We spent a day in Giessen at the Justus von Liebig Museum
and Mathematikum. Liebig is considered the father of organic
chemistry and the museum maintains his old chemistry labs
with brick fume hoods and wood-burning furnaces.
Mathematikum is a very entertaining math-centered museum
with fun puzzles and games. Our next outing was with Dr.
Arduengo to a nearly 900 year-old abbey very close to our
home in Eltville. Kloster Eberbach is a former monastery and
vineyards surrounded by woods.
Fun fact: fermentation barrels have a candle on the top at
approximately nose height so that when carbon dioxide (a byproduct
of fermentation) fills the cellar, it will extinguish the flame and warn
the monks to get out before they suffocate. After the monastery, we
drove to Rüdesheim to see the Niederwalddenkmal monument
commemorating the unification of Germanic tribes into the German
Empire.
Our last weekend in Germany was incredibly busy. Saturday was a
tour of Wiesbaden. Though I had passed through the city every day
on the way to Mainz, I hadn’t gone much further than the train
station. The afternoon began with a scenic drive and a view of the
city from the top of a hill. We rode down the hill on a water-powered
train, drank mineral water from a natural hot spring, and peeked into
an ornate casino.
