The bronze base of the Heunensäule documents significant events in Mainz's history, this sculpture depicting the burning of the synagogues in the pogrom of 9-10 November 1938.
Mainz has a significant Jewish history, dating back to the 10th century, with the city fathers displaying an unstable bipolar attitude, at times guaranteeing freedom and protection and at others expelling the community, only to invite them back a decade later and then blame them for outbreaks of the Black Death.
Par for the course in medieval Europe.
Jewish tradition is a talking point at the moment, with the discovery of graves during excavations for a block of apartments next to the Jewish cemetery.
As I've said before - pick up a spade at one's peril in Mainz.....
*Kristallnacht - Crystal Night - is also known as The Night of Broken Glass, referring to the shards of glass from the shop fronts of Jewish traders, broken in the pogrom and the riots that accompanied it.
Unlike residential windows, commercial buildings frequently had windows of high quality glass, referred to as Kristallglas - crystal glass.
"Let there be broadband" might be more appropriate....
My ISP fell over yesterday, leaving significant chunks of the country disconnected from the rest of humanity.
Hence the slight delay in this post.
Here's a classic post-war building, unintentionally flashing back to the Flatiron Building in New York, housing the alliterative Lichthaus Lerch, who have been selling lamps since 1876
A late summer evening - threatening sky included - looking across the Schillerplatz down the Schillerstrasse, with the Carnival Fountain silhouetted acroos the night sky.
It's almost like painting the Golden Gate Bridge - finish at one end and start again at the other.That's what this guy must feel like.I saw him a couple of weeks back, resetting the stones over a trench that had been dug to run some cables under the Market Square.
On Saturday, he was back, repaving over a sub-station that had been hidden below the square for ever and was relocated during the week to the cellar of new buildings facing the square.
He's probably thinking
"Could they have at least TALKED to each other? Did they HAVE to let me do THAT, before they ripped THIS up?
Bloody Management..."
A major retrospective of a major German artist, Jörg Immendorff, closed yesterday after a run of almost 2 months.
450 works, dating from 1968 to shortly before his death at 61 from ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) in May this year, the more recent works painted by his students working to his instructions.
His body of work is frequently overtly political and tends towards surrealism (and narcissism, with Immendorf himself featuring in a vast number of them) and - to me (and I'll doubtless be stoned for my philistinism) reminiscent of some of Robert Crumb's work.
Hugely popular exhibition - expected 12,000 visitors and they were up to 20,000-ish last Thursday.
He's probably better known to the mainstream, though, for a patch of scandal in 2003 involving a luxury hotel suite, a bevy of willing nubiles and a bucket of cocaine (if you believe the tabloids).
It was actually 6 grams and 7 girls (although 4 more turned up during the raid... bloody hell!) and he got offr with probation and a whacking great fine.
And when you stop and think about - if you're looking down the barrel of a gun whose trigger is slowly being squeezed and you know that at some stage, you'll be in a wheelchair and then dead, I can understand his excesses.
I'd probably stick to beer, myself, though.
The Mainz Classic Automobile Rally hit the road yesterday.
90-odd entries ranging from a Bentley to a Fiat 500, more MGs and TRs than you could shake a stick at and a delicious Jaguar XK150 that I'll be buying today following my €7m win in the lottery yesterday.
But my favourite by far was this trio.
And I was so intrigued, I haven't a clue as to to the make of the car.
More images over at Flickr.
The University in Mainz (actually the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz) dates back to 1477, receiving papal approval during the bishopric of Diether von Isenburg.This building (bang in the middle of town) is relatively young - not quite 400 years old.
Mainz being Mainz, there was the usual kerfuffle during the various occupations/sieges/re-occupations and whathaveyou and it's really only since 1946, when the French occupying administration decreed that the University be "enabled to resume its function", that it's been able to get on with the job in a reasonably consistent manner.
Temporary accommodations were found in decommissioned military barracks just up from the station on the road to Gonso where it's remained to this day, making it one of the few campus based universities in Germany
11 faculties.
35,000 students.
One of whom wasn't getting a lot of sleep one night last week...
A persisting urban myth is the quote " At least he made the trains run on time" associated with Adolf.
(Actually, it's more correc tly attributed to a grudgingly appreciative Italian when referring to Mussolini).
Reason in enough to place little value on punctuality, really...
This high-tech device - LCDs and all - is really quite flash.
