Musical Weekend in Mannheim

Let's embark on a weekend journey to Mannheim at the end of this month: the goal is to take part in their big music festival known as Rheinuferfest (which actually takes place on the opposite river bank, where Mannheim becomes Ludwigshafen am Rhein).

Created in Protected content an attempt to redeem Ludwigshafen's not so good reputation, the Rheinuferfest encompassed all music genres, from rock to pop to classical music, and turned out to be a massive hit, with thousands of people flocking to listen to musical acts like Michael Jackson's tribute band on Saturday and Rachmaninov's piano concerto #2 and Dvorak's New World Symphony on Sunday.

Last year the festival suffered from rainstorms, but still had its memorable moments. Anyway, hopefully we'll be luckier this time!

This year the festival's highlights will be the AC/DC Tribute Band on Saturday and Grieg's Piano concerto on Sunday, with pianist Ying Li.

Since Mannheim is so close from Basel, it makes an easy weekend trip. If the weather is favourable, we can combine music and sightseeing with a short hike across the vineyards west of Ludwigshafen; after all, the hike we had two years ago on the hills around Bad Dürkheim was surprisingly nice.