That’s local dialect for “Hügel”, a hill.

And topographically, Rheinhessen is right up there

Someone came up with the idea of developing walks of around 11km through vineyards/woods/open fields and marketing them as a local recreational activity.

They’re currently up to 9, whereby the ideal number of tours appears to be the current number plus 1.

Just like with bikes….

We were missing 3 and knocked off the Bismarckturm near Ingelheim one last week.

Bismarckturm: A Bismarck tower is a specific type of monument built according to a more or less standard model across Germany to honour its first chancellor, Otto von Bismarck(d. 1898). A total of 234 of these towers were inventoried in 2007^[ but more have been discovered since making the total around 240. These towers were built between 1869and 1934 and some 173 remain today.

They reckon that you’ll finish it in 3 hours, but we knocked it off in just over 2.

Nothing for sissies and on one of the climbs, you reckon you’ll need oxygen and/or crampons.

But the views!

And then there’s always history.

The Zornheim Hiwwel has the remains of Bronze age settlements, the Siefersheim Hiwwel has a tower built by a jilted lover and the Bismarck Hiwwel has the preserved trench fortifications built in World War 1 as the forward line of defence for Mainz.

Which had only just relinquished its role as a walled city in the late 19th C, but still had its 14 forts

This is the access to lines protecting Ingelheim.

Cool, eh?

13 May This entry was published on 13 May, 2024 at 17:27 and is filed under History, Mainz, Monuments, Nature. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.