They're positioned at most of the bus stops in the inner city
But either my camera's clock is wrong (it isn't) or they were telling porkies at 20:51 last night...
Yeah, right....Given the price of land around here, the social engineering that takes place in new sub-divisions (if you don't live in the village, are young and have a couple of kids, don't even think of applying...) and the general lack of architectural imagination, finding these 3 houses was quite a treat.
Not everyone's cup of tea, I'm sure, but the clarity of line and the optimal use of the footprint impressed me no end.
Shameless commercialism.
Who cares.
I was, though, quite chuffed that Frank and Ingrid chose 3 of my images for the invitation to their autumn/fall shindig at the pottery.The top and bottom (or left and right) are definitely mine.
The centre image looks much too twee to be mine, but Frank's insistent on the origin.
So if you're in our neck of the woods on 7 Oct, drop me a line and I'll give you directions.
You might even be able to hitch a lift.....
You know it's getting close to autumn when you see colours like these...
Mr Bumble Bee obviously doesn't refer to Wikipedia.Otherwise he'd know to keep well away from Vitex (Vitex agnus-castus).
Aka Chaste Tree, Chasteberry, or Monk's Pepper, the latter being the translation of the common German name - Mönchspfeffer.
It supposedly acts as an anaphrodisiac.
Unless, of course, we're looking at Mrs Bumble Bee, in which she won't have any issues with PMS in future...
All very interesting stuff, but the main reason we bought it is for the aromatic foliage and the blossoms.
(And despite this being quite a successful image, I WISH I'd bought the Nikon D100 for TTL metering on the old AI-Nikkor lenses.)
Talking of favourites... Sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus) would be the favourite flower.
Odile Landragin had some really healthy seedlings this year and they're now growing up a tipi-type support, flowering vigorously.
My Uncle Frank used to have a whole trellis of them. 4 metres or so long, 2.50 high.
The perfume was intoxicating....
It's a big ask when it comes to deciding on my favourite herb.
We've got the standards - mint (5 varieties), broad-leafed parsley (is there really any other kind?), basil (3 varieties) and chives.
Plus rosemary, thyme (4 varieties), borage, chervil, summer savoury, sorrel (green and red), tripmadam (sedum relexum), rue, oregano, marjoram, salad burnet, coriander and tarragon. I can't grow dill...
But sage (salvia officinalis) is definitely up there.
It's hardy (even in our semi-arctic winters), it's medicinally beneficial, it's bee-friendly and it's attractive even in its common grey-green foliaged form.
Even more attractive are the yellow (above), purple and tricolour varieties.
And it's a great culinary herb.
Do this:
Buy the best (fresh) ravioli you can afford and just before the end of the cooking time, throw a big handful of fresh sage leaves into a pan in which you've heated some really good olive oil.
Swish them around and they'll crisp up within seconds.
In the meantime, someone else has strained the ravioli onto the plates, so transfer the sage leaves (which shouldn't be black...) onto the ravioli, pour the olive oil over and top with shaved parmesan.
For dessert, fresh strawberries with finely chopped pineapple sage.
Training session on the Klein-Winternheim football field the other night.
No ref, only one goalie and 7 vs 8.
But some rather smooth stuff being displayed - reverse passes, slick combinations, lots of successful double passes and the like.
They certainly upped their game when they saw the camera, though. Even scored a goal.
Someone voiced the expectation of being on the front page of the Mainz newspaper next day.
A couple of the more vain ones even whipped out their combs....
"Abi" is short for "Abitur", the German equivalent of University Entrance, A Levels or a High School diploma (although it's more at the level of an associate degree at a US college).
The end of school life (after 13 years and they don't start until they're 6 or even 7....) is obviously a cause for great celebration, with formal school balls, letting off steam and general silliness. (Things don't change, really...)
And there's a plethora of car stickers, invented by each graduating class, most of which are dull and generally unimaginative.
But this one's good. Great, in fact.
A play on words with "Robinson Crusoe" incorporating "Abi" and the strapline "We've been waiting 13 years for Friday", as in Man Friday or Friday, the last day of school..
There's hope yet...!
A single-track railway line links Mainz and Alzey, stopping in Gonsenheim, Marienborn, Klein-Winternheim, Nieder-Olm and a couple of other villages on the way.It's an adequate enough service - once an hour during the day and a bit more frequently mornings and evenings.There's no station in Klein-Winternheim - burned down years ago and it's been replaced by a shelter that's fairly open to the elements. (But there's a restaurant next door as a welcome alternative if the weather's inclement.)Weekends are a bit tricky, though (or at least they used to be.
