What with breakfast, and getting organized, it was nearly 9:30 a.m. when we left the hotel and headed westward along the right shore of the Rhine (rechts Rhein as the Germans call it), which in the Rheingau is the north shore. Since much of the first part of this drive covered territory we had seen the previous day, we stayed on various autobahns through Wiesbaden, and then went along the B42 road, which is the major road along this shore of the Rhine, as far as Rüdesheim am Rhein. This town, at one time one of the charming wine villages at the western end of the Rheingau, is now a major destination for most of the river cruise ships, and has become a collection of tacky tourist souvenir shops, and bars serving wine of questionable quality at highly inflated prices. If you are looking for the experience of genuine German wine pubs, look elsewhere in the smaller towns to the east. But Rüdesheim wasn't our destination; we were headed for the Abbey of St. Hildegard of Bingen, which is amidst the vineyards (owned by the abbey) on the hills above Rüdesheim. (Bingen is actually on the other [left] side of the Rhine)
It is in Bingen that Hildegard at a young age became a Benedictine nun early in the 12th c. and eventually became abbess of a monastery she founded at Rupertsberg. Renowned as a mystic, a student of the healing arts, as a composer of (now called) early music, she was also a consultant and advisor to popes, bishops and senior clerics of her time. She was one of the first persons to whom the Roman Catholic church's formal process of canonization of saints was applied, but that process was never actually completed. Despite this, she is universally recognized as a saint, and referred to as such by numerous popes, including recently popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Her remains are encased in an altar at a church named for her at Eibingen, near Rüdesheim.
The modern Abbey of St. Hildegard of Bingen is a community of Benedictine nuns (the full complement is 56 women, including the abbess) of the Beuron congregation of Benedictines (consisting of 12 each monasteries and convents in Germany, many of ancient provenance, but re-opened and modernized in the 19th and 20th centuries). The abbey church is of Romanesque architectural style, build of red sandstone interspersed with quartzite in the early 20th c. The convent and other buildings match in style and colour.Since it would take a booklet to describe this church and community, pictures of both interior and exterior, and a history of St. Hildegard and the abbey are in English here .
But, some few personal observations!
As one walks from the small parking lot along a dusty road toward the abbey, one eventually walks along a very high wall of sandstone and quartzite, seemingly designed to keep out the curious (actually, from an architectural and engineering point of view, this is a retaining wall, designed to keep the abbey and convent from sliding into the valley, especially in extended wet periods). But, then the very first door one reaches in this forbidding wall leads into a largish room designated a "casual visitors" centre. It is intended for hikers, and walkers, and others who are not intending to visit the abbey proper, but might need some refreshment. And thus, in this room are available, free for the taking, water from a cooler, juices, and in a touch of modernity, coffee, espresso and cappucino from an automatic brewing machine. Also available are picture postcards, some booklets about the abbey, and some more extensive small books about the abbey and Benedictine life (there is a donations box for suggested payment for the larger items). All this is a reminder of the requirement in the Rule of St. Benedict (Benedict's treatise on how a monastic community is to live) that all visitors are to be treated as, potentially, being God, or Christ. With typical Benedictine genius, this community has found a modern way of carrying out this duty without tying up one or more sisters (of the very small number available) continually, day and night. (There is also, as usual in Benedictine houses, a guest wing and a "guest" sister, for anyone who wants to stay overnight or longer, with the invitation to participate in the life and work of the convent.)
From this room it is a short walk to an entrance into a small, pretty garden in front of the entrance to the abbey church. Inside, the first impression is of the usual Romanesque church, adequate but low lighting from small windows (this particular building, modern as it is, obviously uses some modern building technology to allow larger windows than genuine Romanesque churches; and the lighting is augmented very subtly by electrical means). The other immediate impression for me was how similar (yet different) this particular church was to the basilica at Maria Laach, with which I am very familiar, having stayed there many times with my friend Brother Marianus. The similarity is not surprising; St. Hildegard was built under the supervision of a monk from Maria Laach (another Beuron congregation community), who was also an architect. And the use of subtle electrical lighting to augment natural light may well be the product of my friend Marianus, who is a master electrician, who did a similar augmentation at Maria Laach, and also is called upon by the sisters at St. Hildegard to do their electrical work.
Here, as at Maria Laach, the first thing one sees upon entering the church is a painting of Christ, in a quarter spherical roof above an apse for the altar. (An apse is a semi-circular altar space, thus geometrically the roof of an apse is a quarter-sphere.) Both the Laach painting and this one show Christ as a young man, from the chest up. In the iconic tradition the depiction is that of Christos Pantocrator, Christ the judge of the world. And, as in the Laach painting, the eyes of Christ are slightly larger than proportional to the face, and no matter where you go in this church, they follow you.
