Germany 2014 - Part 4

We were finally in Mainz for Chad's meeting, the entire reason we went to Germany in the first place.  Chad had a meeting the first night we were there and we barely saw him after that.  We were lucky to have a hotel right by the train station, so that food was close by.  I think for the 4 days we were in Mainz, we ate at McDonalds at least 5 times! 
For our first day, we decided to just get acquainted with the city and see the sites there.  Mainz has a lot of nice pedestrian streets with lots of shopping.  I'm not a big shopper, so we mostly just looked for yummy looking food places.  Denmark has such a lack of variety in places to eat out, so it was so nice to go to another country with more choices.  As we walked around Mainz, we enjoyed looking at the old buildings.  We've seen a lot of cool places in Europe and I admit that Mainz was just kind of meh.  There was a really nice, very old cathedral that I enjoyed seeing.

 The cathedral was originally built in the 10th century, so really old.  It had a very dark interior.  I think my favorite though was walking through the cloister.  There was really old sculptures and a very pretty view of the cathedral.  The rest of the city had the usual modge podge of churches.  Several had very beautiful interiors.  My favorite was this one that had little cherubic angel sculptures all over the place.

 I also found the remains of a bombed out church from World War 2 very interesting.  They were doing work on the building to keep it from completely falling down.  But, it was an interesting reminder of Germany's sad history.  So many buildings in Germany were completely destroyed and then rebuilt and it was interesting to see one that has remained much the same since the 1940's. 

The rest of the city has a few nice columns, obelisks, towers, a fountain, medieval buildings and even the remains of a 2000 year old Roman temple.  I just love seeing old things.

The Nail Pillar.  In 1916, in an effort to raise money during WWI, people would buy nails which were pounded into the pillar in artful designs.  The money was used to provide recreational activities for poor children and to support Soldier's spouses.  I wish I had taken a close-up picture.  It was really neat looking.

I love this picture, how Myra is poking her head into the fountain.  So typical.  This fountain actually dates back to the 1500's.

The Rhine River.  Sadly, something happened to my camera around this point and it developed a permanent dot in the corner.  =(((((  So sad! 

On our 2nd day in Mainz, we decided to travel to a neighboring city up the river called Wiesbaden.  This city also had a nice city center, with a very pretty cathedral. 

We took a little tourist train around the city. 

The city was a famous city known for it's thermal springs and eventual casino halls.  We got to see the "bowling green" and "pump room."  Right out of a Jane Austen novel, only in Germany. =) 
However, our main reason for taking the tourist train was so that we could get to the Nerobergbahn.  This is an old cable car that would take us up into the hills surrounding the city.  We decided to actually get off at the top of the hill.  Where we viewed the Russian Church and then walked over to the train.  Where we rode down the hill and then back up.  This ended up being the highlight of the day, although the trip up only took about 5 minutes, it was pretty fun.  The 2 tram cars are connected and when one of the cars gets to the top of the hill, they fill a big tank underneath it with water.  Then when the 2 cars are ready, they release the brake and it goes down the hill, pulling the one at the bottom up.  Then the one filled with water empties at the bottom and it just repeats itself.  Quite ingenious actually, especially since it dates back to 1888.  We finished off the day with some shopping and quite a bit of walking. 

Another "Worlds Largest Cuckoo Clock."

Remnant of a Roman Wall.

In 1844, Duke Adolph of Nassau married a Russian princess, Elizabeth Mikhailovna.  She and their child died in childbirth a year later.  He was so distraught that he decided to build a Russian church for her to be buried in.  The pictures aren't great, bu it looked very much like pictures of buildings in Russia.  We didn't go inside though, since they charged an additional fee for it. 

On our 3rd day, we headed back into Mainz to the Gutenberg Museum.  Johannes Gutenberg was born, lived and died in Mainz.   He invented the printing press.  We were told the museum was a great place to go with the kids and I was very excited to see all the old books.  Well, the kids didn't not really enjoy the old books and it was not a fun place to take the kids.  But, oh well.  Someday in the future, when they are learning about the Gutenberg press in school, they'll be able to say they had been there and seen a couple of the original Gutenberg Bibles.  I would have loved to have spent more time here, I found it all very fascinating.  But, I can understand that it wasn't not that interesting for the kids.  We've taken them to a lot of museums and usually they do pretty well.  But, after the first 10 minutes of wow, that's an old book, look there's another old book and another....  Well, you get the idea.  We finished off the outing with some ice cream, which was enjoyable for the kids.  And then went back early to the hotel and watched a movie. 

The Gutenberg museum.  The only picture I took this day.  No camera's allowed inside.

During out last day in Mainz, we were originally going to take the train to a town up the river, but the trains were not running that morning, so we opted for another day in Mainz.  We decided to check out the Zoology Museum.  This ended up being a very fun choice.  It wasn't exactly spectacular, just your typical Zoology Museum, but definitely geared towards kids.  They had a blast!  The museum was also hosting a Mythological creature special exhibit.  The kids really enjoyed learning about bigfoot, unicorns, the lochness monster, etc.

This was a giant hour glass outside the museum.

Being stepped on by a giant.

Don't you just love her outfit?

My 2 bigfeet.

Stare-down with a bear.

She's imitating the buffalo?

That afternoon, Chad had a couple of hours free and we met up for lunch.  We also walked through the cathedral again, so he could take a look at it.

 It was fun to get to see a little of the city with him, since he'd been in meetings all week.  We then finished off the day with more ice cream and I took the kids out to a nice Italian restaurant.  I was a little embarrassed that Noah kept burping loudly all throughout dinner, but I just couldn't get him to understand that even though he had to burp, he needed to do it quietly.  We are still working on that particular skill. 
It had a been a fun week with the kids.  We didn't get lost and we managed to have a fun time.