Paul Duke, who used to work for Boehringer in New Zealand, God rest his soul, was over here on business and stayed at our place.
Wine festival in Ingelheim, so the two of us headed off on Saturday night and had an exceptionally good time, resulting in the car's being left parked in Ingelheim and our taking a taxi home.Sometime on Sunday afternoon, we figured we'd toddle over on the train to retrieve the car.
Stroll down to the station, not bothering to look at the timetable (if there was one). Weren't in a hurry, anyway.A local strolls past and says "You've got a bit of a wait, y'know"
"No worries" we replied "We're in no rush""That's good, then" he said " The next one's tomorrow morning at 5:45..."
The road from Ober-Olm to Klein-Winternheim is a real race-track.There's a 50km/h limit, then it's down to 30 limit next to the station, a chicane (which boy-racers all over the world immediately accept as a challenge to emulate Schumacher or Alonso and clip curbs at the highest speed possible) and then back to 50.
And when you round the bend, you see a set of traffic lights with a loooong red phase.
So what do you do?
Plant your foot, of course, and go through on amber or dark amber (as Dad used to say).
This chappy's there to keep an eye on things, though.
He and his mates (and little girfriends) are placed strategically around most villages to let drivers know that there's a high probability of littlies being out and about and it mostly works.Not for me, though. I almost got flattened by Lewis Hamilton (or someone who looked very much like him, anyway) in a plumber's van yesterday evening.
I suppose I might be a tad too tall to qualify as protected species....
Axel Schmitt is an organic vintner in Ober-Hilbersheim, a mere hop, step and a jump from Mainz.
He's taken over the vineyard from his Dad, Berthold - shown here, doing the honours on Saturday - and it's been going on like that since 1672.
Every 2 years, they open the gates of their vineyard for a 3 day Summer Festival in August.
Wine tasting, art exhibition, live music, good good (organically grown, of course and some of it from their own garden) and their own wines.
Place was packed on Saturday and you meet the most interesting people - a couple who transcribe classical music for a living (he) and play classic concerts and teach (she), for example. And can STILL talk about Dylan with enthusiasm.
And Ulla Nelles from the vernissage on Friday .
But the wine was definitely better on Saturday...
I'm not sure if I've worked this out correctly. I'm pretty sure I haven't.This bulbous tricycle was parked next to Schott music publishers yesterday and it's certainly a show-stopper.
At first glance, it looks like a sleek aerodynamically-optimised skin over - I'm guessing here - a pretty classy lightweight space-frame with racing bike mechanics.
It's a Mango.
If you look at Velomobiel's website, they confirm that.
Pretty much, anyway. (I guess the rest is commercially sensitive)
What threw me, though, is the sticker.5gm of CO2 per kilometre? No engine?
I can only assume it's the .... how can we phrase this delicately... personal emissions of the rider?
(No, not THOSE emissions. That would be methane....)
No, I think they mean the exhalation values.
Come to think of it, it's a pretty good way to lose weight.
5g times 20 kilometres works out at 100g PLUS the calories you've burnt in the process.
I think I'm onto something here...
Schmiede Wettig in Nieder-Olm has been home to blacksmiths from 1577 until well into the last century. (It's now preserved as a time-warped 1920s working forge).
The stable and outbuildings were converted to a gallery-concert-literary readings space in the 1996 and that's where Ulla Nelles-Halft held a private viewing of her exhibition tonight.
It's been interesting to see her development (both in style and commercial terms) over the past 20 years - our first purchase was a small watercolour at an artists' market in 1988 for perhaps DM25. €13.
Entry level last night was €300, with the photo-realistic "Fresh figs" (I wish I had a wall big enough to do it justice) was €1200.
Her skills are formidable, despite her lack of formal training and - this isn't in the least derogatory - painting as a sideline to bringing up 2 kids by herself since her husband's sudden and untimely death.
She uses depth of field in her still-lifes for goodness sake..! The only "sharp" point on the canvas is the tip of the fig at the bottom of the picture.
And she touches on action painting with an understatement that reminds one of the patterns and structures in Harris Tweed fabric
A quite excellent introduction by a local art teacher, a buffet and a bar with lots of locals out and about for the event.
An excellent evening
The wine was a bit dodgy, though.
