We breakfasted for the last time on a bright beautiful Sunday morning under the retractable awnings at the Hyatt Mainz. It is a quiet morning, except for the church bells you hear calling out from various corridors of the city. Not many people are out on the usually busy river corridor; perhaps because
people are at church, or perhaps because many just got in from a heavy night of partying. Likely, some of both, but everything is closed on Sunday, and most stores except for a few gas stations stay closed all day. (Last time we'll see that sweater I'm wearing....it got left somewhere in the fort/castle we visited later in the day in Koblenz :( )
After packing up, we headed northwest toward Koblenz, Bonn and Koln where we hope to have a look around for the next day or two. On our way out of Mainz, we decide to stop and take some pictures at the museum/park where we joined colleagues of Greg on Friday night for a department barbeque. It was too dark on Friday to get pictures, so we wanted to remember the the interesting old tile factory, now museum, where we enjoyed coal-roasted brats and steak and a nice visit with Olaf, Thomas and Denis, all GM-Opel engineers.
This is under the old tile (brick actually) factory. Below is a picture of the rafters.
Below are the corridors where the bricks were stacked and the coals to feed the fires to heat them were fed from above. The fires were moved around from the top, with the hottest fires moving around the circular corridors as the bricks were fired to the proper temps and slowly cooled.
Notice how thick the walls were of this large kiln....
It is always interesting to get an opportunity to chat with local people when you are in another country. We covered home construction, 9/11 perspectives and memories, and travel experiences with these men. Some highlights or noteworthy things we learned -
- pretty much after Japan's awful nuclear disaster a few years ago, the German government decided to abandon nuclear energy production and development and began promoting wind and solar resources and did what they could to keep the coal resourced. We have noticed a significant amount of coal coming up and down the river and learned that if it weren't for the river transportation, coal would not be affordable at all. In some cases, even though coal is mined in Germany, it is cheaper to have it transported from China than to use more locally transported coal.
-our impressions, at least from the people we have interacted with, is that Europeans travel abroad more than most Americans do. Also, people we have visited in the motel have traveled more than we as well....Europe multiple times, Alaska, Philippines, Australia, etc. Of course, Europeans can travel internationally without really traveling all so far.
-When it comes up naturally, I ask Europeans if they remember where they were when 9-11 happened and what their reactions were. Like most Americans, they all remember exactly where they were... Olaf was vacationing with his family in Italy, and he and his family/friends were outraged. I asked another young woman this last week, and just talking about it again made her shudder. Interestingly, today (Monday) we toured in downtown Koblenz, along the shoreline of where the Mosel flows into the Rhein a corner is formed called the German Eck (corner). This has become a monument center and there is a fantastic bronze sculpture/memorial honoring Wilhelm I who died in about 1881. Ludwig von Beethovan, a son of Koblenz, has a museum in his honor in this area of historical churches and monuments, some that date back to the settlements of the Roman era. The American allies are the ones who destroyed the original 14 meter equestrian statue of William I shortly before the end of WWII in 1945, but he was restored in the early 1990's. Today, flags of all the German states outline the monument along the shoreline, and there is also a U.S. flag which is there dedicated to the victims of September 11:
Below is a pic of Greg and Dr. Ewe in front of some of his finds from the Roman era in the Mainz area.
On the way out of town (Mainz), we decided to revisit the picnic/tile factory site to photograph, we learned that the locals weren't as familiar with the place as we thought. It was really not a tile factory ever but in its day it was a brick production kiln. It now is a popular picnic, community site and houses a museum run by a retired physician, Dr. Ewe who happened to be there when we arrived.
Below are some drain pipes found in the Mainz area. The clay ones are actually older, from Roman times, than the log ones in the foreground.
Dr. Ewe began poking around, years ago, at construction sties around Mainz and occasionally found artifacts from antiquity. Apparently, Mainz was the site of a Roman settlement/military post even 100 B.C. and he began finding things like bricks with imprints from old shoes studded with nails on the soles, and then an actual shoe with the old nails in it (preserved because it had been without oxygen for those centuries to deteriorate it). Later when he retired, he worked to get community interest in restoring the factory and establishing a museum on the upper level. We were treated to a couple hours of personalized tour and history of how the kiln worked and all the ancient Roman water pipes, bricks, etc. that have been found in the area. This was a real pleasure because Dr. Ewe's English was good enough that he could convey his work and knowledge to us directly. Otherwise, not knowing German well enough, a lot is lost when you can't read the descriptions on various displays. His first-hand excitement and knowledge of the history of the area as he discovered and researched it made it all the more interesting to us as well.
We arrived in Koblenz a little later than we had planned, but headed right to the some sites we wanted to see. Our tour had to continue Monday as it got too late and we got too tired.
Here is the overall summary of our time in Koblenz:
The region along the Rhein between Mainz, north to Koblenz, are farmed up the hills with beautiful vineyards which happen to be full of grapes right now for harvest. The new wines are being made which can be purchased with loose caps since they are effervescent still for just 3E per litre and they are apparently enjoyed with onion cakes. We haven't seen any onion cakes yet.
This is the fort we toured, built up on the rim of the hill rising above the Rhein at the confluence of it and the M RIver. It was a strategic site for many centuries in defending the area, but after WWII, it no longer was strategic. Below are some shots from our tour. We took the cable car ride from the "Eck", corner where the river meet to the fort, so that explains the cables and the window reflection of this photo.
Steel doors that were added later when the wooden originals became ineffective.
Gardens now kept on the tops of the fortress walls
This was a Rosa? cruise ship turning from the M to the R River. It was so long!! Unbelievable!
I don't really know what Goat Willow is, but this is it - on the hillside a thick grove on the way up the hill to the fortress. Yes, there are goats in the goat willow!
Typical building in old Koblenz
Beethovan is a son of Koblenz, hence the Ludwig Museum.
The end of the day brought laundry time again. I thought it was interesting to see all the IKEA bags used for laundry transport at the the Eco Express Waschrn Haus...
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