This was to be a day spent with family; my step-brother Karlheinz, his daughters Angela (her first name) or Dorothea (her middle name, as she now prefers to be called) and Sylvia, and their respective children, Elena and Felix.
We started out with a glitch; when visiting a German home, especially one with an adult woman, it is customary to bring flowers. Last year, Scott and I had discovered that directly across from our hotel was a flower shop, where we duly bought a lovely bouquet to give to Sylvia. I assumed the shop would still be there; German businesses tend to persist. Unfortunately, this year that shop had become an optician, and the very nice receptionist told me that the flower shop had moved several kilometres away, to an area that would seriously delay us.
So we went on to Sylvia's address, using the GPS to navigate; and again, unfortunately, road construction, traffic, one-way streets seriously delayed us. The electronic systems are beginning to be useful, but there needs to be much more "catch-up" happening - rather than map updates every few months, they need to happen "live" - and that technology already exists in the form of the traffic receivers, which supposedly get up-to-the-minute (probably more like 30 minutes) updates on traffic conditions - why not also update maps that way? (My guess is that the electronic map companies [there are only two serious players] are protecting their revenue.) But, that just needs a change in thinking; already Garmin makes available a life-time (of the GPS unit) update of maps, but requiring an Internet connection, and considerable time (think hours) for the download of an entire map for a continent. Why not an incremental download of only significant changes daily (new detours, construction, etc.) over the traffic receiver connection, or, if that is problematical, daily or weekly, over an Internet connection which automatically updates devices connected with the proper subscription (if they can do it with whole maps, they can do it with "micro" maps.) I suspect that the problem is not a technological one, but one of how to "monetize" this sort of incremental update. My suspicion is confirmed by the fact that Tom-Tom, the other major GPS Company, seems to be able to do just that.
Whatever! After a quick getting re-acquainted (June and Karlheinz) and getting acquainted (June and Sylvia), plus some cell phone consultation (Germans use cell phones to the point where land-line phones are almost irrelevant - assisted by airtime and data plans that are much more reasonable than those in Canada - for a start legally there can be no charge for incoming calls or text) with Dorothea and the grand-children about where we would meet for lunch we were off for a driving tour of Wiesbaden.
A deconstruction of the name; any German town with bad or baden in its name is usually a spa (bad means bath, baden means bathing - but generally these words mean places where there are healing mineral waters, either to be drunk or bathed in. Wies means meadow, thus Wiesbaden translates, roughly, as the spa in the meadow, except that the meadow has long vanished. Today, there is still the Kurbad (rough translation would be the source of the healing waters), where one can drink of the mineral spring, but also a casino, and the Kurgarten, the large formal grounds in which one can walk and relax. And also, lots and lots of really good shopping!
We drove up the Neroberg (Nero's mountain, or better, hill), a large elevated and forested hill within Wiesbaden. Near the top is the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Elizabeth (the mother of John the Baptist). This is the largest Russian Orthodox church in Europe, and is a reminder of the strong connections between European (especially German) royalty and nobility, and the Russian royal family (the Romanovs).
St. Elizabeth's is the burial place of a Russian princess (named Elizabeth Mikhailovna Romanov, Grand Duchess of Russia and Duchess of Nassau) who was the wife of Duke Adolf of Nassau (Nassau being the principality); her father was the younger brother Michael of Tsar Alexander I and Tsar Nicholas. She died in childbirth at age 19, and her husband built St. Elizabeth church as a monument to her; both she and her infant child are buried in the crypt. The church is classical Russian orthodoxy; richly decorated with icons and very beautiful both inside and out. It still has a worshipping community of Russian Orthodox, remaining from what was in the 19th c. a large presence of Russian nobility (and of course servants) and intellectuals. In the nearby Russian cemetery many Russian nobles lie buried, as well as Orthodox clergy and bishops who served in Europe. Historically, the Orthodox churches in Germany and the rest of Europe, although dating from a time when Russian nobility and royalty spent as much time in Europe as in Russia (and when the language of the Russian court was French!), in modern times are credited with having done much to preserve Russian Orthodoxy during the Soviet rule of Russia.
