Mainz All Mine

In the middle of the marketplace stands a column called the " Heunensäule ." Erected there in 1975 to mark the 1,000th anniversary of the building of Mainz Cathedral, it was a column that had been quarried but never used by the original builders. Around the base of the column are four bronze headpieces, each a symbol of Mainz's history: a bishop's mitre, for the Archbishop of Mainz's role as head of the German Church and one of seven electors of the Holy Roman Emperor; a gladiator's helmet, representing Mainz's Roman history; a jester's hat, to show Mainz's place as a carnival city; and, finally, an imperial crown (pictured, right) . The crown is recognizable to students of German history as the Rheichskrone , an octagonal crown studded with jewels and topped by a cross. The crown was created in the early years of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE), probaby the 10th or 11th century. It has been passed down, emperor to emperor ever since , and it can still...

 The first thing one notices about Mainz is its Dom , officially named St. Martin's Cathedral . (If you look carefully at the roof of the cathedral, you will see a statue of the generous Roman officer riding his horse away from the Rhine--in the photo below, the statue is hidden, but it lies to the right of the central tower.) Mainz was the birthplace of Christianity in Germany. An English missionary, St. Boniface , arrived in the early 8th Century, to christianize the peoples beyond the Rhine. His efforts were successful, and Mainz became Germany's first archbishopric, eventually becoming the center of German Christianity similar to the position of England's archbishops of Canterbury -- with one important difference: as Germany grew to an empire, the Archbishop of Mainz held one of seven key electoral votes in the choosing of the emperor. Begun in 975, the cathedral is a chaotic mishmash of architectural styles that emerged over the centuries it took to complete the thing....

 The first few days of travel are key. That's when themese start to emerge, where traditions are made. We were in Berlin's Tiergarten, at the base of the Siegesäule  a.k.a. the Victory Column that is topped with the golden angel I wrote about elsewhere . "You want to go up to the top?" I can't remember who asked the question first. The answer was 'yes'. And with a can-do, "all for one" spirit, we dutifully paid our 4 euros and ascended the spiral steps to an amazing view above the park.  Far in the distance, the dome of the Reichstag popped up above the trees. We looked down the Strasse des 17. Junis at the Brandenberg Gate. Berlin lay at our feet. Only Victory herself was above us. This began a tradition we would follow faithfully throughout the trip. A few days later, after our walk down Unter den Linden, we climbed to the top of the cathedral to have a look around (Photo: the view of the Altes Museum and the Lustgarten from the cathedral dome)...

  A Poem In a green garden Once the provenance of Dukes And royal riffraff-- Its lawns mowed, flowers planted For Wurttemburg's elect Today children play, Workers nosh on sack lunches Stuttgar lives and breathes Its former potentates' Gardens for all men-- Common luxuries.

I grew up in the middle of a large forest in southeastern Ohio on a low, flat hill called "Tick Ridge." Perhaps it's all the lonely days I spent alone, populating the woods with creatures of my imagination, that explains my fascination with timeless tales. Grimm's fairy tales were an early interest, but so were the tales of King Arthur. Written in medieval Britain, based loosely on characters 500-800 years older still, the stories populate the forests of England with knights errant, strange, magical ponds, dragons, and other amazing characters. At the center of all the action (until the final battle) stands Camelot: a fantastic castle at whose heart lies the Round Table. While many locations around Britain lay claim to being the place on which the stories are based, Camelot is a castle of the readers' mind, and it will always be that way. At the same time that Chretien de Troyes and, later, Thomas Malory, were fleshing out the tales of Lancelot, Guinevire, and Ar...

I don't know of any culture where grilling isn't a "thing." I have been in the Republic of Georgia, where a pig or goat was butchered right near the spot where its meat was grilled. I remember the looks of pride on the grillers' (men) faces as they showed their carefully spiraled skewers. I have, of course, been to many cookouts in the US, both at friends' houses and at remote locations like a lake. Veggies are crisper, burgers are tastier, everything tastes yummier--summerier--when it's grilled. But nothing quite matches the German Grillparty . Germans are serious folks, and that comes out in their grilling. The most common type of grill I've seen is the suspended grill (see photo below from a grill party in 2019). A bed of coals will be laid out with a grill dangling over it. The cooks bring the marinted meat and get to work. Sometimes the grill is cone-shaped with a higher metal ring to keep the cooked meats warm until they are ready to eat.  German...