We arrived at the confluence of the Main and Rhein rivers this morning as we were eating breakfast at 8am. The ship docked in Mainz along the river bank just behind the Hilton Mainz. Our first excursion today did not leave until 11:00am so everyone on the ship was a bit more relaxed at getting to breakfast.
After breakfast, Rob and Michele returned to their room. Rob stepped out on the balcony and saw a beautiful white swan swimming next to the ship. The swan has learned that if there are people on the balconies it may get fed. So the swan moves slowly alongside the ship waiting for a feeding. Sure enough, folks would throw little pieces of bread overboard and the swan would gobble it up and wag its tail (no doubt delighted with its reward of perseverance).This is why the rooms in the lowest level of the ship are called the swan rooms.
Roy, Rob, and Michele headed off the ship at 10:50am to join the Walking Tour of Mainz and the Gutenberg Museum excursion. The walking tour first headed to the town square in Mainz. This was the old canal gate tower used to collect tolls. Now there is no canal or toll collection.
Downtown Mainz is a combination of new and old architecture.
A farmers market was in full swing in the square.
Past the square, we walked up to and into St. Martin’s Cathedral.
This Romanesque style cathedral was started in year 975 under the order of Mainz Archbishop Willigis. It was inaugurated in 1009 and was badly damaged from a fire on that day. The main portion of the cathedral was completed in 1037. In most cathedrals at the time the main chancel lay on the east side. Willigis, however, designed his cathedral with the main chancel on the west, presumably modeled after the great basilicas in Rome, which were constructed this way. Uopn entering Michele said, “Wow, wow, wow!” The scale is impressive.
Along both of the chancel’s outside walls are the names of the those that served as the Mainz archbishop from 975 (Willigis) to 1804.
In 1081, fire struck the cathedral again. The Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV ordered the reconstruction of the cathedral. Henry died in 1106 before his intended changes were complete. With his death the funding for the renovation of the cathedral dried up and so the remaining construction was abandoned. Mainz Cathedral is considered one of the three Kaiserdome (“Emperor's Cathedrals”) of the Holy Roman (German) Empire, along with Worms Cathedral and Speyer Cathedral.
Additions and renovations were made in the 12th, 14th, and 15th centuries. In 1767 the western cross-tower was struck by lightning and its roof was destroyed. A new multi-story roof was designed and built for the tower in the 18th century.
More damage occurred in the late 18th century by the invasion of French revolutionary troops. With the assistance of Napoleon, reconstruction of the cathedral began again and was completed towards the end of the 19th century.
Restoration efforts started in the early 20th century when the original wood foundation began to fail. These repairs were completed by 1928. Then WWII broke out and the cathedral was heavily damaged. After the war, most of the repairs continued through the 1970s.
Today, restoration efforts continue both inside and out of the cathedral. This building has seen a lot of history over the last 1,050 years.
We walked over to St. Augustine’s church. Along the way we saw this house that looked like it belonged in a Harry Potter film. Can you see the interesting characteristic of this house?
We arrived at St.Augustine’s church shortly after. This church dates back to 1768. While the outside of this church is in the baroque style, the interior is in the rococo style.
We next made our way over to the Gutenberg Museum where we were shown a demonstration of Gutenberg’s moveable-type printing press that he invented around 1436. Though movable type was already in use in East Asia, Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press enabled a much faster rate of printing. The printing press later spread across the world and led to an information revolution and the unprecedented mass-spread of literature throughout Europe. It had a profound impact on the development of the Renaissance, Reformation, and humanist movements.
The museum contains a few of the first editions of the bible that Gutenberg printed. They are housed in a big black box that is a room within a room. We entered the dark room with just gentle lights in the bibles. These books are so delicate and rare, as only 200 of the original 400 exist. Gutenberg would print the pages without any art. The drawings were added afterwards.
We all headed back to the ship where Gwyn joined us for lunch around 2pm.
After lunch, Rob and Michele headed back into Mainz to find the Chagall windows. The walk to St. Stephan’s church from the ship took about 15 minutes and with the help of GPS, we easily found it.
St. Stephan’s was originally built in 990 at the order of Archbishop Willigis. (The same guy that initiated the building of St. Martin’s Cathedral.) Additions were made in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Since then the church has largely remained the same. The church was heavily damaged in WWII and repaired between 1968 and 1971.
The Chagall choir windows in St. Stephan are unique in Germany. Between 1978 and his death in 1985, Belarusian Jewish artist Marc Chagall created nine stained-glass windows of scriptural figures in luminous blue. The figures depict scenes from the Old Testament, demonstrating the commonalities across Christian and Jewish traditions. Chagall intended his work to be a contribution to Jewish-German reconciliation, made all the more poignant by the fact that Chagall himself fled France under Nazi occupation. He chose St. Stephan due to his friendship with Monsignor Klaus Mayer, who was then the presiding priest of St. Stephan.
On our way back to the ship, we needed to pick up ibuprofen for Roy. Rob found a drug store on the way back to the ship. Along the way the sidewalk disappeared on us.
We safely navigated the disappearing sidewalk and found the drug store DM which we understood to be like a CVS. After a few minutes looking around we could not find any pain relief medication. We asked one of the workers there and they informed us that they can’t sell drugs and we would need to find an apothecary. So Rob located an apothecary store just a 3-minute walk away. The apothecary store was very small with a glass partition separating the employees from the customers. All the drugs were behind the partition. We asked for ibuprofen and clerk said “ok” and pulled the box off the shelf behind him and slid the box under the partition.
It was a short 5 minute walk back to the ship where we returned by 4pm. We relaxed in our room until tonight’s dinner.
The ship departed Mainz at 4:45pm. There were several very nice houses along the bank.
We departed the ship at 7:30pm for our dinner event in Rudesheim. We boarded a “Choo-choo train” for the 5 minute ride to the restaurant district. Michele heard it referred to by other passengers as a tractor with a dress. It was a short walk down a cobble street to the restaurant.
The restaurant was decorated with family crests, plates, figures, photos and random objects. It was lively and festive.
First course was a mixed greens salad with a mild vinegar dressing. This was followed by a kartoffelsuppe, a traditional German potato soup. The main course was pork in gravy and mashed potatoes.
We were then all provide a shot of schnapps. The owner of the restaurant then introduced himself and told the story of his parents and the restaurant. His father’s parent’s were restaurant owners in 1928 in eastern Germany. After WWII, they were caught just east of the Iron Curtain and were forced to leave their restaurant and home and move further east into the GDR (East Germany). His father as a young man was able to leave East Germany and enter West Germany but was not allowed to attend university because his previous education was from the GDR. He therefore decided to become a food server which was a profession in Germany and required 3 years of apprenticeship. He landed a job in Rudesheim working at a restaurant and met a woman working at another restaurant in Rudesheim. They eventually got married and decided to open their own restaurant in Rudesheim, the very one we were sitting in. Eventually, he took over the business from his parents and his son is now the head chef in the kitchen.
After his family history, he led us in a traditional German toast where we all drank our schnapps. It was strong so some of us took a sip or ignored it altogether. Dessert was a vanilla custard with fruit and berries on top.
The DJ then started playing music and a congo line started. Roy, Gwyn, and Michele joined in for the fun.
A little later Roy and Gwyn slow danced to Eric Clapton’s song “Tears in Heaven”. Michele danced in her seat since Rob doesn’t like to dance.
We left at 9:45pm to catch the train back to the ship.
