2009.04. - Rheingau and Wiesbaden

At last -

Julia & Daniel returned from Austria -
personally delivered by Omi and Opa.

And look at the nice T-shirt Annie got as a present !


Luckily, apart from the preparations for D's Communion, we also found time for a trip to Assmanshausen on the Rhein in the Rheingau region.




We decided to take the Chair Lift up to the Hill top and hike around the famous Monument in the woods.












The Monument (Niederwalddenkmal) is beautiful.
It symbolizes the rebuilding of the German Empire after the French-German war 1870/71.
The main figure is the Germania, holding up the German Emperor´s crown in her right hand and the imperial sword in her left hand.
The Monument is almost 40 meters high.

Not only the Monument itself but also the view across the river is breathtaking.


And while Daniel tried to teach Annie how to "paint" with a rock,



I still didn't have enough of enjoying the view.

Because the Rheingau region has an exceptionally mild microclimate, well protected by the high Taunus hills, some compare it to a small ‘Burgundy on the Rhine’.

The river from which the Rheingau has its name has a width of approximately 1 kilometre. It has been inhabited by noblemen and clergymen alike for thousands of years creating some of the most significant collection of historical buildings in Germany.

Amongst others, the world famous Cistercian monastery of Eberbach, the Tiefenthal and Marienthal monasteries or the Abbey of St. Hildegard. The Crass castle in Eltville on the Rhine, Reinharthausen castle, Vollrads castle, Johannisberg castle — just some significant and well preserved edifices of the centuries old cultural heritage of the Rheingau.

As it turns out - there is a lot more to see here than time available.
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The other trip, to the Museum "Schloss Freudenberg" in Wiesbaden, we actually made to meet up and show it to Kelly, Alena and Corvin.

It is a thrilling interactive Museum which plays with your Senses while you experiment and play with and then simple natural and also more complicated scientific events.


Right at the entrance there are two "singing bowls" (Klangschale).

You just have to gently rub the bowl's handles on both sides to produce a humming sound.
The uniqe feature of this activity is that you don't only hear but can actually see the sound waves as the wrinkles appear on the water surface.


This room here has metal bars hanging from the ceiling with huge bowls fixed directly over them.

Now comes the good part - you have to hammer on the bar to produce sounds and alter the frequency by touching, rubbing the bar and change its vibration.

Obviously, this collection in the next hall is also about sound.
Drums of different material, shape and size.
And what a difference it makes in the sound!

I was surprised to find out that to make them louder you don't hit them stronger but more often in short sequence.
Some of these drums are made of very expensive material, so the kids were actually instructed how to play them gently.


But up to the Room of Light, Shade and Colors!






And these are some of the Compositions the kids came up with behind the canvas ...





We moved on to the Wall of Smells.

The game we played went like this - one person turned his/her back on the wall, the others then made him/her smell something. The question was: what smells like this ?

Some you think should have been easy - but without seeing the sign they turned out to be pretty hard.

Needless to say, not all the smells on display were pleasant ! (:(




In another hall we found a huge wooden plate where you had to team up and manage coordination to roll a ball in the middle by tilting the plate just at the right speed in the direction required.

The kids were so curious and active, they definitely deserved a treat in the Museum's Cafe.


It's decoration is very unconventional.

The walls are painted like being in the status of falling apart and there is one upper corner where giant ants are crawling out from a huge hole in the ceiling.


In the middle of the Cafe is a table with a huge open mouth and lots of small plates with different spices to try.


The Museum also has an outdoor experimental area, playground and a Bare Foot Trail but neither the weather nor the time available allowed us to go out this time. Next time.