Mainz and Frankfurt after work

Taber stayed another week after Greece so he could explore this area of Germany with me. He studied abroad in Germany, so he has seen most of the bigger cities, but not Wiesbaden until now.

The first night after we got back from Greece (Monday July 13) we went to Mainz, which is across the Rhein River from Wiesbaden, but is in a different state. And, like Wiesbaden, it is the capital of its state.

We got off at the Roman Theater train stop, which is called that because there are ruins of a Roman theater right next to the station. And people just walk right by it like it's nothing. That's what I love about Europe.

We had dinner at a brewery called Eisgrub-Brau. Good beer and tasty schnitzel.

Then we wandered around and found some cool stuff.

The Zitadelle (Citadel)

Altstadt (Old city)

Gutenberg Museum

Mainz Cathedral

The Rhein (Rhine)

part of a fort now attached to a hotel

The next day, Tuesday July 14, we went to Frankfurt. From the train station we headed toward the Main River, walked down to the Altstadt, then walked across the river to the Sachsenhausen neighborhood in search of the famous Frankfurt Apple Wine (a hard cider that is so dry it is more like a wine than a cider).

Cool skyscraper (might be the Main Tower, but I am not sure)

Main River

A cool skyscraper next to an old church.

Old City Hall

Romerburg - the old city center

The Cathedral is in the background, but it was under restoration or something.

Eiserner Steg - famous pedestrian bridge

Frankfurt Historical Museum

On the other side of the river is the Museumufer, or Museum Embankment. Because there are a bunch of museums right in a row. I only took pictures of a couple of them.

Greece trip, Day 7 (Crete)

Our last stop on our trip was Crete. This was one of the main settlements of the Minoans. That's why our first sight was the Palace of Knossos, another really cool archeological site. One thing that was different about this site though is that a lot of it was reconstructed in an attempt to protect the site from the elements. This is or was apparently controversial because the main excavator (Arthur Evans) reconstructed things they way he thought they were. Granted, he was one of the leaders in his field so his guess was probably one of the best at the time, but now they think some of his original ideas about what certain areas were used for might have been wrong. but either way, it was an awesome site.

Walking in

really big storage jugs

you can see a fresco of a tree behind those pillars

maybe a stage? or maybe just crossroads or something.

Fresco called "The Waterbearer"

Fresco called "Prince of the Lillies"

staircase (I'm pretty sure the pipes were added in recently)

the line to see the throne room

a mock-up of the throne

the throne roon

a better picture of the griffin painting

more paintings

a model of what they think it used to look like found in the Archeological Museum

If you go, make sure you go early. People were streaming in when we left around 11ish. They offer guided tours in several languages, but we didn't take one. It didn't seem worth ten euro to be shuffled around with a large group of people, especially since this place had a lot of informational plaques.

After we got back to our hotel from Knossos, we walked around downtown Heraklion (Iraklio) in search of lunch. And found some other stuff too.

Eleftherias Square, across from our hotel

Morosini Fountain

the Loggios - former city hall

Church of Agios Titos

After walking around the pedstrian streets for a while, we went to the Archeological Museum. They have a lot of cool stuff from Cretan History and kind of give you a nice timeline of all the different stages of the island and the different people that inhabited it. so we spent a good chuck of time there.

After dinner, we went down to the port, which was built by the Venetians when they had control of the island.

Pedestrian street

Venetian port

city as seen from the port

sunset

closer up

even more close up

the wave that almost splashed us and sunset in the background

The next day we flew back to Germany, where even more adventures awaited.

All in all, the trip to Greece was amazing. It had its ups and downs, but no major problems or setbacks, so we can't complain much.