In other ways, St. Hildegard is very different from the basilica at Laach. Architecturally, the most obvious difference is the addition of a choir for the nuns to the left of the altar space (chancel) in the liturgical North. (Regardless of physical orientation, liturgically the altar in churches is in the East, the entrance is in the West, etc., although St. Hildegard is also oriented East-West geographically.) This is a typical distinction between monasteries and convents in the monastic tradition; monks have the choir in the chancel, and participate in worship within view of the full church, nuns have their choir such that they are out of the sight of general worshippers. That is tradition; by no means is it always followed!
The other major difference is that Laach has very little decoration other than the apse painting of Christ; typical of Romaesque churches, where there was generally not enough light to allow viewing of decorative art. St. Hildegard is extensively decorated with paintings of (generally) female saints and other Christian symbolism, as well as a series of paintings of the life of St. Hildegard. All these are in a style called Beuronesque, which draws on various artistic traditions including Art Deco, but going back as far as classical Egypt. One of its characteristics is human figures that appear taller in relation to their width than normal, and muted yet very bright colours. It is hard to describe; it needs to be seen.
Leaving the church, I noticed a bulletin board just outside the entrance, which had the usual information about Mass times, etc. posted, but also a letter from the abbess to attendees at worship, outlining what was required for visitors to receive Holy Communion. It began with a statement that the sisters of St. Hildegard wanted to be as inclusive as possible, but nevertheless needed to be guided by the directives of the German Bishops' Conference, and then outlined the sisters' interpretation of those directives. I read through them carefully, and it became obvious that these had been thought about with great care; without going into details, after careful reflection, I decided that I, an Anglican priest, would have no difficulty receiving communion with the sisters under these condition (sadly, there was no opportunity to do so). I later had a conversation with the sister who ran the abbey wine shop (yes, the abbey wine shop), mentioned who I was and that I had come to the conclusion that I could comply with their conditions and receive communion, and that I thought that this letter had been very carefully drafted. What I got was a grin, and "Yes, we intend to be inclusive; you decide if you are excluded!"
Leaving the abbey church, it is a very few steps to the abbey shop. It sells the usual items in such Benedictine shops in Germany, icons, bronze medallions and sculptures, art books, scholarly works, illuminated cards and frameable inspirational sayings, all produced by Benedictines within the Beuron congregation. I already had a not inconsiderable number of these from my times at Maria Laach. But, there is also the abbey wine shop. St. Hildegard sits among some of the best wine-growing land in the Rheingau, and the sisters produce some very fine wines. I had previously sampled some of them; I mentioned that my friend Marianus from Maria Laach does electrical work for the sisters. As they are part of the same "family" there is no charge or billing for this, but they always send him back to his monastery with a selection of some of their fine product, which he then shares with his brothers and visitors. As I was looking over the selection (yes, drooling; none of these wines will ever make it to Ontario) I started chatting with the sister in charge of the shop. I mentioned where I was from, and that sadly we couldn't get any of these wines in Canada. Well, why didn't I just take a supply home with me? I mentioned weight limits on checked baggage, plus the problem of breakage. Well, why didn't I just carry it with me; she'd be glad to put my selections into a carefully packed box, complete with handle. I explained the problem with liquids on airplanes, at which point she looked very puzzled, and said that any fool ought to be able to tell the difference between wine and explosives. Another reminder that monastics are at once very modern, using the most modern of devices and technology (the wine coolers in this shop would be the envy of connoisseurs [and why does LCBO put their wines out on shelves where the temperature can bounce up and down several degrees whenever the door opens?]), and yet not very much up on the non-essential (to their life) "ways of the world." It goes right back to the Rule of Benedict; that monks (and nuns) are not to distract themselves with worldly matters which do not affect their life, which is one of work in support of their community, and prayer.
Leaving St. Hildegard's, we worked our way back through Rüdesheim to the Rhine shore, and then took the car ferry across the river to Bingen (which is on the left side of the Rhine, left of the direction of flow, that is.) There are no bridges across the Rhine between Wiesbaden and Koblenz (about 70 km), all of the cross-river traffic is carried by ferries, which are actually very efficient, and probably do not take much longer for the crossing than a bridge would require. This also leads to a totally unrelated story (to us that is), but does relate to some of my earlier rants about the limitations of GPS technology.
[It seems that when BMW first put in-car GPS units into their high-end cars, 7 series, they weren't aware that some of the underlying maps, which were on CDs, had "limitations." And thus it was that a couple, in a car worth about $70K was navigating towards a destination on the Rhine that happened to be on the side opposite to the one they were driving on, in a thickish fog! The GPS duly navigated them to one of the ferry docks where they would cross to the other side, and they duly drove off the dock because the GPS didn't know that you had to wait for the ferry! I note that now, my GPS prominently warns that you must drive onto ferries before proceeding.]
