Letzte Reise mit der ISU

Today was the final planned trip by the ISU program. What a long trip it was. Leaving around 8:30 in the morning, we headed to our first stop: the Eberbach Monastery. The monastery dates back to around 1135, with most of the original building still intact. A group of Cistercian monks founded the monastery when they felt other orders of monks were getting to lax. For them, life was supposed to be hard. This was reflected in the minimalist architecture and lack of decoration of the monastery, along with daily routines (i.e. praying 7 hours per day, including waking up at 2 or 3 in the morning). The monastery was supposed to be self-sufficient, so they grew their own crops, etc. Eventually, they would begin to grow grapes and turn them into wine to fund the monastery. The success of the winery would later fund more elaborate and decorative upgrades to the monastery.

One bit of design I thought was rather interesting was in the sleeping quarters of the monks. To get to the quarters, you needed to pass through the sanctuary of the monastery and go upstairs. Once you got upstairs, the room was built with a slight slope upwards. This gives the optical illusion of the room being longer than it actually was. The theory is that the room was designed this way to make the outside world in the direction of the room seem further away. When you stand at the end of the room, though, and look back towards the stairwell, the room appears to be smaller. This was said to make the monks feel closer to the Church and God. Not sure if it’s true, but seems logical enough.

One other interesting tidbit: an old Sean Connery movie, The Name of the Rose, was shot mostly at this monastery. From the monastery, we headed towards the Rheingau. Our voyage began at the town of Rüdesheim am Rhein. This small town lies along the banks of the Rhein near the Niederwalddenkmal. Here, we grabbed some food at this little “Weingarten” and hopped on this cruise ship. I qualify it as such since it was really too big to consider a boat, and it takes passengers of cruises along the Rhein. From there, we made our way downstream, passing a multitude of castles, churches, and vineyards. I was amazed by some of the vineyards given that a fair amount are built on really steep sides along the river banks.

We took this cruise just past Lorelei, one of the most famous rocks in Germany. Geographically, it’s the narrowest part of the Rhein between Switzerland and the North Sea. The legend has it that at this place, a beautiful woman used to sit atop the rock and sing. The singing and beauty, combined with the strong river currents, would distract the navigators, causing them to crash.

After passing through this point, we got off the boat and back on the buses. Our final destination before heading back to Marburg was Johannisberg for a wine tasting. We sampled 6 different wines, 5 of which were different types of Riesling. One interesting thing I learned is that Rieslings are graded, with Auslese being the highest. With it being the highest quality and very good, I gave in and bought one, plus another since I couldn’t decide which I liked more. After the long day, we finally returned to Marburg, where I worked on homework until time to sleep. Guess that’s all for today. Bis später…