Mainz and the Gutenberg Museum

Thur, April 2, one of my co-workers needed a ride to the hospital in Wiesbaden, Germany for a follow up appointment. He had been there for a while, including surgery a couple months ago. We'd visited and driven him a couple times, so during this trip I was determined to take advantage of it! We dropped Adrian at the hospital, then headed to the next town over (11 km away) Mainz, Germany. Mainz is the place where Gutenberg is from and the home of the Gutengerg press. Brad and I had lunch there and checked out the museum. It was not as much fun as I thought since all the books were in German - duh!, but it seemed to be one of those places we should see, especially since were were so close. The museum had a few copies of Gutenberg bibles we looked at also. In a way it was simply amazing, we were standing in a room with about 30-40 books, all hand copied, all from 1500 or earlier thinking - wow - all of these books predated our country's existence! Another thing I thought was neat/interesting is the Gutenberg bibles were printed without the big letters that started the sections/chapters. Those letter were either stamped in or drawn in with a bunch of additional art included later, depending on what you purchased. So every Gutenberg bible is unique!

Mainz is a pretty town, and it was a beautiful spring day for walking around. While we were just there for 2-3 hours, it was a great time. Our only hiccup was when we parked, under a big parking sign (P) with a parking meter nearby - some guy stopped his car and told us we needed to move since we didn't have a parking pass. Of course - we argued we had just bought our ticket - but he told us the sign meant residents only. We ended up moving our car since we couldn't read the sign, but it sure was suspicious since his only interest was in getting our spot! We did take a picture of the sign and he was right... I guess the parking pass machine was just for some specific spaces, spaces that didn't include the one we were parked in! It'll teach us to always bring the dictionary!!!