Lost in Frankfurt: Wining in the Rheingau

So last Tuesday, my friend Doug (see the lovely picture to the right) and I took our Feiertag (holiday) and went to the Rheingau to sip Rieslings and see the sites.

It was beautiful and I have to say the landscape quite resembled Wisconsin. Doug and I both think that's why there were so many German settlers who moved to the area when they immigrated. It reminded them of home.

This was my first time driving in Germany on the Autobahn and I can't lie, driving the Autobahn is everything you could imagine and more. The speed and the fun of driving a fast German car is a combination that practically guarantees very fun driving. Granted I have to do this in kilometers, but I was going an easy 140km and was being passed by people who were going at least 200km and probably even fast than that. Fun and slightly terrifying all at once. I do have to say that German drivers really are impressive. Apparently they have to take a very

expensive course here in order to receive their license and then they have an incredibly long probationary period where their license can be taken away for any tiny infraction. On a side note, I should be receiving my have an Illinois driver's license I am able to drive 10 ton trucks in German driver's license sometime in the next few weeks. How fun is that? And because I the United Kingdom. I don't know about you, but as much faith as I have in my driving abilities the thought of me behind a truck that size on the left hand side of the road is a touch frightening. . . .

Back on track again, Doug and I started out on Tuesday morning from the agency and hopped right onto the Autobahn to a town called Eltville. It was a really pretty town, in some ways exactly how I would have pictured a little German town along the Rhein River. We stopped to poke around a bit, but in order to do that I had to park the car. Can I just tell you that I don't know if I will ever understand how Germans know where they can and cannot park on the street? As far as I can tell they just put their car on a sidewalk wherever there happens to be some space. But beyond that I have yet to figure out what signs or street markings actually indicate that a person can park there without getting a ticket.

After finding parking we wandered around Eltville for a little while and found this really beautiful church right in the center. Actually it was a little complex of church buildings. Very cool stuff inside, all open to the public for no charge. The funny thing was that right up next to the alter I found this sign, obviously made in Sunday school class or something like that:

Such a random little class project , Shabbat Shalom in what is obviously a church.

Anyhow, we left the church and were on our way back to the car and out of Eltville when we noticed a sign for a Flohmarkt that was taking place just outside of the town with music and food and stuff like that. We decided to drive up since it looked like it was little ways away. But once we saw the crowds and the random stuff people were carrying away from the Flohmarkt, we decided to forgo the Flohmarkt in favor of a historic monastery called the Kloster Eberbach. My German teacher Petra had told me about this particular stop on the route we were planning to follow. It is one of her favorite places and by great luck, also has rather lovely Rieslings to sample and purchase as well.

The Kloster Eberbach was incredibly impressive. Beyond the history, the buildings and main chapel were really pretty breathtaking. So breathtaking in fact, that part of the movie "The Name of the Rose" was filmed on the premises within the main chapel. The acoustics within the space were unbelievable. I could stand in one corner and whisper to Doug and he could hear me as if I was standing right next to him.

Check out these pictures of the chapel:

This is the original main chapel, also where they filmed some of the "Name of the Rose". They actually still have a set piece from the film in the chapel today.

This here was originally the dormitory for the full monks. Any laymen who were dedicated to Christ but hadn't taken full vows slept elsewhere in order to keep the monks from being disturbed.

This is the view from the dormitory window down into the courtyard.

Once we had worked our way through the main religious buildings we got to the really interesting part, the wine presses and wine cellar. I've never seen wine presses like these before, they were really quite large and they had some wonderful detail on them. The presses themselves had a number assigned to it, but neither Doug nor I could quite figure it out how it was ordered.

The wine presses at Kloster Eberbach.

Detail from the wine presses.

The wine bike. OK, so I don't actually know what this is, but it looks like something one would pedal around after pressing wine all day long.

The wine casks.

And of course after seeing the casks we had to go and sample some of the wines from Kloster Eberbach, which were delicious. I had no idea how different Rieslings could taste from one vintage to another. We each went home with at least a case of wine if not a little more. And head home is what we did after checking out the Kloster Eberbach. On the way home we managed to somehow get lost when we were only about five minutes from the agency. I'll tell you something, you really start to understand how much you're picking up a language when you have to ask for directions in it. Somehow Doug and I managed to ask for directions in German and then actually follow them when they were given to us in German. Not too bad for new German learners.

So, Happy Ascension Day!

And of course, this wouldn't be complete without a last few pictures that I just couldn't quite fit in next to all the text:

The Door of St. Michaelskapelle.