Hiking the old city

From the high points in Mainz, you can see Frankfurt.  It's about 40 km away.

The metric system hasn't been a problem for me.  1) I'm a chemist, liters are our friends.  2) I'm a runner, the good races are measured in km. 3) I convert to Celsius every time I leave the US...I think it's because the rest of the world is metric...because multiples of 10 make more sense than multiples of 12 or 32...

Saturday was a fine evening of walking through the city with my next door neighbor, Matthias.  Turns out I added many extra paces on my personal excursion to Zitadel the week before.  This week's outing was more of a guided meander through the old city.

Taking this picture was a touristy thing to do...

Built in 1450, renovated in 1708, 1890, 1976

Multiple bachelor parties approached us.  In each case, the all members of the entourage wore matching customized T-shirts with a photo featuring the groom-to-be's finest moments, while the groom-to-be was dressed in some pastel effeminate t-shirt tucked into tight shorts, one with a pink body puff as a tail, adorned by other head gear, carrying a box of miscellaneous junk for sale to humoring members out on the town.  I had to sneak a picture, it would have been expensive otherwise.

The groom is in pink, notice the tail

A cool fountain on some corner.  The bird spits water periodically, not continuously

Another old place

 Also turns out I passed the best brewery in town, Eisgrub, on my previous meandering.  Since I'm saving on gasoline, filling up on beer is no problem.  At Eisgrub, you can fill up a 1L bottle of beer for 5.5 Euro, that includes a 2.5 Euro deposit for the bottle, which you don't have to get back if you don't want to.  You can bring it back time after time and they'll fill it up for 3 Euro.

One Hell one Dunkel please

Ivy grows all over a stone wall near Eisgrub

You can drink drinks on the go if you want.  We enjoyed Eisgrub's incredibly fresh tasting brews on some steps by the Rhine.  A paved walking and biking trail follows this segment of the river, some restaurants and bars reside behind the popular sitting area we inhabited.  Just a hundred meters to my right, was a bridge leading to a biergarten and bathroom house.

Barge on the Rhine near sunset

Finally, a beer as dark as my intentions mwah ha ha

This is a lively and bustling place for a locals and nonlocals filling up on the weekend, and running a bathroom is a lucrative business.  Each visit will cost you 50 cents.  Evening fell, the moon rose, and so did most night owls, aerial and terrestrial.

Lights of the passing barge, photo courtesy of Matthias

We played roobio on the walk home to stay warm and scare other towns people