The day started in the breakfast room of the hotel with lengthy discussions of where we are going to go. Due to wine festival shenanigans we still haven't seen Mainz, and it is going to be as hot today as yesterday. We will either head to Worms or Weisbaden. Weisbaden is only 10 km. away so that is certainly a short day, but both Tourist Information and Thomas at the wine festival highly recommended it. I have wanted to explore Mainz for years, so I am OK with such a short day, even though I am dying to get on the bike. We will have lots of time for that! I am writing this at 8:55 in the morning as the other side effect of the wine festival was that absolutely no planning took place last night and Keith is totally engrossed on his iPhone. I am sure we are horrifying the other breakfast patrons by ignoring each other and focusing on our devices. Oh well, we are on holidays!
What a surprise. Once we got back to our room we made the completely unexpected decision to just stay put. We have spent the day exploring Mainz on foot, being careful to have several ice creams and cold drinks along the way. It is a beautiful small city and today there were three different festivals going on to add to the atmosphere.
The first festival was a massive rowing regatta. It went on all day. It was a fundraiser for cancer research and very well attended.
We are about a half hour waterfront walk from the old part of town and it was a beautiful morning for a walk. There are sidewalk cafes and wine bars all along. There was a huge rowing regatta which was fun to watch. When we arrived in the old town we remembered it is Sunday and all the retail stores are closed. That worked out just fine as neither of us wanted to shop, but I had thought I would take advantage of the air conditioning now and then. Instead we saw two more festivals.
Festival number two had something to do with senior's health and these young ladies were getting ready to perform.
The next up was a football festival of some sort. We never did exactly figure it out, but the team was there, there was more live music and more people having a great time.
Lots of singing along. From what I could see, we were the only ones there who didn't know the words.
There were peaceful moments too. Fountains and churches and most notably the Gutenberg Museum which was rather amazing. It was a fascinating look at the development of the printing press, and printing through the ages. It even had a display on 3D printing. Then we walked back to the hotel for a rest and we are just about to head back to the wine festival.
The gardens at the Dom. This church was huge and went on and on. This is the interior courtyard.
Beautiful flowers in the huge pedestrian zone. I love these large areas in every city that are designed for people, not cars. I wish we had it at home.
There was a brief thunderstorm while we were back at the hotel. Perfect timing. It seems to have brought th temperatures down a little. The forecast for tomorrow is sunny and 25 degrees.
