The Nagelsäule (Nail Pillar) on the Liebfrauenplatz is source of constant joy and inspiration. I never tire of it.
Rudi and Kerstin Baumann have run “Zum goldenen Adler” (these days, a traditional village restaurant serving simple, good food, but at times during its 170 year history, it was the…
I’ve been doing some research for a journalist friend in Los Angeles over the past few months and it’s taken me to some interesting places. The depths of ancestry.com, for…
When a city’s well over 2000 years old, you’re likely to find a fair bit of Bryophyta clinging to surfaces. Call it patina…..
Serious stuff in 1988. This one’s waist-height for me. Most (i.e vertically-challenged)people would need to unpack their water-wings…
..high water. You would have got your feet wet (just) back in 1955 and 1963 on the path that follows the Rhine down to Weisenau. Ankle-height
If it wasn’t the French, it was the Austrians. Or the Swedes. Or the Germans. This story goes back to the 30 Year War (1618-1648) and before. The Swedes turned…
genealogy research takes you. The new (1881) Jewish cemetery in Mainz-Zahlbach.
I’ve been involved professionally in virtual teams (tends to come with the territory when you work for a multinational corporate group…), but none have been as enjoyable as the one…
Mainz is a funny place. State capital, 200+k population, 2 newspapers, but still with a small-town atmosphere. The papers will sometimes pick up on a story and worry it to…
The oldest (and finest) Renaissance fountain in Germany. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marktbrunnen_%28Mainz%29
More than you’d think. I stumbled over Butterbergreul, an alleyway in Gonsenheim, last year and try as I might, I couldn’t trace the origin of the name. Stumped. And I…
And Part 3 of the Egon Schönberger story The Schönbergers were Neustadt [New City] folk. Of course, “new” around here has a different connotation to where I grew up (oldest…
Used to be, anyway. If you want to cross the Rhine anywhere between Wiesbaden and Koblenz ( a good hour’s drive) , you’re stuck with using ferries. Ferry operators are…
The Katharinenkirche in Oppenheim spoiling a late evening view of the Mainz Basin, a tertiary marine basin that for a time (shortly before we moved here, actually…) linked the North…
The Egon Schönberger story has helped me uncover aspects of Mainz that had escaped me until now. It’s only when you start looking for specific locations that you realise how…
Sophie Preußer asked me the other day where I got my ideas for MDP. Sometimes it’s a combination of inquisitiveness and haemo-dementia (The Gates of the Gutenberg Museum), sometimes it’s…
170-ish years ago, this spot on Bridge Street in Nelson apparently marked the foreshore – a good 1km away these days. Mind you, you can get your feet wet and…
I can safely offer a free coffee at the TSOW to anyone who comes up with a location for this Madonna. The only people who know a) don’t have a…
..impaled your thumb with your sword. St Bonifatius in a state of misery.
True story. Wattle and daub is a 6000 year old (neolithic, even) building technique. A woven lattice of wooden strips acts as in the same way as reinforcing netting does…
That’s what my schoolboy Latin tells me is the translation for “Boniface”, shown here giving us the cold shoulder as he gazes over the square in front of the cathedral.…
… or two. Steps at the Geromont vineyard in Oestrich-Winkel
Mainz’s very own industrial monument, the Alte Ziegelei in Bretzenheim. A field kiln* was established close to a clay quarry in the fields outside Bretzenheim in the late 19th C…
Detail in the cloisters of St Stephans church. Here’s the true story (I’m in the process of picking up some work, translating audio book texts. The one about Mainz STILL…
Here’s a good story. True one, too. Immediately following the Armistice that ended the first world war in 1918, allied troops occupied the western bank of the Rhine and established…
…through the bathroom window wall. Eberhard Linke’s “Mann vom Castrum”, (so THAT’s where Darth Vader got his wardrobe ideas…) referencing Castrum Mogantiacum, the Roman stronghold dating back to 13 BC…
Fort Stahlberg, a defensive tower built in the mid-19th century as part of the fortifications protecting Mainz from the marauding Huns …er …French and other sundry ratbags, has recently been…
Detail on the Heunensäule on the Domplatz
The German language has some heroically long words – Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, for example. It also has some that are exquisite in their succinctness and challenging in their resistance to simple translation…
Mainz Daily Photo 