Early start. Carmen tried the scrambled eggs. I went for jam not ham and Leslie was brave and had chocolate covered chocolate. Carmen got to pet the dog. You cannot believe how shy this large furry beast is. The first night we ended up chasing him/her behind the desk just trying to make friends.

A final zip of the bags and it was time for the dreaded cab ride. It’s not until you add 6 bottles of wine to your heavy luggage that you begin to understand momentum. Suffice it to say when I began a turn with the bag on my back, I finished the turn. Loaded into the cab, we endured the amusement-ride-like trip through the old town until he hit a main street. It continues to confound us that there aren’t Death Race 2000 style statistics mounted in every street corner.

At the bahnhof early, we waited for our slightly late train. Boarding was its usually kafuffle. When are we going to learn to reserve seats in German? Eventually we were seated and on our way through the German countryside — backwards. This train gets to Koblenz in about an hour and a half and then we transfer to the one for Mainz. Mainz for the day and we will hop a short train to Frankfurt Airport.

The Mainz train is running 20 minutes behind so someone bought a box of Toffeefay and proceeded to stuff his or her mouth with as many rows of Toffeefay as possible. Because everyone knows that you can’t eat Toffeefay one by one: it has to be row by row. Luckily the train arrived before the box was nothing but a shredded wasteland of drool soaked cardboard and once proud plastic tray, now reduced to a crumpled shadow of its former self.

So, train riding tips. Regionals are fine if you hop on, hop off; ICEs (Inter City Express) are better if you have reserved seats… note to self. Another fine note is that if you buy a BahnCard you can get cheaper seats. In our second-to-last ticket purchase the guy sold us 120 euro tickets for 95 euro including the 29 euro fee for the BahnCard. This should give us 25% off all future train rides. Great thing to discover as you finish up your trip. 🙂

We are traveling along the Rhine now. Much wider than the Mosel, lots of tour boats, but really still curvy, slow and lazy. Not even as much current as the North Saskatchewan. The Rhine features mountains and vineyard, churches and castles, villages and campgrounds, pleasure boats and floating hotels. This ICE trucks along pretty fast and is a modern train with digital displays and comfy seats. We are batting 1000 for the riding backwards this trip. I have a few notes to check in an atlas about the Rhine valley when I get home.

Mainz is a bustling city but quite beautiful, especially when you get close to the old section. We dropped our luggage off and headed into town. The bus info station produced a map and we figured our destination was within walking distance. Eventually we spied the Cathedral and soon enough the Gutenburg Museum was upon us. The first section is 15th century printed books and the impact of printing in education, literature and religious studies. I snapped a few pictured of a couple of early books (incunabula according to Leslie) but as I moved on to the printing presses in the next section, I was informed that pictures are a no-no. That was a real bummer for me.

I scooted ahead to the vault and while the monitor was away chatting snapped a few pictures of a Gutenburg 42 line Latin bible (1452-1455), an undated medieval MS on vellum and a Latin bible c.1300. I also grabbed a pic of a Speculum humanae salvationis that predates movable type. The interesting thing about that was how it showed a shift in thought. With the rise of reading in the bourgeoise and nobility, and increased interest in secular texts, there was a need to produce more, in a quicker manner, and it showed some significant changes to the traditional MS. Things like Bastarda script which was faster to write and much simpler pen illustrations started the streamlining process and presumably was a forerunner to the thought processes that led to Gutenburg’s developments in movable type.

There are a lot of old printing presses here, showing a lot of different techniques for pressing ink on paper. Equally interesting is the section on etchings and engravings, from woodblock to copper. I’ve always thought it was an under-appreciated art, but now I am even more sure. But no pics… Sigh.

Leslie came by and told the sad story of the older gentleman standing next to her in the vault. His wife popped her head in and asked “What’s in here?” He replied “some old manuscripts” so she left. She left the room with Gutenburg’s bibles at the Gutenburg Museum without looking. Sigh.

Pretty sure Leslie’s head won’t explode but all the marginalia her brain has collected over the years about print culture and bookmaking are leaking out in the form of smiles, giggles and sighs. As always, academic knowledge of process and production takes on a whole new life when confronted with the practical, real-life applications it was actually used for.

Upstairs there is a paper making and bookbinding section. I think I’d like to learn a bit more about paper making, but from the looks of the video I glanced at it is a pretty intensive process.

The gift shop didn’t hold any interest so we wandered into the square and hit the cathedral. It’s big, red and made out of rocks: it’s the Big Red Rock Cathedral. Seriously though, I know nothing about it and haven’t seen a sign anywhere.

Out into the square we run across Mr. Gutenburg up on a pedestal. We took a picture.

Since it was booze o’clock, we stopped for wine, beer and panache. And an antipasto Salad. Cold roast aubergine, mesclun, grilled zucchini and no bread. They promised bread. It was… interesting.

Arriving back at the station we grabbed our luggage and got some tickets from the machine for the next train runnin’. Up the stairs, down the hallway, onto the platform and the train is already there. It’s an ICE and should get us to the airport in 16 minutes.

All aboard. We scammed some seats on a nearly empty train and settled in. Wrong train. Seems the girls had bought tickets for a region train and we were in the express. It was going to the right place, we’d just paid the wrong fare. The conductor told us it was fine as long as we returned next year to redeem ourselves. So there ya go.

It’s the perfect hotel. Mostly because its like 300 yards from the platform and my bag is heavy and Leslie has abandoned her bag due to injuries. It’s the baby Hilton but is a great stop. Its a bit switch-heavy though: secret light switch sequences, camouflage shower switches… it was… interesting. A little timeout, some ablutions and we were ready to go.

We opted for dinner in the Square at the German place. Carmen and I worked our way through several beers, dunkel and otherwise, while Leslie siphoned white wine. We decided on meat for dinner. L had some sausage and sauerkraut while I talked Carmen into the dinner meat plate for two. Pork knuckle, sausage, schnitzel, meatloaf, beer gravy, potatoes with bacon… There was enough for an army. I ate my half, but Carmen came up woefully short and barely retained her meatatarian license. But she was drunk on heavy beer so got bonus points that carries her over.

Still, she was heard to exclaim over her white sausage: “If you like the pinky, you’re gonna love the stinky.” We’re still trying to figure that one out.

The glass ceiling of the Square shows us planes landing barely hundreds of feet overhead, almost one every minute. But you can’t hear them. Eerie.

Back in our rooms it’s time for bed. Zzzzzzz