After leaving Bingen, we proceeded northward, left-Rhine, along the B9 (Bundesstrasse 9), through the many small towns and villages that dot the shore of the river. Castles abound on this stretch of the river, on both shores. Two things are immediately apparent as one drives; one is the immense amount of traffic on the Rhine itself; barges in both directions carrying every imaginable goods (coal, gravel, bricks,you name it), and passenger ships, both day excursion and multi-day river cruise ships. The second thing one notices is that the road is parallelled by double railway tracks, on each side of the river, and it is seldom that more than a few minutes pass without a train going by in either direction, on either side; passenger trains ranging from local trains, regional express trains, to ICE (Inter City Express), and freight trains, again carrying all kinds of goods. Germany (Europe?) is much more committed to rail travel and freight than North America, and passenger train travel is a very important part of a national transportation strategy - local public transit, streetcars and subways, integrate seamlessly with trains of all kinds, local, regional, and inter-city. (A while back I was a speaker at a conference south of Bonn, staying at a hotel in a little village on the Rhine, which had a streetcar stop outside. It was possible to buy a ticket at that streetcar stop that would allow you to travel to the nearest subway station, and from there to the Bonn railway station, and then on to Cologne by train, and back! We could only wish!)
Eventually, we arrived at the Lorelei. That name is not well-known in North America, but forms a large part of German mythology. Physically, the Lorelei is a rocky promontory around which the Rhine curves not more than 50 or 60 degrees (there are far more abrupt curves, including at least one that goes through about 300 degrees). But, the river also narrows here, and becomes shallow (became, it has been dredged), and there are (were, because in the interest of navigation they have been blown up and removed) sharp rocks onto which ships could be driven while navigating the river. The legend is that a beautiful blonde (of course, this is German mythology) woman sat high up on the rock, singing to the navigators below, luring them onto the rocks (something like the sirens of Greek mythology). We stopped at the Panorama Restaurant Lorelei, sat on the balcony, enjoyed a fine lunch, and watched the passing parade of ships. Even with the improvements to the river, it seems this is still a difficult passage, especially for longer barges and cruise ships, as the channel of deep water is not that wide. There are control stations up and down river, that make sure that there are not two long vessels trying to navigate around the bend at the same time. But, no singing woman (blonde, or otherwise) appeared on the rocks opposite, either!
From the Lorelei it is a short drive up towards Koblenz, and a bridge across the river. The plan was to head towards the Autobahn A3, direction Frankfurt, and get off at Limburg an der Lahn for a visit to the very beautiful (genuine, 11th c.) Romanesque cathedral, which rather than stone, is of timbered construction. (Aside, St. Hildegard's Abbey is in the Diocese of Limburg.) However, this was Wednesday, late afternoon; the next day, Thursday, was Ascension Day, a legal holiday in Germany, and because Ascension Day always falls on a Thursday (40 days after Easter), Germany keeps the next Friday as a "floating" legal holiday. All of this means that upcoming was a 4 day weekend, and everyone in Germany was driving somewhere!
There was no problem driving along the Schnellstrasse (a B-class road, but four lanes and divided) from the Rhine bridge through some very beautiful countryside - forests, broad valleys - until we got onto the A3. Not long after, everything seized up. The GPS traffic receiver caught up with reality somewhat after we were in it - again a problem with this technology, most of the time it is too slow. Radio reports were of a single car accident, but very serious, blocking both lanes, with traffic being directed by on the shoulder. After about 30 minutes, the GPS directed us off onto a detour road, trying to still get us to Limburg. Unfortunately, everyone else was trying the same detour!. About 90 minutes later, we were within distant sight of Limburg, and decided this would not work. After a number of abortive attempts to get the GPS to route us towards our hotel, each of which resulted in it trying to direct us back to the A3 or blocked detour roads, I figured out that the only way out of this mess was to go towards a target about 90 degrees from the direction we actually wanted to go in (Hamburg should have taught me that!) and that is what we did. That brought us through some very pretty country, in a rainstorm, through forests, and eventually the town of Nassau, the seat of that royal family. From there, we were able to navigate towards Wiesbaden, and our hotel, without running into more than normal traffic
All of that leads me to reflect that, excellent as the German road system is, including the pre-planned detour system, it is very fragile. When it is operating at its limit, such as at the beginning of a long weekend, or in vacation season, an accident in one place can trigger massive congestion on every other road in the general area. GPS and traffic receivers are not much help, especially if everyone is using them, as then everyone is trying to detour on the same routes. Much more immediate feedback on traffic conditions on both primary and secondary roads, and more central intelligence is needed before the technology is actually useful. As it is, it still requires input from the driver, and some reasoning which might actually be counter-intuitive, such as navigating in a direction opposite one's destination.
In the event, we did not see Limburg, but we did get to the hotel in good time to get supper, fill up the car in preparation for its return, and pack for the morning, and the flight back home.
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