Vanya wasn’t so keen on Mainz but she has an aversion to larger towns and was always going to feel disappointed after Bacharach. I, on the other hand, didn’t mind it but the city has a wonderful cathedral and there was a beer festival on over the weekend we were there.
We booked into a city centre camp site just over the river from the Old Town. The main bridge across the Rhine was a stones throw from the camp site and the beer festival was at the other end of it. Perfect location and planning!
Founded at the confluence of the Rhein and Main Rivers by the Romans in the 1st century, Mainz (previously Mogantiacum) is the capital of the Rhein Palatinate region. More than 80% of the city was destroyed by allied bombing in WW2 but, to see it now, you would barely believe those figures. It was quickly and carefully restored. There is one church, that of St Christoph, adjacent to the Karmerliterplatz, of which only the outer shell remains and that has deliberately been left standing in memory of the victims and the destruction of the city during the heavy bombings of 1942 and 1945.
Anyone visiting Mainz old town will very quickly find the Marktplatz, just follow the crowds of people. In this square and the surrounding area is a large part of Mainz’s history. There are a number of beautiful pastel coloured buildings, the marktbrunnen fountain, the Gutenberg Museum and most important of all, the Mainz Dom (St Martin’s Cathedral). It’s worth going to the old town to see the cathedral alone.
Almost next to the Cathedral is the Gutenberg Museum. In case you don’t know, Mainz was home to Johannes Gutenberg who in the early 1450’s invented metal type printing. This means of mass printing revolutionised publishing and it perhaps comes as no surprise that Mainz is home to both Germany’s first ever newspaper and the Allgemeine Zeitung. William Caxton subsequently built on Gutenberg’s device and introduced printing into England.
After fully exploring the Markplatz and the area thereabouts I headed off to walk the eastern side of the old town. There I found so many stolpersteine (see previous blogs on Bacharach and Rudesheim) but, more uplifting, I stumbled on the Evangelische Christuskirche (the Evangelical Church) where, inside, a string orchestra was rehearsing. Don’t misunderstand me, it wasn’t the church which so fascinated me although the church building is impressive. No, Evangelicals are a bit too fundamentalist for me, I was captivated by the music being played. Sadly, I didn’t recognise the music but it was an enjoyable 30 minutes just listening and watching. I don’t think I have ever seen a conductor work so hard to get his points across to the orchestra.
On the way back to the camp site I paused at the beer festival down by the riverside. There were some 20 to 30 kiosks selling different predominantly German beers and a handful selling snack foods or wine. Needless to say, I stopped and tried a couple of the local beers (three to be precise) and a really cold Vinzentiner Weissbier won the day.
