Our stop on the way to EK

On our trip out here, we had a long layover in Frankfurt.  It seems every flight east that doesn’t go through London goes through Frankfurt.  It’s a big airport, but gets a lot of volume, so it is almost always busy and crowded.

This time, we decided to take advantage of our layover and sightsee a little.  Once we landed, we checked in to ensure that our connecting flight was still on schedule, rearranged our carryon so we could check most of it in the left-luggage stand at the airport, and then jumped on a train that went up the Rhein to Mainz.

Mainz is a long-established city (thousands of years old) and the part we saw is a charming collection of platz’ surrounded by pretty buildings, connected by small streets.  The city is most noted for is honored son, Gutenberg, of printing press fame.  One of the churches in the city has a set of stained-glass windows designed by Marc Chagalle; they were the last windows he did before he died, and they honestly look like watercolor paintings captured in glass. The subtle variations and softness in the colors is amazing!

In the main platz near the cathedral the Christmas market (Fasnachtmarkt (I think!)) was set up and full of people out socializing. The booths selling Gleuwien and roast chestnuts were the most popular, however you could find every kind of food, sweet, or craft you wanted if you just looked enough.  There were lots of tourists, yes, but there were a lot of Meentzers too.

After walking around for a couple hours, it felt good to sit and enjoyed a cup of Gleuwien, before winding our way back to the train station to catch our flight out to Ekaterinburg.

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