Mainz

For some reason at about 5am we were woken by someone from Melbourne calling Tim's mobile. We'll never know who it was, because he didn't get to it in time!

At breakfast we got talking to a Renate, a German lady, who had been living in America for over 30 years, and pretty much hated it. Her very American phrase of the day was "Hell no!" She had some interesting thoughts on American culture from a European perspective.

View down the promenade beside the Rhine

At about 9:30am we set out walking to the Roman German Central Museum, of which we had a vague idea of the location. After walking around in circles for ages, plus many misdirections from helpful but misguided locals, we finally found it at about 12 noon, having already walked past it at about 10am, but missing it for the lack of signage. Tim had a great time, and took lots of photos, and the staff were very impressed with his language. I was greatly impressed by the number of Roman/ancient safety pins on display, and was disappointed on our return to discover not one photo of said ancient contribution to our modern way of life. Below are examples of artefacts we saw. Don't understand the need for a statue of gold chickens myself, but obviously someone thought it was worth spending hours creating!

It was snowing lightly as we left so we made an unscheduled visit to the Museum of Ancient Shipping, which was on our way back to the youth hostel. The museum houses the remains of 5 Roman long boats which were uncovered when they were building the Mainz Hilton Hotel. They have also built replicas to show what they may have looked like.