Must see places in Mainz
The first stop on our German anniversary tour
Mainz isn’t your typical destination on most tourists agendas. It is one of the oldest cities in Germany and the architecture reflects
its Roman roots which can be traced back to the 1st century A.D. Yet, every time we told someone our German anniversary trip began in Mainz, they’ve always responded with “Why, what’s in Mainz?”. While ancient Roman history is interesting, Gutenberg was what brought us to Mainz. It was Gutenberg’s home and was the
Jess and I went to Germany for our anniversary in 2018 and that trip is constantly on my mind. Whenever I need a bump of happiness in my day, I think of something from the trip. I know that the memories that I have are slowly leaving me and I want to make sure that trip is put to the proverbial paper before it is all forgotten. Luckily, Jess took plenty of photos for me to refer to (and steal for this post).
We found out a few weeks before we went to Germany that Jess was pregnant with our first child. We didn’t want my parents to worry too much so we decided not to tell them until we returned.
My parents took us from Hellertown to Philadelphia to catch our flight. Our flight departed from Philadelphia at 5:40p.m., it was a fairly uneventful flight. We had hoped to get some sleep on the way over, but that didn’t happen. The person who sat in front of us had their TV on and Jess couldn’t sleep. She also hated the air blowing on her face. The flight attendants came by often for drinks which didn’t help the sleeping situation, but at least we were hydrated.
Our flight arrived safely in Frankfurt at around 7:30a.m. on Sunday. We had booked a car for our trip so we didn’t have to rely on public transport and we could roam freely through Germany at our own pace. One of our concerns at the time was making sure we had GPS, it was an added cost to request a car with GPS, so we brought our own. Jess had a Garmin from previous trips and we had uploaded maps of Germany, Jess even made sure to add extra data to her phone so we were covered in case of emergency. When we picked up the car, we were pleasantly surprised that our Ford Focus Wagon came with GPS! We threw our bags in the back, left the underground garage and headed for Mainz.
Jess had planned most of the trip for us, she is way more organized than I am. I was looking for a relaxing trip filled with beer, food and some sight seeing, Jess had other plans. She had booked our first hotel in Mainz which is located on the Rhine river. We dropped our luggage at the main desk since check-in wasn’t until 3. We parked the car in the neighboring parking garage and grabbed some breakfast at the hotel restaurant.
We sat outside for breakfast, it was a nice, crisp morning. I ordered a lot of things for breakfast, many coffees, orange juice a bagel with lox, a breakfast “tower” with croissants, breads, butter, cheese and jam. Jess had eggs benedict. After breakfast we took a little walk around the Jockel-Fuchs-Platz before heading to the Gutenberg Museum (the reason we visited Mainz)
A little background on Jess and I. We both graduated from Kutztown University from the Communication Design program and we both share a common love of design, among other things. Our major focused on art and communication and where would both be without the printing press? Gutenberg’s printing press is considered to be one of the most pivotal moments in history because of the impact it has had on every single generation thereafter. To us, as art, design, and print nerds, that means a lot. To be able to visit the city where Gutenberg was born, to be able to visit the museum that housed his presses and works was extremely exciting to us. Many people have asked us after our trip, why we stopped in Mainz and to give them the full answer typically bores them, but it was worth it. Plus they had great bathrooms.
Unfortunately, most of the museum was a blur. Whether it was the lack of sleep, time difference, or the amount of coffee we drank at breakfast, we spent more time in the bathroom of the museum than actually touring the exhibits. We both weren’t feeling great, but we made the best of it and tried to digest as much information as possible. We weren’t allowed to photograph in the museum, but you can check out their website for the highlights. The presses themselves were impressive, the quality and craftsmanship that went into producing them was amazing. We were able to visit the vault that held one of the Gutenberg Bibles. One of the things that stood out most to me was, one of the more valuable Gutenberg Bibles was actually in D.C. at the Library of Congress. I thought it was funny that the U.S. had a better Gutenberg than the Gutenberg museum itself!
“The Library of Congress copy is printed entirely on vellum, a fine parchment made from animal skin, and is one of only three perfect vellum copies known to exist. The others are at the Bibliothèque Nationale and the British Library. For nearly five centuries the Bible was in the possession of the Benedictine Order in their monasteries of St. Blasius and St. Paul in Austria. Along with other fifteenth-century books, it was purchased from Dr. Otto Vollbehr by an act of Congress in 1930.”
After the museum we walked over to St. Martin’s Cathedral (Mainzer Dom) and popped inside for a quick look around. I hadn’t done any research into the history of that particular church, and I’m not Catholic, so it was just another nice stop on our tour of the city. The church is built in the Romanesque style from sandstone and is 1000 years old!
After visiting St. Martin’s Cathedral (Mainzer Dom) we walked to the Gutenberg Platz to see the statue of Gutenberg and enjoy more of the beautiful day. It was perfect weather for a tour of Mainz It was really cool to see the 50 degree latitude line running straight through the platz! The 50 degree latitude line doesn’t run through any part of the contiguous United States, it runs solely through Canada and Alaska. Most of Pennsylvania (where we are from) is on or above the 40 degree line. We spent about an hour at the platz before we headed back to the Hilton Mainz, grabbed some dinner, and called it an early night.
The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast in the hotel, and walked to the parking garage to pack up the car. Along the way, there was a KTM 990 Adventure parked on the street. I was stoked to see that because I have a 990 KTM Superduke (basically brothers) and you don’t see too many of them stateside. I had to snap a quick picture! We packed up the car and started off to Heidelberg.
