Worms

After Mainz I met up with a friend and we spent some time in Frankfurt and had dinner there.  We had a great time, no pics though.  The next day I drove to Worms because I was interested in a few historical places there.

Worms is the city where the Diet was held concerning Martin Luther's theses.  I wanted to see the local cathedral and the statue dedicated to Martin Luther.  I loved Worms, the town was so nice and easy to get around in.  I stopped at the cathedral first but they were in the middle of services and I didn't was to go in as a tourist.  I got some pics of the outside.  But first the man himself:

Here's the cathedral:

After that I walked down the street to the Heiliger Sand which is the Jewish Cemetery in Worms and the oldest surviving Jewish cemetery in Europe, the oldest legible tombstone dates to 1076.  Since it was Sunday, the cemetery was closed but I got some pics from the outside.  It looked really peaceful in there:

After the cemetery I found Martin Luther's monument.  It was really impressive!

While I was taking pictures it started drizzling.  Next thing I know an umbrella appears over my head!  I turn around and this really nice elderly German man was holding the umbrella over me.  He started talking and I tried to explain that I didn't speak German very well.  Undeterred he kept talking and I caught just a few words from every sentence.  From what I could tell he liked Martin Luther and thought that what he did was good for the church, even though many people didn't like it.  He was also very proud to be be a German.  He was very nice and we parted ways for the rest of the day.  I'd love to go back to Worms again.  The city was great and apparently the people are very friendly!

Mainz

I had a long weekend and ended up spending some time in Mainz.  I loved the city and had a great time there.  It is the birthplace of Gutenberg who invented movable type and revolutionized printing.  I think printing is a pretty cool process so I wanted to check out the Gutenberg museum.

Here is the legend himself:

The Gutenberg museum was awesome and much more involved then I initially expected.  I would absolutely recommend it to anyone.  The even had 4 original Gutenberg bible is a vault in the museum, it was neat to see them and incredible how well they had been preserved!  I wasn't able to take too many pictures at the museum before being told they weren't allowed but here are a few (by they way, I didn't see any signs posted...oops!)

Here is a recreation of the press, you can see the movable type in the background

Here is a close up of the movable type you can see on the press above:

 The type in the background from above:

 I also went to the cathedral in Mainz which was beautiful!  They had a museum in the cathedral of Roman artifacts but pictures in the museum were not allowed (they told me ahead of time!)

Finally I went to the Mainz art museum which was really nice.  They had a special exhibit on the history of the shoe which was interesting.  I couldn't take pictures inside but here is the outside:

Mainz was a great town with a ton to do.  It is high on my recommendation list!

The Autobahn

One of the things I love most about living over here is the Autobahn.  It is one of the most pleasant driving experiences I have ever had in my life.  It's going to be really had to come back to America and only do 70 on the Interstate and have to watch out for people blatantly disregarding traffic laws.  Contrary to popular belief there are actually posted speed limits on the Autobahn, the average being 130kph or about 80mph.

Some of these speed limits are suggestions, meaning if you are involved in an accident doing over that then you are held at least partially liable even if the accident wasn't your fault.  There are also some areas where the limit is obviously much lower for safety considerations.  If you do 100mph though some sections your car may end up doing a 200 yard nose grind though a vineyard.

I love the Autobahn, it's not nearly as hair raising as I first thought it would be.  What is turning my hair gray is city driving with those narrow roads, tons of curves, and poorly marked roads!

The weekend after Luxembourg I wasn't feeling too well on Friday so I wanted to take it a little easy.  The travel bug was itching though and I did need to get out!  I ended up going to see a couple of neat things!  First I went to Hardenburg because they have a nice caste up on the mountain with a great view.  On my way up I passed this monument:

Here is part of the outside of the castle.

The castle was fairly well preserved and had a nice interior courtyard and other passageways:

Like I said, the view was awesome!

I ended up having lunch at a little German restaurant nearby before heading over to the Limburg Abbey.  The Abby was pretty neat but all that was left of it was mostly the exterior walls and the tower.  I was glad I got to see it though!  Here is the outside of the Abby and the tower.

The inside was pretty and had a nice row of trees.  They still use the Abby for all sorts of functions, in one section it looked like a wedding reception was going to go on soon.

There were also some neat statues sitting outside of the Abby, here is a picture of one, there were 8 or so in total.

After the Abby I had to go to Bad Durkheim to see their barrel restaurant.  I wanted to stop to eat but I was still stuffed from lunch!

That's it for now.  I'll try to post up my pics from Mainz later this evening or maybe tomorrow!

Luxembourg Part 2

After visiting the War Memorials I went to check out the Bock Casemates which is an underground fortification that dates back to 1644.  There is really no way to describe it other that it's a fort dug into the side of a mountain.  And it is HUGE, originally spanning 14 miles of passageways.  I imagine is was really had to lay siege to the sucker!

Here are some views from the outside:

The inside of this fort was impressive!

Apparently they had an extensive artillery system for the fort, so much for your hearing once those cannons go off!  Although they only had a few cannons on display there was apparently a large battery that extended along the fort.

The picture above is from one of the cannon ports and you can see the other ports along the mountain.  The casemates were a lot of fun to see but it was not for the faint of heart.  Walking inside of the fort was pretty dangerous.  Case in point, check out this stairwell!

I would recommend the casemates though, you don't have to go up and down all of the stairs and most of the interesting parts were easily accessible.  You still had to watch your step though!

Luxembourg Part 1

I know I haven't updated in a while but I've been pretty busy.  Life isn't just traveling and having fun here, I do have to do other things too!  Anyway, I hope to get caught up with pictures in the next day or too.  Here are some photos from my trip to Luxembourg!

I had a great trip there, the county is beautiful.  It was interesting because everything was pretty much bilingual with French and German.  I'm not so hot with either language but I still made due.  My main reason for going was to visit Patton's grave.  There is a really nice American memorial and cemetery there.  The experience was really emotional and I highly encourage anyone to go there.

The entrance to the memorial is dominated by a huge chapel right when you walk in:

The Chapel has inscriptions on all sides and a nice place on the inside for people to sit and meditate/pray.

The inside as inscriptions on the walls too and a beautiful ceiling.

Here's the final resting place of Patton, such a beautiful spot!

Over his headstone you can see the chapel, the inscription says:
"Here is enshrined the memory of valor and sacrifice".

Patton is facing the rest of the headstones that are there.

There are a lot of Crosses but there are several head stones shaped like the Star of David.

A coworker of mine said that there is a German memorial cemetery nearby and suggested that I go and take a look.  It was really interesting to see it because as my coworker mentioned how do you honor the dead, people's family members, without honoring the war?  The memorial was really well done.

The center path of the cemetery leads up to a monument that you can go up and see.
Here is the view from the monument:

Both memorials were very nice.  I wouldn't mind going back there at all, it was a great experience!  After the memorials I went to find another cool place in Luxembourg.  I'll put that in the next post.

Lahneck Castle

I nearly forgot to post these pictures but on our way to Koblenz we stopped by Lahneck Castle and got a tour.  It was remarkably well preserved and really cool to see!  Here are some pics of the outside:

The inside was interesting and still had some of the furniture!

Here is the kitchen:

Lahneck Castle was the first castle I've been to over here, well at least getting to see the inside.  There are castles all over out here so I'm looking forward to visiting some more!