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Published: September 29th 2014
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Day 13: Frankfurt to Mainz
September 26
th 2014
So tomorrow is another day and a lovely American couple duly joined us. I say couple as they are two people who are travelling together but they are just companions. Lynn is a hospice nurse with an ICU background (we have both compared what prescription and over the counter medications we have felt necessary to bring with us – as all nurses do) and William is a man who was recently widowed and with whom he has established a lovely friendship with Lynn. Lynn has German ancestry and has wanted to come to Germany to explore her roots and William has been to Germany a number of times including during the war and loves to travel. We now have great company in the naughty corner.
In the morning I went for a run and it was pretty shocking to see how many people are sleeping rough under the bridges. After breakfast Frank and I went on the first of our 3 (totally French speaking) excursions to see the sights of Frankfurt. Lynn and William crashed for the morning and stayed on the boat.
Frankfurt is the business capital of Germany and almost every bank of significance has an office there. As well, like all major cities in Germany, it is undergoing a huge development program and there are cranes and skyscrapers going up everywhere. Everyone (except us) on the tour was fitted with an earpiece, which enabled him or her to hear the guide’s commentary. Poor Guilia had to sit with us and try to translate the French commentary and so as a consequence the information that we have about Frankfurt is limited. There is an old quarter and navigating a huge bus around those narrow old streets is really nerve wracking. I’m sure the bus missed some cars by a coat of paint.
We returned to the boat for lunch and to cruise our way down to Mainz. At Mainz we disembarked to go on our second excursion and Guilia was happy to tell us that the guide would provide the commentary in French and in English so the four of us (Lynn, Bill, Frank and I) were issued with our earpieces. After 5 minutes the guide said it would take too long to provide a bilingual
commentary and so it was up to Guilia again to try and keep us informed. She did a fantastic job under the circumstances.
Mainz was established in 39BC and is now the capital of the Rhine region. It is the main center for the Rhine region wines and is the home of the Gutenberg museum. The cathedral dominates the center of the city and its gothic architecture is inspiring. The church dates from the 10
th century but like all ancient buildings it has undergone restoration and redesign in the case of this church in the 13
th and 15
th centuries. The religious artifacts and statues are enormous. It houses a huge pipe organ that you can imagine fills the church will a wall of sound. In the past coronations, royal weddings and other celebrations of significance have been held there. Again, in WWII part of the church was destroyed including the stained glass windows, which had to be replaced.
The visit to the Gutenberg museum was unfortunately brief as we only had an hour before the museum closed so I made a bee line to the second floor which houses the famous Gutenberg bible. Gutenberg
is known as the inventor of the printing press and so prior to his invention all text and illustrations was done by hand. In 1454 – 1455 Gutenberg published 200 copies of the bible and today only 46 copies have survived. Only the rich or royalty could commission the publication of a bible and in doing so they could then decide who would do the illustrations. Consequently each bible is unique. The museum also houses a collection of the smallest books ever published. The collection has some of the oldest written texts and when you look at them it is hard to imagine how long it must have taken a person to write them and the penmanship is an art form in itself.
After the museum we had kind of had enough of the whole group tour thing and so we kidnapped Guilia and went to a bar for a few drinks. In the center there was a collection of folk from a local region all in lederhosen and dirndls. There was beer, wine and sausages plus a band playing oompah-pah music. It was fantastic. A cultural exchange took place – we gave a group of 4
a small koala each and they gave us sausages to eat. It was win win all round. That commenced our afternoon of freedom from the cruise. I have to say Lynn impressed us with her capacity to keep up in the drinking department but after 2 beers Guilia was pretty smashed. I have my suspicions she was happy to have a bit of freedom from the constraints of the cruise and just chill and have some beers.
We walked back to the boat to sit straight down for dinner. Between the 3 of us (Lynn, Frank and I) we managed to smash some wines, which was lucky because we could not have been able to tolerate what was to come next in sober state. It must be part of their contract that the crew has to provide entertainment and a ‘show’ for the passengers. I do not have the words to describe just how amateurish it was. Those poor people having to perform like trained monkeys for the guests. I’m sure one of the acts would have breached industrial and gender laws in Australia!
After dinner and the show Frank and I went for
a walk into town and had a late night coffee and cake before returning to the boat to go to bed. We have been fortunate that the weather has been beautiful – hoodies on and off during the day and great for just walking around.
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Vicki
non-member comment
Cruisin' down the river
French food, no conversation with the rest of the passengers, excursions at your own pace, not to mention the romantic secluded table - sounds OK to me!!