i am a boat.
in late august my parents visited me for one week-end to go check out the weinfest ( wine festival ) in mainz and while i didn't take a lot of photos, we still spent a nice time at the festival, drank good riesling wine and had nice conversations with some strangers. i also broke the news to my parents that there was probably something romantic on the horizon and that it might be a real thing. i was still a bit cautious about it being a possible reality, but considering that i felt not a single warning signal & truly feeling good about falling in love with this man ( not even a tiny bit scared like i usually do whenever i had a crush on someone in the past ), i was optimistic, something that not only surprised my parents, but also me. somehow, against all odds, it seemed like love had finally found me and was reciprocated. it was a huge thing, admitting to my parents that maybe, possibly, i was not 'lost' when it came to romantic relationships. whatever that meant back then, i can assure you that these days, i definitely don't think i am lost and that i am also worth something even if i ain't in a relationship - you know, first of, i need to be in a relationship with myself, right? and being single does not feel horrible to me anymore, i actually enjoy my own company most of the time ( especially in times when i have had too much contact with people, which is... often 😅).
anyway, a good time was had on that evening, and i think visiting the wine festival in mainz should become a little tradition, because the area where it takes place - the city park - was such a wonderful, green and uncaged setting. which, as someone who mostly is used to the tight and narrow terrain of the wiesbaden wine festival in the inner city where the crowds amass in a very claustrophobic way and you rarely find a nice place to sit, is something that feels very liberating and alleviative. and the citizens of mainz in general are so much easier and relaxed than wiesbaden citizens, and have their focus more on good times being held, than the wiesbaden notion of 'seeing people and wanting to be seen'. so if i had to choose i would always accept mainz as my first choice of regional cities that hold wine festivals around this region every year ( and in a wine region like this, there are MANY wine festivals).
winterhafen, a harbour for yachts and boats. the first picture in this post shows a boat that bore my name, just in dutch syntax. my name originally is a dutch one, it's a minimization of the name maria, basically means 'little/tiny maria'.
not far away from the stadtpark there's a really beautiful train bridge - the südbrücke - which you can cross as a pedestrian, too and will lead you to ginsheim-gustavsburg on the other side of the rhine river. it was originally built in 1862 but destroyed in world war 2 - only the two west towers on each side of the bridge still exist of that former structure. the bridge you see these days was built in 1949 and i love it a lot, because its metal construction is a treat for the eye, especially when you walk by, as it creates the illusion of movement.
hiding inside the walls of the towers and fundaments of the bridge are lots of doves who peeked curiously out of their homes.
a train traversing the bridge onto the other side of it.
caught my mom watching something in the sky by this little jetty.
some forlorn looking facility - something that always seems to attract me whenever i am somewhere, especially when lots of growth is involved.
the stairs leading up to the facility.
servus - the middle european way to say 'hi-ya'! i think that's a very good name for a friendly boat ;)
the day after our visit to the wine festival we made our way to kostheim - one of the little districts that once actually belonged to mainz, but after the world war were incorporated into wiesbaden city. we strolled along the banks of the rivers rhine & main, along the peninsula maaraue and enjoyed the lovely pre-autumnal weather ( which was for once not too hot and promised the first arrival of my beloved autumn ).
after a very dry summer the meadows were all really dried out, in case you are wondering why it looks a little desert-like. this is the view from maaraue peninsula over the rhine river to mainz.
my favourite view from the peninsula is this one - with the ancient mainz cathedral, some of the medieval city towers, wilhelminian city houses and the very modern and abstract city hall in close vicinity. juxtapositions, y'all! is what i'm living for 😅
the city hall of mainz is a pretty neat-looking brutalist gem built between 1970 and 1974 and was designed by arne jacobsen & otto weitling ( but consequently completed by the company dissing+weitling ). arne jacobsen was known for his very aesthetic functionalist work - worldwide. that mainz boasts such an iconic building is pretty awesome in my opinion.
a close-up of the facade with it's differently coloured natural stone clinkers and sunscreen grid windows. the building is lovingly called fox's den ( after the name of the mayor at that time it was built who went by the surname fuchs, which is german for fox ) or the civil servant's jail. i like the jail name most 😂
on we moved, past the maaraue open air pool, which was strangely deserted ( it should actually be open in august ) and looked sort of semi-arid as well. i've never been there for swimming, but maybe plan to change that this summer. the hole terrain looks big enough to not get trampled over and find a small cute plot of lawn to hang out on, without having the constant feeling of being penned up.
the strolling path along the main river was so beautifully suffused with light ❤
from time to time we scrambled over the rocky banks to take a look or two at the river. on the other side of it the city of ginsheim-gustavsburg is situated. the river level was pretty low back then, as stated before, it hadn't rained in weeks. everything was dried out.
the main river also has a few abandoned channels and they happen to dry out in especially low-moisture seasons. this branch is one of those channels. here you can still see some water...
...but the further you went inland the more the water vanished.
found some shiny shells.
here the water was completely gone and plants had taken over.
it's wondrous how fast plants can grow. i'm pretty sure this channel gets flooded fully sometimes ( you can still see wet soil here and there, which means it wasn't completely dried out ), but when you look at the scenery you could assume that the plants are always part of the equation and rarely flooded. maybe i should try to visit this place in winter, when oftentimes the water level is a lot higher, and shoot some comparison photos. i really liked this little place, nobody climbed down here to take a closer look, except my family and i! it felt so secluded and nice.
getting closer to the water. this is a typical floodplain situation here, with alluvial trees growing towards the ( missing ) water.
such a pretty setting!
we got a little closer to the bridge that links ginsheim-gustavsburg with kostheim. there's lots of industrial enterprises over there.
there was someone getting ready to canoe in the river and it created a perfect picture! the yellow is really striking and sort of elevates the picture to a more interesting one! in the back you can see the kostheim bridge.
oh, i really dig those rocky river banks.
also can be found on the promenade in kostheim: st. kilian. it sits right next to the main river.
and on and on we rambled on...
... until we reached our final destination after which we returned back to our initial starting point. this is the lookout tower of kostheim. you probably remember it from my sunday walk in june 2018, when i first visited this place.
i think i will never get tired of the paper company's factory buildings.
and definitely not over the ivy overtaking everything! and isn't the coloration so chic?
whatever you were or are, brick stone building, you are very dear to my heart with your weathered look.
the colours were so fucking good that day, thanks to the sunny weather. ( for comparison the factory on a clouded day, click here ).
the kostheim skyline!
on our way back i admired beautiful freshly peeled sycamore trees. in my head i call them ghost trees.
some buildings of the open air swimming pool on the maaraue peninsula look quite a bit abandoned. the facility was opened in 1965 and therefore features traits of that era. the whole project was widely acclaimed by the people of the past, and a pretty well-known architect designed it as well, so it really is beyond my understanding why they let these buildings rot away like this.
the lido was designed by franz schuster, an important figure of the style 'neues bauen' ( new objectivity ) who also built the opelbad in wiesbaden. the entry building is listed and you can see why. the elegance of the clean lines is quite striking. i really love the little pay kiosk as well.
not far away from the lido you can find this peculiar sun dial. it's from 1980 and shows you the summer time, and how late it is in other parts of the world when it's noon or midnight here.
it also tells you your position on the global map, 50 degree north and 8 degree 15 minutes east.
on the peninsula you have several chances to sit down and grab some bites. this particular restaurant was pretty scenic and even offered some hammocks to relax out on! it's called restaurant rheinschanze and serves southern european cuisine. i hope to check this one out, too, eventually.
our little stroll ended here and my parents had to head back to thuringia on the very same day.
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