Also from the Neroberg one gets great views of Wiesbaden, Mainz and Frankfurt to the East, and the Rhine valley to the West. There are several good viewing points, secured with walls, where one can look over Wiesbaden, with the nearby hillside covered with vineyards; a constant reminder of this very important "industry" in this area.
For lunch we drove some distance to the Domäne Mechtildshausen, which is a large organic farm, growing grains, beef and dairy cattle, market garden products, ornamental garden plants, and of course, wine. They operate several bakeries, producing bread and pastries, a dairy producing milk, cream, butter and cheese, and a butcher's shop producing sausages and other meats. On the very large property are two restaurants serving almost exclusively the products of the Domäne, and a market shop selling everything grown and produced there. Also of note, the Domäne, which is publically owned (more on that later), is currently leased and operated by a privately run social service agency for youth training and apprenticeships, in some cases for developmentally challenged youth, in what appears on short experience to be a very successful public-private (to use our terms) partnership.
Again, a brief excursus on history and the name of this place. Domäne translates into English as "domain" but perhaps in this context a better equivalent would be the medieval English "forest," meaning an area of land reserved for the use of the monarch, with its own laws and officials, even though it might include farms and even towns. The history of the Domäne goes back at least 1500 years, and in German is described as a Königssondergau (special royal district). At the time of the Holy Roman Empire, it was the site of an imperial court which could pronounce and execute death sentences. Its first appearance in documents is in the 12th c. and thereafter its ownership was often in dispute, moving at various times between the Archdiocese of Mainz, the Lords (Herren) of Epstein, and the Principalities (Fürstentümer) of Nassau and Hessen-Darmstadt. In 1945 the German Federal State of Hessen became the legal successor to these.
As for the name, it is problematical. The German suffix hausen has its root in the plural of haus - houses, but generally indicates a town or village. Mechtild is the name of at least two medieval German mystics of the 12th c., Mechtild of Magdeburg, and Mechtild of Hackeborn; the two are loosely associated as living at around the same time, and both being Benedictine nuns. However, they lived considerably east of Wiesbaden/Mainz, in what today is Saxony (Sachsen) and Saxony-Anhalt (Sachsen-Anhalt), and it is difficult to see how their name gets attached to the Domäne. It may be that the first mention in documents of the Domaine in 12 c., the time of these two mystics, and the "ownership" by the Archdiocese of Mainz may have affected the choice of name; or as Mechtild is not an uncommon name in early German, and as the history of the Domäne goes back to Merovingian times (5th to 8th c.), it may simply be a name of an important resident in its early history.
In any case, it is at the Domaine that we were joined by Dorothea (Angela) and her daughter Elena, and by Sylvia's son Felix. The last time I had seen both Elena and Felix was at my father's funeral in 2002; in the meantime both have grown up into teenagers, so it was good to see them again. We were seven for lunch, and initially there was no table available outside, thus we started inside, with a request to be moved outside when a table became available. That turned out to have consequences! The food was excellent (and presumably healthy as it was all the product of the Domaine) and the service was very good, until we moved outside. I mentioned above that the Domaine trains youth, and developmentally challenged youth. Our young waiter, although very competent in other ways, was not able to deal with a move of table, and thus some of our order (mostly drinks) never arrived, and some arrived twice! But it was nevertheless an excellent lunch, in a beautiful and charming setting, which serves a good cause. I highly recommend it, with one caveat; because this is a training establishment, one cannot assume that the wait staff understand English, and a little bit of "restaurant" German is needed. (Of course, that is true of any of the small restaurants in villages that I prefer when travelling in Germany.)
