Mainz: Providing an Unexpected Education

In this article, I am uncovering some of the secrets of Mainz, Germany. Providing an unexpected education that I wasn’t prepared for, this city turned out to be quite charming. It isn’t one of the places that most people mention when they tell you that they went to Germany or are traveling around Germany. But, in my opinion, it is worth a long weekend. We only had a short weekend, so we didn’t see everything, but this article will get your trip planning started.

An Unexpected Education about the Romans

Mainz is 45 minutes outside of Frankfurt (and about 1 hour, 20 minutes from where I live), so if you are in Frankfurt with time to kill, it might be worth a train ride. Locals call themselves Meenzers. Meenzers joke that you can’t build anything here without hitting a Roman ruin when you go to dig the foundation. This joke is an excellent reminder of just how darn big the Roman empire was. I’ve seen Roman ruins in Bath, England and in Pula, Croatia. Now, seeing them in Mainz, I am reminded that they truly are hidden all over Europe.

Start your explorations by going to a train station. Trust me. Walk through the Mainz Römisches Theater train station and come out on the platforms. Right next to the platforms you’ll see the ruins of an ancient Roman theatre.

Crazy, right? America is such a new country, it can be hard to imagine that daily life for Meenzers means waiting for your train next to priceless ruins dating back to 310 AD.

In its heyday, this theatre was the largest theatre north of the Alps. It could accommodate 10,000 seated patrons. Excavation is obviously still ongoing. But, we do know that the highest rows of seats reached up to the top of the cross that caps off the church on the hill’s summit.

An Unexpected Education about Classic Art

I worked for a Cultural Affairs Department for over a decade, which just fueled my already-present adoration for art even more. Thanks, Mainz, for giving me an unexpected education on modernist art. Moyshe Segal, a Russian Jew, was born on July 7, 1887. His mother sold groceries at a little shop and his father was a herring pickler. At school he learned traditional subjects and also singing and violin. He lacked drive and dropped out of school without a diploma. At 19, he began to take art lessons for the first time. Who is this guy and why does this matter?

He grew up to become Marc Chagall, one of the most famous modernist painters of all time. Most importantly, how does this relate to the city of Mainz?

In addition to painting, Chagall also occasionally created stained glass windows. There is a small handful of cities in the world that can brag about having his stained glass windows, including (but not limited to) Reims, France, Chicago, USA, Jerusalem, Israel, Metz, France, New York New York, and Mainz, Germany.

St. Stephan’s Church in Mainz is the proud owner of a sanctuary lit by nine original Chagall stained glass windows.

These windows were one of his very last projects. He started them in 1978 and completed them just before his death in 1985 at the age of 97.

Book Lovers Unite: The Gutenberg Museum

As a book lover, I also received an unexpected education in Mainz about the origins of my beloved books. If you remember from your middle school history class, Johannes Gutenberg invented the moveable type printing press in the 1400’s. Though moveable type was in use already in parts of east Asia, he invented the printing press. This changed the world forever. Gutenberg was born in Mainz, and therefore, the Gutenberg Museum is here.

Wandering the halls of this bigger-than-I-expected museum, visitors can’t help but express awe from time to time. Between the gorgeous historic building and the modern annex in the back, there are six floors of cool stuff to see here. The best part is that it costs a paltry 5 euros to enter. For an extra couple of euro, you can add an audio tour. We didn’t have time for that, but it was well worth the 5 euro to walk around on our own.

The exhibits tell the story of Gutenberg and how his contemporaries knew of his invention and still allowed widespread knowledge of it to be lost for centuries. He didn’t gain widespread recognition until around the French Revolution. You’ll learn quirky facts like: No one knows his exact birth date and no one is truly sure of what he looked like. All the images you see of him are approximations, which are only partially accurate because he actually made the invention as a young man.

Priceless illuminated manuscripts are under glass is a very dimly lit room for your viewing pleasure too. Every few hours the museum even does a really cool demonstration of how one page would be printed. You’ll be flabbergasted at how many steps there are for just one page! Antique copies of (famously grisly) original fairy tales are on display too.

Mainz Market and Cathedral

While American communities try to hold a farmer’s market or two (a worthy effort), it simply cannot compare to the European tradition of weekly (and sometimes daily) markets. On Saturday in Mainz, we strolled through the market where one street was dedicated to produce and a courtyard was dedicated to food trucks. Here, Meenzers and visitors purchase more varieties of sausage than I could ever describe, mustards and spreads to complement said sausage, breads, salads and more. The market is encircled by packed outdoor cafes and protected by the massive and stunning Mainz Cathedral. For more pictures of buildings in the local pink sandstone, check out my article on Heidelberg.

Where to Stay

When visiting Mainz, you have a lot of choices of where to stay. For us, convenience to public transportation was important. This meant the hands-down winner for a hotel was the AC Hotel Mainz. It is located across the street from the main train station. There are buses, trams and trains coming and going constantly. But, remember, this is Germany. That means most of the public transportation is environmentally friendly, and therefore, nearly silent. So, you’ll still get a great night’s sleep. Even when your balcony opens up to face the train station.

This gorgeously maintained historic property has a gourmet restaurant and a parking garage one block away.

For an unexpected education in German cities that you aren’t expecting to be charming, start with Mainz. It mostly flies under the radar, so you won’t get caught in the crush of tourists and you’ll still have a wonderfully memorable time. Oh, and if you haven’t seen the quintessential half-timbered German buildings on your trip yet, you can find a little neighborhood of those in Mainz too (today’s featured image).