Mainz Travel Forum

I am traveling with 12 high school students to South Africa. We have a 12 hour layover in Frankfurt in April from 10:50 a.m. until 10:40 p.m.. We heard that Mainz would be a good day trip. Can anyone give me any information about traveling to/from the Frankfurt airport, getting around Mainz once we are there, and things to see/do? Can we get a tour or train tickets set up in advance? Is that even necessary? Thanks.

I enjoyed my daytrip to Mainz some years ago - I went to the Gutenberg Museum (since I am in electronic printing) and had a great time. See http://www.gutenberg-museum.de/

You can take a train direct from the airport to Mainz. See www.bahn.de for schedules. It seems that there may be as many as 5 trains an hour that are direct. There may be different fares as there are different speeds of trains. I know that locals have posted info here about taking slower trains and saving money...perhaps they will join in.

Once you are in Mainz, you can walk to the Museum; I vaguely recall that this brought me through an open-air market among other things. I don't know what else is there, but I am sure that there are tips here...

Bill

http://www.mainz.de/WGAPublisher/online/html/default/mkuz-5sybxc.en.html
tours:
http://www.mainz.de/WGAPublisher/online/html/default/mkuz-5u6gbj.en.html

From Frankfurt Airport regional train station (in the basement of Terminal 1) take a S-Bahn or RE train to Mainz.
http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/e
From: FRA Regionalbahnhof
To: Mainz

Best will be for 13 persons to buy 3 mini group day tickets (each for up to 5 persons): thus 3 x EUR 13,70
Just buy these tickets from ticket machines at Frankfurt Airport.

These tickets cover also the trams and buses in Mainz. Albeit the old city is definitly walkable in Mainz.

Mainz is a great town, nice university feel to it. Along with what's already been posted, I love the St. Stephans kirche (church), the coolest Marc Chagal windows, also some photos of the severly damaged city and church from WWII bombing, and a piece of the original bell that was gnarled in the bombings. Free entrance.

Of course the Mainzer Dom is a must, one of ony 3 romanesque Doms of that era to survive. As Bill mentions, the Gutenburg museum is world class (but even as of 3 years ago, verylittle was translated in english :(

For 14 people you can certainly organize a guided tour in English through the Gutenberg Museum.
http://www.gutenberg-museum.de/index.php?id=13

Thank you for all the good ideas. Do any of you have any opinions about the Mainz Card? Is it a waste of money? Do you think that it is wisest to set up a city tour before we go or to play it by ear? Again, thanks so much for your helpful advice.

abalada has a good idea about the English language tour, since I recall as Jon does that not a lot of the museum is in English. Note that http://www.gutenberg-museum.de/index.php?id=13&language=e is the direct URL for the English page on the tours (or you may have already used abalada's URL and noticed the British Union Jack near the top for the translation ;-) ).

I was also surprised some years ago when I made my "pilgrimage" how small the museum store was - it was just a countertop. In addition, there was virtually nothing to buy, including no English language guide book for the Museum (I ended up buying some sample type and a poster). This was a real shame for an otherwise excellent and full museum (note one of the Gutenberg bibles upstairs in the vault). However, I see that there is an online store now at http://www.gutenberg-shop.de/cgi/websale6.cgi?shopid=gutenberg-museum&subshopid=english - take a look around and see what they have now...

Bill

Thanks for the additional info. We are excited about our trip!