One small glass of a local Dornfelder and I'm feeling decidedly fragile this a.m.
And this is what a cobblestone road looks like when some poor bugger's finished his back-breaking work.
The Kartäuserstrasse is in the old part of Mainz, with the Girlande off to the left and a bicycle waiting to be stolen off to the right.
The name of the road comes from the Carthusian Order (also known as the Order of St Bruno) founded by... yes, St. Bruno in 1084 in Chartreuse, hence the name. And that of Charterhouse, one of the 9 original English public (i.e. private. Funny people, those Poms..) schools, founded on the site of a Carthusian monastery.
The monastery - the order has been described as " a community of hermits" - in Mainz, founded in 1320, was located above the city on the St Michaelsberg, overlooking the confluence of the Main and the Rhine rivers, with vineyards and gardens.
They lasted 4 1/2 centuries, despite the concerted efforts of the Marquess Albrecht von Brandenburg in 1552 and the Swedes in the Thirty Year war barely a century later to put them out of business.They must have really got up Prince-Elector Friedrich Karl Joseph von Ertal's nose , though. He closed them down in late 1781 and confiscated their property. Just like that.
They must have been quite traumatised, because they hung around for another year until someone had a word in their shell-likes to the effect that they should either toddle off to the monastery in Erfurt or take 250 gulders and try and live off that until they popped off.
And the link between this road in the middle of town to the monastery miles away?
The monastery's Stadthof - literally, city farm - from where they sold their produce was located here.
Sort of like an outlet mall..
A very elegant gargoyle on the roof of the Heilig Geist restaurant.
The Heilig Geist Spital (Hospice of the Holy Spirit) in Mainz was one of many benevolent institutions established by the church in medieval times to provide lodgings for pilgrims, the homeless, the old, the sick and the generally downtrodden.
The original hospice was built adjacent to the cathedral, but was moved in 1236 at the insistence of the NIMBY faction of the time to its present location - at the time, integrated into the city wall and on the banks of the Rhine.
Now, given Mainz's reputation of being built on archaeological quicksand, it could be considered somewhat rash to dig anywhere in the place.
But the Heilig Geist's neighbours needed to do some renovations and dig they did.
Until yesterday they came across 11 skeletons. Plus a loose skull.
Victims of a mass murderer or the Plague (which ripped through the city with disturbing regularity in 1348, 1482, 1553, 1564 and 1592)?
Given the location - next to the hospice and outside the city wall - probably the latter.
No other artefacts (such as coins) to give an indication of the date, so carbon-dating it will be.
I think I'll give the Heilig Geist a miss for a couple of days, though.
Not if they start serving the "Plague du Jour".....
Basil as far as the eye can see at Petra and Michael Stein's excellent herb, fruit, veg and plant place in Gonsenheim.
I buy pots when they're this small, divide them - you'll normally get 5 lots of multiple seedlings - and pot them on in our own compost.
And then stand back, because they really take off.
They've got every sort you'd want. Or need.
Regular. Thai. Lemon. Marseille. Red. Cinnamon. Aniseed
But where are the tomatoes?
This year's been rubbish - if they flowered, they didn't set (especially the heritage Roma ones) and so far I've harvested exactly 2.
From 8 plants
Reminds me of William Alexander's excellent book
I need a greenhouse. Exactly.
ﾠ
Hermann Cardinal Volk was the Bishop of Mainz between 1962 and 1982, sandwiched between Albert Stohr and the incumbent Karl Cardinal Lehmann.
You'll find this sculpture on the square named after him on the busiest spot in the pedestrian precinct, just around the corner from the Isis temple ruins.
For all that, he doesn't look a happy camper.
Might be to do with the fact that - as an advocate of ecumenism - the word's got to him about what the new lot in the Vatican is up to.....
Sounds a bit like a "knock knock" joke
Willi who?
Willigis.
Looking up from the Willigisstrasse across the Willigisplatz to St Stephans, the burial place of Bishop Willigis (although they're not quite sure where) which was in fact built by Bishop Willigis himself.
Well, he had other people build it, but that's not the point...
I have absolutely no idea what these people were thinking of when they dreamed up this name.
Slavish conformity to the "Truth in Advertising" creed (in which case it's only a matter of time before they disappear), or another misguided abuse of the English language in order to be appear hip?I have no idea. It is mildly witty, though - the subline says "With a license to style"
No excuse, though.
I'll stick to "Scalped", my €10, 5 minute ordeal every 4 months or so.....
