Day 47
After 6 weeks of meticulously planned exploring we decided
this morning just to go to the station and see where the next train was going,
and if it was somewhere interesting, just to get on.
That’s exactly what we did, the train to Saarburcken stopped
at Bad Kreuznch and we got off. This is
a wine growing part of Germany, large swathes of vineyards, small towns dotted
along, a couple of larger industrial looking towns and our half an hour trip
flew by. It had rained last night in Mainz and was grey and murky looking this morning. We crossed our fingers that the rain would hold off and as luck would have it, were rewarded with beautiful clear blue skies.
We got off the train and looked around – hmmmm cant see
anything special here, hope we’ve not made a gigantic mistake. But I spotted a steeple in the distance and
then a sign that said ‘Altstadt’ … so we had a start. Down through a fairly modern looking high
street and soon the familiar half timbered buildings came into view.
Home now to around 50,000 residents it’s a gorgeous ton with
an amazing long and varied history. About 58 BC, the area became part of the Roman empire and as late as
250AD a Roman legion was stationed here. Then from the 10th
to the 12th centuries, land in and around the area was under the
ownership of an assortment of Holy Roman Emperors including Otto, Friedrich and
various Henrys.
Over the centuries there have been 8 monasteries, 2
synagogues (though the Jewish population has always been a very small
percentage of the population) During the 30 Year War it was over-run 8 times
and possession switched between the French, the Spanish and the Swedes. During the Napoleonic Wars it was occupied by
both the French & the Austrians, and eventually passed to the Kingdom of Prussia in 1815
In 1904, the
pharmacist Karl Aschoff discovered the Kreuznach brine's radon content and the
town was quickly billed as a "radium healing spa." In 1917 Kaiser Wilhelm II arrived and lived
in one of the spa houses. In December 1917, General Mustafa Kemal Pasha –
better known as Atatürk, the Kaiser and Paul
von Hindenburg met for talks.
From 1939 to
1940, it became the seat of the German Army High Command, and was heavily targeted
by Allied air raids before being captured by US troops in March 1945.
We headed into
the Altstadt and just wandered the streets delighting in the old half-timbered
buildings and the gorgeous views up and down the Nahe River from the famous
Alte Naheburcke.
Then it was up to the remains
of the 1631 Kauzenburg at the top of the hill for some glorious views over the
landscape before coming back to wander some more.
There’s a produce market on
Tuesdays in the grounds of St Pauls church so we checked this out and bought
some cheese.
Tonight we had
dinner with our dear friends Matthias & Dagmar and were delighted and
surprised that their daughter Alissa (who we first met when she was Lauren's 'exchange sister' in 2005/6) could join us – we thought she’s gone back
to South Africa for work. Tomorrow we’re
off to explore Frankfurt with them.
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