Protestants – non-Catholics in general, actually – had a pretty hard time in Mainz. Napoleon Bonaparte was the first to lift them from their status (shared with Jews) as “tolerated…
> I’d noticed the mobile cell transmitters (pumping out electro-smog and giving us all instant brain tumours) on the top of this chimney in the Martinsstrasse, but it took a…
> How bloody dull can you get? “Die Römersteine”. These are the remnants of one of the most significant Roman structures north of the Alps, for goodness sake! An aquaduct…
> Those muscular types who think these newfangled climbing walls are a recent invention are way off the mark. They’ve been around for centuries. All this business with stringing yourself…
OK. So I followed up on the sculptures in front of the Gutenberg Museum and actually got a response from one of the academic staff. We now know that the…
Yesterday, I was lucky enough to meet and talk to Michael Recker, a lovely man who’s been tasked with restoring the “Nagelsäule” – “Nail Pillar” on the Liebfrauenplatz on…
> The various Mainz city coats of arms in the town hall, starting with Ebersheim at the bottom and doubtlessly ending up with Gonsenheim (with a halo) at the top.…
> That’s not him on the wall – that would be Saint Vincent after whom the hospital originally housed in this building was named. Saint Vincent of Saragossa was one…
> The Simson Schwalbe (“Swallow”) The company started off in the century-before-last as a weapons manufacturer which then made cars which was then was then seized from its Jewish…
> I though you have to wait until Christmas Day to unwrap your pressies, but it appears to be different around here. The Johanniskirche, looking brand-spanking new, despite being extremely…
> Put a German to a word association test with “Dagobert” and they’ll be back in a flash with “Duck” Pronounced “Dook” Do the same with an American and “Donald”…
> It certainly didn’t take long for the graffiti artists to get to work on Castel Vintaro. My Latin’s a bit rusty (and to say that it was ever shiningly…
> It’s quite amazing. You can live here for decades and overlook something that’s right under your nose. Research tells me that this is the western defensive perimeter of the…
> ….Polish. And I think she was, too, from the accent. But doesn’t the cathedral scrub up nicely? Of course, they have to keep it spick and span, given that…
> Don’t believe a word of it. BITS of the cathedral are 1000 years old – this tower and the matching one on the other side, for instance – but…
> There should be 1000. That’s how old Mainz’s cathedral (built by Bishop Willigis, who practiced with St Stephan first) is and 2009 is going be one big bash (sort…
> So you’re Ludwig II, it’s 1277 and you’ve just bought the village of Kaub from Philipp II. von Falkenstein-Münzenberg. As part of the deal – apart from a halfway…
> Don’t see many war memorials in Germany. Growing up in New Zealand, they were simply part of the cultural fabric of the country. Understandably when you figure that New…
> Originally known as Castrum, this was the site of the Roman camp built in 90 CE. You can still see the foundations of the original city gate, preserved in…
> Folks on occasion turn up at Ms jb’s office in the Vertical Village with gifts. Often it’s unadulterated bribery (“Can I have an apartment please?”. “Can you open my…
> Saturn, one of the national consumer electronics megastore chains, has an advertising slogan that’s become embedded into the language: Geiz ist geil (Cheap is cool) Germans being financially conservative,…
> Saint Martin gets everywhere. And so he should, being a true heir to the Good Samurai or whatever his name was. There’s the modern statue next to the Martinus…
> He was here just the other day, though. Johannes was getting a bit frayed around the edges (so am I for that matter and I’m nowhere nearly as old…
> If you lay gas mains around Mainz or do anything that involves more excavation that digging your garden, you must get sick and tired of people asking “Found any…
> … the Turkish butcher. Can’t find a darn thing about the history of the Neubrunnen Bad in the – yes – Neubrunnenstrasse. It was probably one of the institutions…
> The Proviantmagazin (Commissary) is a classic White Elephant story.It was originally planned in 1860 as a grain storage facility and wartime bakery for the troops stationed in Mainz.In those…
>So you think you’re all modern and 21st Century with your underfloor or ducted heating… Yeah right. The Romans beat you to it by about 2 millennia, mate. This is…
>Or was it “The knight in shining armour”. St Martin reloaded, at any rate – a by-product of a night on the town with Frank the Potter Tags: Mainz, Saint…
> …is a friend indeed. 14 of them, in fact. The Fourteen Holy Helpers (street sign here in Gonso and the name of the chapel where Magdalena‘s Mum and Dad…
>The region around Mainz isn’t particularly suited to windmills. The hills of the Hunsrück and the Pfalz block the Atlantic westerlies, leaving us with 180 virtually wind-still days a year.…
>Another incendiary milestone in Mainz’s history – this one more physical than moral – is documented on the base of the Heuensäule From the official history of RAF Bomber Command…
Mainz Daily Photo 