Achtung, bitte! Heart of Glass, Castles and Mainhatten

Time to bring Musings and Mosaics home – where I am, trying to get back to normal and a regular sleep pattern, whatever that might be.

If you remember I left you in Trier. From Trier we took the train up to Cologne for the afternoon to see the Römisch-Germanisches Museum. It was a rainy day but fortunately the museum was behind the huge Cologne Cathedral which itself was just outside the train station. Very convenient.

Also convenient, and a bit space-age, were the luggage lockers. They were kiosks where you put luggage in a locker container, big enough to hold two suitcases and two carry-ons, and then it would disappear into the bowels of the train station. You could retrieve your bags from any kiosk.

The Römisch-Germanisches Museum, with its lovely name meaning Romano-German Museum, is modern, large and filled with artifacts from the Roman era. And, either you’ll be happy to know or you’ll be saying Nooooo!, they allow photo-taking!!

During Roman times this region was renowned for its glass making, and I was totally amazed by the quantity and quality of the glass artifacts that have survived intact for 1700-2000 years. It was unbelievable and impossible to pick one piece that was the best.

The most unusual piece had to be the glass flip-flops. They came from the grave of a wealthy woman dating from AD 259-268, who presumably needed something to wear for her journey to the underworld.

In the 3rd and 4th centuries glassmakers from Cologne, or Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium as it was known in Roman times, were highly skilled and produced intricate and beautiful pieces. This piece is a cage cup carved from a clear glass core covered with layers of coloured glass.

Some of my favourite pieces included the flasks and pitchers shaped like bunches of grapes and scallops.

Glass wasn’t the only thing in the museum of course. There were statues, stones, pottery, and jewellery as well as a huge intact Dionysus mosaic dating from the 3rd century but I’ll save that for your moment of mosaic.

We also went into the huge gothic cathedral to have a look. Outside the church was a large platz and despite the rain it was filled with people, since it was Saturday. Not Rome/Florence crowded but busy with noisy people celebrating or protesting things. There was a Falun Gong group. Others might have been on their way to a football game. There was one group of women who were toasting something with drinks.

Our bags retrieved at the train station, we were on our way to Koblenz to spend the night before our Rhine “cruise”, a six hour trip down the Rhine included with our rail pass. We stayed at the very modern GHotel, pronounced Gotel. We walked in the light rain about a half hour to see where the boat was to leave from in the morning. On the way back, we continued to avoid German food by eating dinner at a Greek restaurant. We also went through a little square with bronze fountain depicting an old river barge.

An early start on Mother’s Day because the boat left at 9.

We chose the stretch between Koblenz and Rudesheim because it is the one with the most castles and has been designated a World Heritage Site. It didn’t disappoint, though the weather was grey. We were greeted on board by a really friendly steward with “Alles Gute zum Muttertag” Happy Mother’s Day.  It was Mother’s Day in Germany as well.

The banks were lined with vineyards, towns and castles.

The river was filled with huge cargo barges, ferries and a couple of river-boat cruise ships.

And the Goethe was filled with people drinking – you guessed it – Aperol spritzes. Orange is the colour of the season – in the dress shops and in the cafes.

Our cruise ended in Rudesheim where we needed to catch a train to Wiesbaden. The rain had held off all day but decided to come down in torrents just in time for our six-minute walk to the train station. We were soaked through waiting for the train but it stopped raining almost as soon as we made it to the station. Timing is everything.

We stayed our last three nights in Wiesbaden because it was cheaper than Mainz or Frankfurt but very close to them. We continued our non-German quest by eating in restaurants ranging from American diner to Australian cafe to British pub. We found good croissants and cappuccino (not so easy as in Italy nor did they have any croissants with jam inside). Our ban did not extend to desserts though, we had some very good apfelkuchen.

Monday began with getting on a train that bypassed the centre of Mainz (our destination) by going to Mainz-Castel and not Mainz-Hauptbahnhof. Oops someone didn’t pay close enough attention to the train schedule. So we just stayed on the train to Frankfurt Airport to check out what was there and where the Air Canada counter was. Then continued on to Frankfurt, where we spent the day shopping. It is known as Frankfurt am Mainhatten, I think. Home of the Euro.

Kathy G – here are those Plane trees again. A little further along in their growth cycle with more leaves.

Tuesday we made it to Mainz, once known as Mongontiacum in Roman times. A very poor cousin to the Roman town of Trier, their ruins are in ruins and their Roman museum is pathetic. We went to the Gutenberg museum first, then wandered around the market, shopped a bit in town, stumbling upon the remains of a temple to Isis and the Magna Mater in a shopping mall.

In the free Roman museum some bored attendant told me to stop taking photos. I walked away muttering “no problem, your artifacts are just copies of ones from other museums” and they were. What is the point of that?

After six weeks I was ready to go home. I saw many wonderful things and now it is time to try and digest them. Time to enjoy spring and summer in Victoria. The weather was unseasonably cold in Germany. Weatherwise during my trip it seemed to go from summer in Rome to spring in northern Italy to winter in Switzerland and Germany. Not really according to my plan.

Wednesday and our flight left at 13:35. We gave our selves time to shop at the duty-free. What do you think I bought?

Now here it is, your last moment of mosaic, at least until my next journey. The Dionysus Mosaic is huge. It was found in Cologne in 1941 while they were digging a bomb shelter. It dates from the 3rd century and was the floor of a large dining hall.