When we got back near the bus, Brane pointed out the public restrooms. Before getting on the bus, several of us stopped in a newspaper/ magazine/ souvenir shop right by the bus. I found postcards and a sticker.
Once on the bus, we discovered that D and his daughter had not only not gone with us, but had moved back from their non-changing seat in the front to the one right up the stairwell from the lavatory. D was very sick to his stomach, unfortunately.
When we left at 2:50, it was hot and mostly sunny. No sign of the expected rain. We reached Mainz just after 4 and D and M stayed on to ride to the hotel, while the rest of us got off to walk to the Gutenberg Museum. There, you walk through a fancy, older building that is now their offices and then on across a courtyard to the modern museum.
We wore our whispers, so that Brane could tell us things. Unfortunately, not photographs were allowed. We saw a demonstration on a Gutenberg-style press. There was an exhibit on Chinese printing. They had three Gutenberg Bibles in a darkened room and under glass. We learned that you could chose options for colors and such, when you bought a Bible from Gutenberg.
The postcard options in the shop did not include a Bible, unfortunately. When we left, we had the evening on our own. So, we headed for the Cathedral, as Brane suggested, which was nearby. We passed a nice Gutenberg sculpture, as well as blocks spelling out his name. Unfortunately, it was impossible to photograph the latter.
The cathedral is over 1000 years old and is in the Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque styles. It is very dark inside and difficult to photograph. I did get a nice shot of the Baptismal Font. There was a pretty, modern chapel set aside for prayer, which I thought inappropriate to photograph.
When we left at 5:30, we stopped into the Dombuchhandlung, where I found four postcards for just 2 Euros. That was the only place selling anything vaguely like a souvenir. We walked up the pedestrian zone, and went into two department stores. In one, I found some model train items that I thought would work really well with my smaller-scale dollhouses. I also got an HO roadside shrine, just because I liked it.
We started looking for a dinner site and at 6:28 sat down in the café of the Bratwurst Glöckle. It turned out to be a chain that started in Nuremberg. Ah, well. My husband ordered a Bindig Römer Pils 0,4L for 3,60 and I ordered Erbacher Honigberg Riesling 0,2L also for 3,60, because the waiter said it was sweet. It was not, but it wasn't bad. I ordered the Bergschnitzel, überbacken mit Emmenthaler, Tomaten und Speck (cutlet with cheese, tomato and bacon) that had fries as a side for 12,90. My husband went the sampler route again, choosing "Martinsdompfanne"with Glöcklebratwurst, Schweinebraten (roast pork), Nürnberger sausages, Sauerkraut and Semmelknödel (dumpling made from a roll). Mine was so good that I regretted agreeing to split our meals!
We left at 7:17 and headed toward the river. It was 25C, according to a sign. We soon came to a gelato shop and my husband offered to get me one. I chose 1 scoop of Minze, which was mint with chocolate flakes and was only 1,20. We could hear music coming from a stage next to the cathedral. There was a long set of stairs to go down to that level and I sent him down to check it out, while I finished my gelato. While I was standing there, I was admiring this cool building.
Interesting mix of old and new.
He soon came back, because it wasn't his kind of jazz. We came upon Brane and Charley returning from their dinner. Soon, the city-side of the Rathaus that we'd seen last night came into view. I loved the sculpture in front of it.
When we got past it, I turned around and saw this great juxtaposition of old and new.
The only way down to the river-and the hotel- was via stairs. My knees survived and when we reached the hotel, we decided to walk further along. There wasn't a wine festival, so we could see the fountain that was just beyond the hotel. Interesting reliefs behind it with knights with shields.
I knew from a map we'd seen last night that the Landtag (parliament) was farther along the river. We decided to try to get to it. Along the way, we passed the "beach" that Mainz has set up, complete with palms and tiki bars. You can't swim at this beach, however.
We reached the bridge, the original of which dated to Roman times. There were stairs to go up and I felt certain that the Landtag was up there. I was also certain that I couldn't climb up there. So, I sent my husband up with my camera. He was successful in finding the building and even walked out on the bridge a bit to take some nice photos.
When we were walking back, I noticed that we were under this really nice canopy of trees.
About 8:30, we ran into D from CNN, also out photographing the riverfront. He asked us if we thought it would be okay to give Brane and Charley less than the recommended tips. He was really unhappy with how unprepared they seemed to be, the getting lost and arguing over the GPS. We had prepaid our tips, so we couldn't do anything, but we told him that he could tip however he liked. It seemed reasonable to us to give less. He said that he was sitting up front today-we are moving toward the very back- and they argued a lot today.
He also told us, that he had told the desk that he was a Hilton Honors Member and he got free wi-fi! Unlike him, my husband and I both had our numbers with us, so they wouldn't need to look them up.
We continued back to the hotel, passing some of the Wyoming folks, including the pastor, taking Luther's positive attitude to beer ("He who has no beer, has nothing to drink.") and also enjoying cigars on the patio of the hotel. When we asked at the desk at 8:50 about the wi-fi for Hilton members, the clerk looked up the number my husband gave her and then readily gave us the code.
When we turned around to go upstairs, we ran into M, who looked a little frazzled, and asked about her dad. She'd just had the desk call for a doctor. He's very dehydrated. When she said she wished she knew where the pastor was, I immediately told her. She then asked for our room number in case she needed me to translate. I told her that I probably wasn't the best person for that, but gave her the number.
When we got upstairs, we saw an ambulance in front of the hotel. It was there a long time. We tried to keep an eye on it, to see if they took D somewhere, but we missed the departure. We just have to pray for him.
I told my husband, that who really should have been called to help her with translation was Brane. As it is, we have no way of contacting him should there be an emergency. I'm not sure if the desk could readily locate him.
Well, 11,113 steps today! Almost double yesterday-hurrah!
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