Start at the cathedral and the market, on a Tuesday, Friday or Saturday morning if you can, then walk south through the Kirschgarten and Augustinerstraße. Give the afternoon to Chagall’s blue windows in St. Stephan and the two Gutenberg Bibles at the museum’s interim home. The evening belongs to a Weinstube and a glass of Silvaner. Day two is Roman Mainz and the Zitadelle, or a boat into the Rhine gorge.
Mainz began as a Roman legion’s fort in 13 BC, spent a thousand years as the seat of powerful archbishops, and is the town where Gutenberg printed with movable type. It is now the capital of Rhineland-Palatinate: a red sandstone cathedral over the market, and wine taverns in the lanes below it.
Archbishop Willigis laid the foundation stone in 975, and his first cathedral burned on the day of its consecration in 1009. The red sandstone church that replaced it has a choir at each end, and the bronze doors of the market portal still date from Willigis.
The museum of printing left its Liebfrauenplatz home in 2024 so a new building can rise there. Its interim show, Gutenberg-Museum MOVED, sits inside the natural history museum, and two original 42-line Gutenberg Bibles are kept in a walk-in treasure chamber.
Marc Chagall glazed this Gothic hall church on the Stephansberg in the last years of his life, and the nave glows a deep blue at any hour. The cloister beside it is quieter still. Entry is free, and services and weddings close it to visitors.
Growers fill the squares around the cathedral on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday mornings. From March to October the Saturday Marktfrühstück adds winemakers pouring by the glass, split for now across Fischtorplatz, Tritonplatz and Schillerplatz while Liebfrauenplatz is rebuilt.
Half-timbered houses, some from the 15th century, ring the small Kirschgarten square, and Augustinerstraße runs south from it past the Augustinerkirche. The wine taverns sit in the lanes either side, Grebenstraße and Jakobsbergstraße among them.
A 17th-century star fort above the old town, its grounds open as a park. Inside stands the Drususstein, the core of the monument Roman troops raised to the general Drusus in 9 BC: the marble is long gone, but some 20 m of masonry still stand.
The state museum covers the region from prehistory onward, and its Roman stones are the reason to come: legionaries’ tombstones and the original Jupiter column of Mogontiacum. The permanent galleries are being remodelled, so check what is open.
The wrecks of late Roman warships, dug up in Mainz in the early 1980s, lie here beside two full-size reconstructions. It shows the Rhine as Rome saw it: a guarded frontier patrolled by boat.
The riverside promenade runs past the red sandstone palace of the prince-archbishops and on to the Kaisertor, with Wiesbaden across the water. Pleasure boats into the Rhine gorge leave from this bank in season.
A sparkling wine house on the hill above the station, built over some 60 cellars that reach about 50 m down, the oldest of them medieval. Tours end with a glass, and the restaurant garden looks over the 19th-century cellar building.
Billed as the oldest wine tavern in Rheinhessen, on the square behind the cathedral.
One of the largest Roman theatres north of the Alps, beside the station named for it.
The Romanesque cathedral and the Heiliger Sand, an old Jewish cemetery in the SchUM listing.
A labyrinth of medieval cellars under the town, toured with a guide, and a Gothic church.
Carnival opens at 11:11 on the eleventh of the eleventh, around the Fastnachtsbrunnen.
The Rose Monday parade leaves the Neustadt at 11:11 for the cathedral; 2026’s ran on 16 February.
A spring fair on the Adenauerufer between the Kaisertor and the Electoral Palace.
Winemakers pour beside the Saturday market, the most Mainz hour of the week.
Political song, theatre and talks inside the Zitadelle, past its 50th edition.
Four days for Gutenberg across the old town; 2026’s ran 19 to 22 June.
Two long weekends of Rheinhessen growers pouring outdoors.
Stalls across Domplatz, Höfchen and Liebfrauenplatz, under the cathedral.
Take the S8 from the airport’s regional station to Mainz Hauptbahnhof, about 25 to 30 minutes; the S9 does not stop in Mainz. RMV tickets cover it.
ICE and regional trains on the Rhine line, with fast links to Frankfurt, Cologne and the Middle Rhine. The cathedral is a walk or a short tram ride east.
Mainzer Mobilität runs the trams and buses. Mainz and Wiesbaden share fare zone 65, so one ticket crosses the river.
Unlimited RMV travel in zone 65 plus the airport route, with reduced or free museum entry, for one person or a group of up to five.
Cream cheese, quark, paprika and garlic, eaten with pretzels and wine.
Onion tart for autumn, eaten with young Federweißer wine.
Sour-milk cheese marinated in vinegar, oil and onions.
A thick pork sausage, hot or cold, with mustard and bread.
A roll, a sausage and a glass of wine: the Mainz snack.
Potato soup served with plum cake, sweet against savoury.
The region’s dry white, the house pour in every Weinstube.
German sparkling wine, made in Mainz cellars since the 19th century.
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