April 7, 2018
Day 12: Mainz to Worms
A diet of worms
The Rhine south of Mainz is in a broad valley but one that often has steep enough sides to angle toward the sun and support grape culture. So the first part of our ride was up in the vines. The grape pruning here favours just two whips coming from the main trunk. We could see that it takes a lot of snipping to maintain this. A few patches of vines were unpruned, and they had a real thicket of shoots coming from the trunk. I had a close look at the grape whips and could see only the barest hint that they were thinking of budding out. We really are early in the season.
After the grapes, that are not doing anything, we passed many rototilled fields, that likewise have nothing doing. It makes sense. Back home where the climate is about like this one, May 20 is considered the last day for seeding outside. We can not blame these fields and vines for being boring just because we are too early.
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Our ride today just shoots up the left bank of the river, to Worms. There are not a lot of major towns in between. OK, no major towns.
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One town that was a little bit bigger was Nierstein. Still, it did not have a central square, major church, or anything like that. I tried my best for some attractive photos and only came up with some nice houses and the church at a distance.
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Nierstein did have one claim to fame, but it was a bit weird. In March 1945 the Americans crossed the river here by building a floating bridge. They said it was the first successful Rhine assault crossing since Napoleon in 1812. Somebody put up this memorial in 2017, with all kinds of detail and quotes from those involved. What struck me as weird was that over 70 years later is seems time to let it rest. Or if not, then to build in a heavy peace message. This thing seemed more like gloating.
Having this time avoided getting lost or miscalculating, we arrived in the outskirts of Worms early in the day. I could not quite remember Worms from any past trips, and so had an image of a medieval town, suitable for Martin Luther to nail proclamations to church doors, and such. But the first thing to greet us was a section of serious smokestack industries. A prime one is Evonik, and chemicals and materials giant. Their campus occupies a lot of space:
After Evonik, there seems to be quite a bit of roads with traffic, before at last we pulled up before the Dom Hotel. There was a kind of Spring festival going on in the square in front of the hotel, which was very cheering. In fact it did seem Spring had arrived (despite those sleeping vines back in the hills). The temperature was way up in the 20's and lots of spring flowers and herbs were on sale. We stashed our bikes and gear and went for a look.
The main attraction in Worms for us was the Dom, after which our hotel was named. This is the church of St. Peter, and it is not exactly adjacent to the hotel. Rather it sits by itself one street over, without a square to dominate.
Worms is the town made famous by Martin Luther, and on our way to the Dom we passed the large memorial to his escapades here in 1521. You can read about it on the poster below. For clarity it is in Latin, but you may wish to use the English translation.
We were not sure whether to expect in the Dom the lavish decoration used in a Catholic cathedral or the austere gloom of a Protestant one. It turned out to be a mix, and I think actually the building has passed back and forth over the years. There is some zippy stained glass and an altar area with lots of gold statues. But the main attraction was a display of five bells newly created for the Dom. They were beautiful things, with designs and lettering built in, and the date - 2018. All the information surrounding them, and every other piece of printed material in the church, was in German. But we did learn a bit from the internet later. On April 10 and 11 the bells will be raised into the bell towers. One will join the three existing ones in the south tower and the other four will go into the north tower. This includes the largest one, which weighs 2.7 tons.
Bells like this each have names, and no doubt they were made by some famous bell making company, probably the last of a dying breed. It would be fun to know more about it. The history of bells in this 1000 year old church is also interesting. For example, before the destruction of Worms in the War of Succession in 1689 a total of 16 bells hung in the four cathedral towers . In 1728, the cathedral received six more. But in the course of secularization in the late 18th century, the bells were confiscated (don't know where they went). When the cathedral again became the parish church, four bells were hung in the southeast tower. They were destroyed at the end of World War II during a major bombing raid. And so forth.
One thing we did find out - the largest bell cost 100,000 euros. Yikes.
We were actually a bit confused between the Dom here and the one in Mainz. We had fond memories of gelato (eis) at the "Dom Cafe" and kind of had that in mind when we booked at the "Dom Hotel". But no, all that really great Dom stuff had been in Mainz. Not to worry though. Any Dom area or any square for that matter is going to have an eis cafe. And sure enough there was one right beside the hotel. With the weather now warmed up, it was great to sit out with our moka or chocolat becher (big bowl of gelato with sauce, whipped cream, nuts, and stuff). I had ordered chocolat, but somehow got moka. It was still good, but I will need to go back for the right thing. Admittedly that will be at another cafe in another town but I hope it happens soon!
Today's ride: 56 km (35 miles)
Total: 601 km (373 miles)
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You seem to be doing rather longer days on your ebikes than you did before
Keep safe
Tricia
6 years ago
You seem to be right about ebike distances. In the two trips before ebike for Dodie our overall average was 50 km per day, and after ebike it's 65. That's a 30% increase, which seems consistent with the fact that on "eco" the Bosch powered ebike gives you a 40% boost. I think we also see this from the fact that pre ebike we would slog along at about 10 km/hr and now we zoom out at 14 km/hr. Notably, the people on unladen regular bikes go 25 km/hr and of course the lycra warriors can go 40 km/hr.
Interestingly, in a "River Route" your average was about 50 and in the "Miraculous Tour" it was also 50. You are just a more stable kind of girl than us!
6 years ago
W have a challenging but beautiful 10k ride from our new house which we are doing each day in an attempt to get some cycle fitness
keep safe
Tricia
6 years ago
6 years ago