Arrived Frankfurt after a long uneventful flight. I think I gave my sis and b-i-l a bit of a surprise turning up at 6:30 am. The apartment was on the fourth floor and I was tempted to use the invalid stairlift but was worried I’d wake the neighbours!
A shower and cup of tea soon restored me and we set out to discover Frankfurt with our accommodation host. He showed us how to buy a day ticket for 11euro not per person but for up to 5 people to use constantly through the day. The tram network is brilliant. We visited different tourist spot including the Christmas markets. The aroma of gluwein permeates the air. Of course we tried a variety of different types. Just in the interest of research!
After an afternoon siesta we went back out to the Christmas markets and joined throngs of people wandering the stalls. There were police, carrying machine guns, amongst the crowds and we’d noticed that a lot of the entrances had huge blocks of concrete in place to stop any would be idiots.
The highlight of the evening market was having a bratwurst sandwich from the largest bbq I’d seen.
Once back at the apartment, a hundred year old building with a few quirky touches, I ascended to my bed an interesting affair but comfy. When I descend it’s not a pretty sight as I come down on hands and knees backwards – the picture should tell all!
Day 2 saw us heading to Heidelberg on the bus. Having done a reccy the night before we were confident that we knew where we were going .We got to the Bahnhof and an unwell man fell to the ground in front of us- not the best people as we couldn’t communicate with him and everyone around us was ignoring him until a young girl took over from us .Off we went to the bus station with half An hour to spare ,however, we nearly didn’t make it as we were told that instead of being green our bus was going to be white! Luckily I went to ask an official and he said “Come on madam we are waiting to go!” “But we were told to get a white bus.” I said. To which the official laughed! It was a tense 90 minute trip through pouring rain wondering if in fact we were on the right bus! First stop was the railway station restaurant – memories from my childhood were that the railway station restaurants served great food . I definitely enjoyed my hot chocolate laced with Grand Marnier.
We decided against catching a bus to our destination – the Schloss (castle) and started to walk instead. After about 45 minutes we came across a Christmas market, after a mooch around, we took the funicular to the castle. Although it was wet and grey the castle was very interesting especially seeing the biggest wine barrel.
Back down to the main square lunch was on the agenda and a very fine schnitzel was had by all. Deciding that time was on our side we once again made the walk back to the Bahnhof to catch our bus back to Frankfurt – my fitbit told me that we had walked more than 20000 steps. It was good to get back to the apartment but those 4 flights of stairs was purgatory!
Day 3 started early with our ’host’ taking us to the station to help us buy our tickets for our trip to Rothenburg. It meant a two hour train ride from Frankfurt, then a 40 minute regional train before an even smaller train ride to our final destination. It was so interesting to see the countryside changing the further we travelled from Frankfurt. There were areas of forest, flat land, wide rivers and many vineyards (need to do a google search to find out which wine it was). Patches of snow were seen the closer we were to our destination.
On arrival in Rothenburg we followed the crowd to the walled, medieval town. The buildings were very interesting and it was a very pretty place, especially with the covering of snow making it look even more festive,however, food was in our minds and rather than go to a restaurant we decided to get a bratwurst roll from the market along with our tipple of gluwein. I have never had a ‘hotdog’ anything like this before with a massive sausage hanging over both ends of the bread -it took a lot of skill to eat it without getting covered in mustard and boy was it tasty.
After a good walk around the town we stopped for tea and kucken – apple strudel. A good break from the cold! As we left the cafe we felt a light sprinkle of snow on our faces and you could really feel the change in temperature and so we made the trip back to Frankfurt.
We have been to a number of different places and can honestly say that the German transport system is superb – clean trains always on time.
A shower and cup of tea soon restored me and we set out to discover Frankfurt with our accommodation host. He showed us how to buy a day ticket for 11euro not per person but for up to 5 people to use constantly through the day. The tram network is brilliant. We visited different tourist spot including the Christmas markets. The aroma of gluwein permeates the air. Of course we tried a variety of different types. Just in the interest of research!
After an afternoon siesta we went back out to the Christmas markets and joined throngs of people wandering the stalls. There were police, carrying machine guns, amongst the crowds and we’d noticed that a lot of the entrances had huge blocks of concrete in place to stop any would be idiots.
The highlight of the evening market was having a bratwurst sandwich from the largest bbq I’d seen.
Once back at the apartment, a hundred year old building with a few quirky touches, I ascended to my bed an interesting affair but comfy. When I descend it’s not a pretty sight as I come down on hands and knees backwards – the picture should tell all!
Day 2 saw us heading to Heidelberg on the bus. Having done a reccy the night before we were confident that we knew where we were going .We got to the Bahnhof and an unwell man fell to the ground in front of us- not the best people as we couldn’t communicate with him and everyone around us was ignoring him until a young girl took over from us .Off we went to the bus station with half An hour to spare ,however, we nearly didn’t make it as we were told that instead of being green our bus was going to be white! Luckily I went to ask an official and he said “Come on madam we are waiting to go!” “But we were told to get a white bus.” I said. To which the official laughed! It was a tense 90 minute trip through pouring rain wondering if in fact we were on the right bus! First stop was the railway station restaurant – memories from my childhood were that the railway station restaurants served great food . I definitely enjoyed my hot chocolate laced with Grand Marnier.
We decided against catching a bus to our destination – the Schloss (castle) and started to walk instead. After about 45 minutes we came across a Christmas market, after a mooch around, we took the funicular to the castle. Although it was wet and grey the castle was very interesting especially seeing the biggest wine barrel.
Back down to the main square lunch was on the agenda and a very fine schnitzel was had by all. Deciding that time was on our side we once again made the walk back to the Bahnhof to catch our bus back to Frankfurt – my fitbit told me that we had walked more than 20000 steps. It was good to get back to the apartment but those 4 flights of stairs was purgatory!
Day 3 started early with our ’host’ taking us to the station to help us buy our tickets for our trip to Rothenburg. It meant a two hour train ride from Frankfurt, then a 40 minute regional train before an even smaller train ride to our final destination. It was so interesting to see the countryside changing the further we travelled from Frankfurt. There were areas of forest, flat land, wide rivers and many vineyards (need to do a google search to find out which wine it was). Patches of snow were seen the closer we were to our destination.
On arrival in Rothenburg we followed the crowd to the walled, medieval town. The buildings were very interesting and it was a very pretty place, especially with the covering of snow making it look even more festive,however, food was in our minds and rather than go to a restaurant we decided to get a bratwurst roll from the market along with our tipple of gluwein. I have never had a ‘hotdog’ anything like this before with a massive sausage hanging over both ends of the bread -it took a lot of skill to eat it without getting covered in mustard and boy was it tasty.
After a good walk around the town we stopped for tea and kucken – apple strudel. A good break from the cold! As we left the cafe we felt a light sprinkle of snow on our faces and you could really feel the change in temperature and so we made the trip back to Frankfurt.
We have been to a number of different places and can honestly say that the German transport system is superb – clean trains always on time.
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