After lunch only Karlheinz continued with us as we travelled westward along the Rhine into the Rheingau, an area famed for its very good wines, almost exclusively Riesling wines for which the local soil is ideal. Geographically, the Rhine generally goes north-south after it leaves Lake Constance (Bodensee in German - again, why does English insist on naming geographic features with names that have nothing to do with what the locals call them?), except for a short stretch, about 25 km, between Wiesbaden and Bingen, for which it goes east-west. The north shore along this stretch, which is a gently rising hill from the river level to perhaps 200 m higher, gets full sun from the south, and thus is ideal for growing wine. This is the area called the Rheingau, and is home to some of the finest of German wines. (Schloss Johannisberg is a well-known wine producer; it is here that the Spätlese was discovered by accident. Spätlese [late pickings] is the wine that results from picking grapes late, when they are drying up and may even be beginning to rot, resulting in a wine that is especially flavourful, because of the concentration of sugars and flavours in the grape.) It is in the Rheingau that some of the best-know wine producers are concentrated; Johannisberg, Mumm, Müller, Henckel, etc. It is also the home to many (nearly 5000) small, family owned vineyards, which produce a few hundred to a few thousand cases of wine per year, sold locally, seldom shipped, and unless imported personally, never found in North America. In the past, I have gone to some of these small producers with Karlheinz; typically, one sits in the family living room while bottles are brought out to be sampled, at the end of which one can buy a few bottles, or a few cases, which they cheerfully load into your car, but if you want to ship them, that is your problem. Very much businesses that still rely on personal relationships!
As one drives along the north shore of the Rhine is this area, it is obvious that wine is king! Acres and acres of vineyards, and in the small towns the chief businesses are small wine bars and restaurants, most often with attached wine retail store, that populate the streets. Again, these serve and sell the wine of small producers, often those of the family of the owners.
After a drive-through the area, we went to Schloss Rheinhartshausen, only a few meters north of the Rhine shore, at one time (until the late 20th c.) one of the residences of the Prussian royal family, who, confusingly since the 1940s when the "pretender" to the Prussian throne found refuge in England, are British with the surname Mansfield, and associated through marriage with the Guiness family - such is the confusion of European nobility. Rheinhartshausen is also one of the great vineyards in the Rheingau, with some 200 acres in cultivation, and again, the Schloss is not only a residence, but also a wineshop of considerable fame Christie's, among others auctions the product of great years. Since the very late 20th c. it is a part of the Kempinski chain's "small hotels of note," rating 5 stars, with a restaurant rated with 1 Michelin star. (For the quality and location it is surprisingly reasonable; €165 for a quality room to about €500 for a multi-room suite, for two persons; at the low end that is less than twice what we were paying for much lesser-rated hotels.)
Aside from the location and the beautiful gardens, the reason for our visit was to be found in the Wintergarten restaurant, a large, glassed-in terrace overlooking the Rhine. Here we had coffee (excellent) and Rieslingtorte (undescribably good). The torte is a buttercream cake, made with Riesling wine, and containing Riesling grapes. The flavour is not really describable, except to say that it is worth the drive!
From Rheinhartshausen it is a short drive east to the town of Eltville am Rhein, the wine, sekt (German sparkling wine) and roses town. It has a lovely promenade along the river, with formal rows of plane trees (trimmed to excess), with several outdoor wine bars where one can sample the local product. Also along the river are the estates of some of the big wine producers, Mumm and Müller among them. A major attraction is a rose garden in the grounds of the town castle, with hundreds of varieties of roses, also rhododendrons, flourishing in formal beds and climbing walls. The town itself is worth a walk-through, with many timbered houses, large estates with associated small wineries, and the inevitable wine bars and restaurants, with associated wine shops. Also notable is that this town was the location of Johannes Gutenberg's printing shop, where he first began to experiment with printing with movable type. Although Gutenberg is usually associated with Mainz (not all that far away, and now the location of the Gutenberg museum) it is in fact Eltville where movable-type printing originated. Sadly, other than a plaque on the house where Gutenberg's shop was, nothing else remains of that major innovation.
After Eltville, we returned to Wiesbaden and Sylvia's home, for us to pick up our car which we had left parked there. Then back to our hotel, and light supper, and to bed, ready to rise early for our last day of travel.
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