The cathedral square's a bit of a mess at the moment.
The construction work to replace the crumbling post-WW2 faux-medieval houses also involves ripping up swathes of cobblestones to lay power cables and suchlike.
Which then have to be reset.
Stone by stone. In big, interlinked, sunburst patterns.
By some poor bugger.
Like him here.
And - having paved the walkways around our place - I know what I'm talking about....
PS Have a look at the tool - trowel and hammer in one. I'm betting that the shape hasn't changed in centuries.
PPS Kath'll like this one...
How appropriate that the Frensch family should have the local franchise for Peugeot.I'm now on the lookout for an Audi/VW/Mercedes/Porsche dealership run by the Shermans....
Greenfield developments are a hot political potato in Germany and especially, it seems, around here.
The social market economy (as against a pure market economy) concept spills over into almost every avenue of life and greenfield developments are just one.
This hypermarket has been here since the late 1970s - first as Carrefour, a French chain, then as Massa and more recently as Real, with a Home Depot-type co-anchor and then MediaMarkt, one of the 2 big electronic chains.
There are now moves afoot to allow the building of another (but larger) one further out of town, with the public being vastly in favour (because everything's as cheap as chips) and local politicians worrying about the impact on inner city merchants.
It'll be a compromise, as are most things around here.
And it'll drag on for ever.
Well, this - with an espresso macchiato from the Tin Shed on Wheels - makes a welcome change from the usual müsli with fresh fruit and a big mug of black tea. But only on Saturdays.
See how the rest of the world breakfasts here (You'll be amazed...)
Saint Paul (MN), USA - Bellefonte (PA), USA - Menton, France - Monte Carlo, Monaco - New York City (NY), USA - Tel Aviv, Israel - Hyde, UK - Port Angeles (WA), USA - Mainz, Germany - Stockholm, Sweden - Paderborn, Germany - Singapore, Singapore - Haninge, Sweden - Nottingham, UK - Ampang (Selangor), Malaysia - Manila, Philippines - Boston (MA), USA - Seoul, Korea - Singapore, Singapore - Joplin (MO), USA - Chandler (AZ), USA - Paris, France - Sequim (WA), USA - Greenville (SC), USA - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Boston (MA), USA - Chennai, India - Madison (WI), USA - Baton Rouge (LA), USA - Toulouse, France - Seattle (WA), USA - Mexico (DF), Mexico - La Antigua, Guatemala - Selma (AL), USA - Wassenaar (ZH), Netherlands - Albuquerque (NM), USA - Cleveland (OH), USA - San Diego (CA), USA - Lubbock (TX), USA - Jakarta, Indonesia - Sheki, Azerbaijan - Sydney, Australia - Mumbai, India - Seoul, South Korea - Cottage Grove (MN), USA - Cypress (TX), USA - Saarbrücken, Germany - Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina - New Orleans (LA), USA - Budapest, Hungary - Kyoto, Japan - Tokyo, Japan - Austin (TX), USA - Singapore, Singapore - Villigen, Switzerland - Montréal (QC), Canada - Stayton (OR), USA - Melbourne, Australia - Silver Spring (MD), USA - Moscow, Russia - Springfield (MO), USA - Inverness (IL), usa - Arlington (VA), USA - Cologne (NRW), Germany - Anderson (SC), USA - Oslo, Norway - Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation - Manila, Philippines - Kajang (Selangor), Malaysia - Maple Ridge (BC), Canada - Bandung (West Java), Indonesia - Stavanger, Norway - Bastia, France - Hong Kong, China - Wailea (HI), USA - St. Louis (MO), USA - Chicago (IL), USA - Rabaul, Papua New Guinea - Sydney, Australia - Bucaramanga (Santander), Colombia - Kansas City (MO), USA - Grenoble, France - Paris, France - Evry, France - Saigon, Vietnam - Prague, Czech Republic - Cape Town, South Africa - Brookville (OH), USA - Brussels, Belgium - San Diego (CA), USA - Wellington, New Zealand - Newcastle (NSW), Australia - Saint Louis (MO), USA - Sharon (CT), USA - Shanghai, China - Zurich, Switzerland - North Bay (ON), Canada - Lyon, France - Naples (FL), USA - Olympia (WA), USA
The bronze base of the Heunensäule documents significant events in Mainz's history, this sculpture depicting the burning of the synagogues in the pogrom of 9-10 November 1938.
