Magial Mystery Day Trip

Day 47

After 6 weeks of meticulously planned exploring we decided this morning just to go to the station and see where the next train was going, and if it was somewhere interesting, just to get on.

That’s exactly what we did, the train to Saarburcken stopped at Bad Kreuznch and we got off.  This is a wine growing part of Germany, large swathes of vineyards, small towns dotted along, a couple of larger industrial looking towns and our half an hour trip flew by.  It had rained last night in Mainz and was grey and murky looking this morning.  We crossed our fingers that the rain would hold off and as luck would have it, were rewarded with beautiful clear blue skies.

We got off the train and looked around – hmmmm cant see anything special here, hope we’ve not made a gigantic mistake.  But I spotted a steeple in the distance and then a sign that said ‘Altstadt’ … so we had a start.  Down through a fairly modern looking high street and soon the familiar half timbered buildings came into view.

Home now to around 50,000 residents it’s a gorgeous ton with an amazing long and varied history. About 58 BC, the area became part of the Roman empire and as late as 250AD a Roman legion was stationed here. Then from the 10^th to the 12^th centuries, land in and around the area was under the ownership of an assortment of Holy Roman Emperors including Otto, Friedrich and various Henrys.   

Over the centuries there have been 8 monasteries, 2 synagogues (though the Jewish population has always been a very small percentage of the population) During the 30 Year War it was over-run 8 times and possession switched between the French, the Spanish and the Swedes.  During the Napoleonic Wars it was occupied by both the French & the Austrians, and eventually passed to the Kingdom of Prussia in 1815

In 1904, the pharmacist Karl Aschoff discovered the Kreuznach brine's radon content and the town was quickly billed as a "radium healing spa."   In 1917 Kaiser Wilhelm II arrived and lived in one of the spa houses. In December 1917, General Mustafa Kemal Pasha – better known as Atatürk, the Kaiser and  Paul von Hindenburg met for talks. 

From 1939 to 1940, it became the seat of the German Army High Command, and was heavily targeted by Allied air raids before being captured by US troops in March 1945.

We headed into the Altstadt and just wandered the streets delighting in the old half-timbered buildings and the gorgeous views up and down the Nahe River from the famous Alte Naheburcke. 

Then it was up to the remains of the 1631 Kauzenburg at the top of the hill for some glorious views over the landscape before coming back to wander some more.

There’s a produce market on Tuesdays in the grounds of St Pauls church so we checked this out and bought some cheese.

Tonight we had dinner with our dear friends Matthias & Dagmar and were delighted and surprised that their daughter Alissa (who we first met when she was Lauren's 'exchange sister' in 2005/6) could join us – we thought she’s gone back to South Africa for work.  Tomorrow we’re off to explore Frankfurt with them.