THUNGERSHEIN (near Wurzburg) – Germany (Fri 21 Aug)

After having such a fabulous day yesterday the evening and night turned to thunder, lightening and rain. This started as we were walking home from Cochem, when our walk home down the country road was illuminated by little stuttering flashes of lights in the sky, happening with such frequency that it was almost like a timing light. This created an eerie atmosphere as the shadows of clouds, hills and the castle were cast across the landscape. In between the rolling thunder we spent the night listening to the barges plying their trade up and down the river outside.

We were hoping that the weather would sort itself out overnight, but we woke to drizzle and grey sky, which looked like it had set in for the day. We headed out through Cochem, past the castle, and on through the Mosell valley to Koblenz where the Mosell and the Rhine rivers meet. Then we followed this through to Mainz where we met the Main River, and followed this through to our destination, 15 kms out of Wurzburg.

These valleys are punctuated with picturesque little towns and villages of stone and half timbered houses. Throughout these valleys it seems that every bend, curve, or kink in the river deserves another castle or fortification of some sort. These fortifications extend themselves down into the towns themselves and display themselves as towers, walls, gates, entrances to what are now railway tunnels. In many ways these structures dominate over the churches that have been the predominant feature in all of the towns that we have passed though during our previous travels. Often these castles are only a few kms apart and if the occupants were minded to, they could probably throw stones at each other.

The barges on the river run a continuous procession, shoving their way through the water as they shift their goods. Today, many of these were what looked like oil tankers flying Swiss flags. It is only when you see them passing each other that you appreciate how much they carry. The loaded barges push their way through with what appears to be only a couple of feet of freeboard, whilst the empty ones glide past in the opposite direction riding high.

While in Mainz we went and looked at something that I had been looking forward to for some time. We went to the Gutenberg Museum. And before you say ‘what is that?’, Johannes Gutenberg is the ‘Godfather’ of print. He was the one that invented moveable type, which you will appreciate, was a considerable improvement in efficiency on the handwritten, hand lettered publications (by a group of dedicated monks) that were the only means of written communication previously. In 1454 Gutenberg printed the 42 line Gutenberg bible, and there are two named copies of this in the museum. As you can probably tell this was pretty cool stuff for me. What Justine didn’t realize was that the whole four floors of this museum is dedicated to Gutenberg and printing.

What was a little disappointing was that despite the fact that this museum is dedicated to communication, there was a distinct lack of English translations, audioguides, or descriptions for those of us that aren’t German. So I became Justine’s personal guide for the four hours that we were there.

It was rather amusing when one of the tour guides became annoyed with us for talking very quietly in the corner of the ‘strong room’ (where the Gutenberg bibles are kept). Rather ironic when you consider the disturbance to the peace that they create in every tourist spot, whether it be a church, museum or library. They have a tendency to shout at a volume that will not only be heard by their group but also create enough collective noise to disturb anyone within shouting distance. These particular guides were being monitored on how long they were in this room, they had a ‘strong room monitor’ outside the door (I kid you not), who had come in and told this particular guide to move along as she had used up her allotted time, so she was trying to wrap it all up for her group. She suddenly interrupted her spiel to thump the glass case and tell us to ‘Shhhhhh!’ very loudly, when we were hardly making an audible sound. If we hadn’t been so surprised by the outburst we would have made a more dramatic response. But it isn’t the kind of thing that you expect.

As usual with these places the gift shop was a complete rip off. They were selling individual pieces on 24pt monotype (individual lead characters) for 2.80 euro each! I was standing next to an American couple who were looking at them and discussing buying some to use as stamps to hammer into leather. I thought I would help them out by telling them that they were unsuitable for the task. They just looked at me and bought them anyway, probably on principle. Oh well … you can but try. But despite all of that, yes it was pretty cool, and well worth the visit, in fact I would go again, but that is just me.

We arrived at our accommodation at about 6:30pm and headed straight out to get some dinner as we had already experienced the local perchance of closing up early so we wanted to beat them, but alas, too late. So it was back into the car and down the road the 14kms to the city to try and find something that was open. Not much luck there either. It is always surprising when you find that the bars and restaurants have all closed early (what we consider early) on a Friday night.

What we did find in our wanderings through the town though was cigarette vending machines on almost every corner. And we aren’t talking about corners on a city street. We are talking about on the corner of someone’s vege garden. Standing all alone in the middle of what appears to be an empty piece of land in the middle of nowhere, there will be a strong box which is a cigarette vending machine. And these things are less than 300 meters apart. It would be a case of “Hang on honey, I’ll just nip out for some cigies.” And walking down to the end of the garden to buy them. It also makes you wonder who the owners of this land are, and what they get out of it.