After a day off sick, I was keen to do the sight-seeing Daniel and I had planned in Mainz and had needed to postpone... My aunt was so sweet - she especially bought a fresh chook from the farmer and made me some chicken broth to drink the day before and that, along with herbal stomach tea was what I'd subsisted on all day. Since I was able to eat breakfast this morning (though sparingly!) without ill-effect and could have the chicken soup, from which I'd been having the broth, for lunch, I rang Daniel and told him it was on.
Daniel picked me up around 2pm and we drove to Mainz. I had been there before in 1995, with Christof, to catch a cruise ship up the Rhine from there to Cologne to visit Christof's uncle and family. We'd had to hurry to catch it and ran from the station down to the pier on the Rhine, with our suitcases in hand, only to be there a month early! So we'd ended up storing our suitcases for a little while and wandering around admiring the place before catching a train....but today, I must admit to being somewhat disappointed in Mainz.
Perhaps it's because there was a festival on (they're everywhere!!!) and the whole promenade along the Rhine, for about 2km, was covered with stalls selling all sorts of things such as jewellery and clothes and home and garden things, as well as the ubiquitous food stalls. There were carousels and rides etc further down, but we weren't interested in that today. There were wall-to-wall people. It was impossible to move sometimes, so we'd have to sneak out and walk along the road for a bit to get ahead. But not only the promenade was covered in stalls. The city squares were also full of stalls and people.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. We parked the car outside Landtag and walked across the road to the Roman Germanic Musuem, which used to be a palace. We didn't want to go in, though, just take photos:
We then wandered down to the Rhine promenade, which was choked with stalls. There was one which I thought Petra might find interesting:
We gave up trying to get ahead that way and walked toward the town past the Iron Tower and the Iron Man:
We had a short break for coke and beer (well, toilet, really) at the Heiliggeist Restaurant which is a converted church. It's very nice inside, though we sat outside:
Then we headed into town (led by a very nice couple who were heading the same way and saw we were lost). More stalls and stages and crowds here, too. There was a cute couple who allowed me to take their photo:
Mainz Cathedral was next. There was a column outside which I found interesting:
The Cathedral has a lovely cloister:
Inside the Cathedral is not as exciting as I remember it. It's possible I got it mixed up with one of the many other churches I've seen...I liked some of its stained glass windows. At first I thought it was broken and patched, but then I realised it was a bit of an abstract window:
Back to the market square, where it was starting to spit again:
Some of the stalls are quite elaborate:
Then we headed back towards the car because it was just unpleasant. We walked past the Old University, the ruin of St Christoph's and St Peter's:
We drove back to Daniel's place via the Train Station to drink coffee at McDonald's while we waited for Silke. At Daniel's we had a BBQ. Their friend Blacky was the poor man out in the rain cooking our dinner! Juliane had a few friends over, so got out her snake for a cuddle:
I finally got to open my bottle of Brennivin from Iceland while Daniel, Silke and I watched the soccer. Well, they watched the soccer and I looked in the general direction of the TV until Blacky came up and asked me to show him some of my Iceland photos.
Daniel took me home not much later since he had to work on the Monday.
Monday I didn't go anywhere, since I had to prepare for Belgium. Nice non-eventful day means no blog entry to write. Or photos to manage. Yay!
Next entry will be about Belgium.
