July 17 – One more trip to the train station for our last journey south to the city of Mainz, also right on the Rhine River. We’ve had our own Rhine River cruise, without a boat!
Our hotel is right on a path that follows the river……with a shady corridor for strolling and sittingMainz is a city of many faces…many of them quite somberWe walked down to see St. Martin’s Cathedral, or the Mainzer Dom. Although Mainz was pretty thoroughly bombed in 1945, the cathedral didn’t suffer much damage.The inside was dark……and filled with bishops looking down at us disapprovingly …one on every columnI usually don’t show pictures of crucifixions, but this one spoke to meA pretty altarpiece, but absolutely no one is smiling…and a guy who’s lost his head!We walked around the old city and admired the architecture We checked out the Gutenberg Museum – Johannes Gutenberg was born and died in Mainz in the 1400sThere were several artists rendering of what he may have looked like, but he never sat for a portrait, so no one knows for sureHis invention of moveable type transformed communication and the worldWe saw two of Gutenberg’s bibles – only twenty-one originals remain intact worldwide. Only black ink was used for printing. The colorful capital letters and red highlights were added later by hand.We watched a demonstration of the moveable type process given totally in German. We got the general idea.Happy JimThe museum shared space with the Natural History Museum – a small but interesting collection of old stuffThis is the famous Fastnachtsbrunnen, or Carnival Sculpture …containing hundreds of characters from Mainz’s winter carnivalWe checked out lots more faces around town…then made or way down to St. Stephen’s. Another church? Are you kidding? Wait for it…St. Stephen’s was bombed during WWII, and lost all its windows. Nine new stained glass windows were designed by artist Marc Chagall, a Russian Jew, all in shades of blue. The windows contain scenes from the Old Testament, and were offered to show the commonality between Judaism and Christianity.In a close-up view you can see people…and flowers…and dovesThe church is bathed in serene blue light. Just lovely.And so our journey ended. We brought home a generic blue delft Dutch plate to remind us of our hike on the Pieterpad (although we didn’t see many windmills), as we couldn’t find any Pieterpad related souvenirs……and a plate to remind us of the places we stopped along the Rhine River. We’re tired, and happy to be home.
Taking Our Time 