Frankfurt - Germany

Grusse aus dem Vaterland / Heimatland

Well after a marathon effort of travelling from Mbale to Entebbe airport ( 5hours of which we had quite a good run) and dealing with Ugandan customs officials to get the parcel of pencils, we finally left Uganda an hour later than expected, arriving in Dubai at 1.15am (local time). We found a place on the floor to sleep then moved to a lounge chair, then to the free internet station and then finally to our boarding lounge to depart for Frankfurt at 8.30 am. The Emirates planes are cool because they have a front camera and a downward camera so we could view the take offs and landings. We arrived in Frankfurt 1.15 (local time) and managed to purchase a train ticket to the main railway station (Hauptbahnhof) from the ticket machine for 3.50 Euro each. We were quite pleased with ourselves! A total travel time of 34hours since leaving Mbale!

Our hotel (which we had booked via the internet in Uganda) was only a hundred metres away so we wheeled our cases along the street like all the other tourists. Our small hotel was quite cute, with an English speaking manager, it looked a bit like Fawlty Towers. Our room had free internet access (Whoopeee) and a buffet hot breakfast was included. However the room was very small. When you sat on the toilet you could rest your chin on the basin! And no tea or coffee making facilities.

We spent the rest of the time planning our days by looking at tour options and reading emails and blog comments. Frankfurt is very multicultural with many different restaurants –Polish, Turkish, Indian, Italian, Irish so we ended up having a kebab and beer (Donner) in a little restaurant.

Liane having a coffee with her favourite cake Beesting

The next day we went to book into a youth hostel but everything was booked out because their was a trade fair. So back to our trusty laptop to check the internet and we found another small hotel that had a room free near the train station. We packed up our things and wheeled our cases just around the corner!! It turns out this hotel was managed by the same man and when he heard our story he gave us his best room!! It had two chairs and a much nicer bathroom, a much better room but Rex had to carry the cases up two flights of stairs!!

Twin beds - How romantic!

We decided we needed a big walk so booked our Rhine tour for the next day and headed off along the Main River to walk through the old suburb of Frankfurt called Sachenhausen. It was a very pretty area with many museums (which we didn’t bother going into) and many old timbered houses (like a picture postcard). Everything was very neat, clean and well maintained – quite a contrast from Uganda! Which Way?

This area is famous for its applewine so of course we had to taste some. A quote from the guide book…. "Although it's an acquired taste, many find Frankfurt's favourite drink, applewine, to be a better thirst quencher than beer. Apparently Frankfurters are the only Germans with this opinion, so you will only find it in Frankfurt and the surrounding areas. Juice from pressed apples is fermented (read: left to rot) for 8-10 weeks to produce that unique applewine flavour......." We found it to be a bit sour.

As we headed back slightly light headed it started bucketing down rain. They have had no rain here for three months but it certainly made up for it. We arrived back at our hotel soaking wet even though we had coats and an umbrella. We changed and decided to go to the Irish pub O’Reilley’s for tea for some English food. We could even order in English from a very friendly Irish lass - Bangers and Mash for Rex and Guiness Beef Stew for Liane. As we wandered back we were amazed by the evening twilight. It is still light till about 9.30 – a surprise after the sudden light and dark at the Equator in Africa.

The next morning we met at the Booking Office for our eagerly awaited Rhine tour. We travelled by bus to Rudesheim, saw a magnificent monument built to symbolise the reestablishment of the German empire in 1877 and then by chairlift (yes Rex managed to get Liane to go onto the chairlift) down the hill to the Rhine. Our tour guide, Willy, was a bit of a comedian. He told us he was giving us the Rhine tour – yesterday’s tourists had the rain tour! He also set the expectation with punctuality, for example, we had to be back at the bus in precisely 17 minutes.

We had a meal in a typical German restaurant (chicken and chips to cater for all religious beliefs). We sat with some lovely people from Maryland USA who gave us some important tips on tipping (a strange concept for us) while we shared some of our Ugandan stories.

The afternoon was spent sitting in the sunshine on the boat, enjoying the spectacular views of 1000 year old castles, vineyards, churches and drinking beer.

A short movie of the Rhine tour

We were then taken by bus back to the same restaurant where we had a “wine tasting”. We had 4 thimbles containing a couple of mls in each. The ice wine was quite nice but very pricey. He also took us to a souvenir shop where there were many knick knacks to buy.

Cuckoo clocks (click play button to hear them ticking)

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A movie of the Cuckoo clocks (Sorry I forgot to hold the camera horizontal)

The next morning we did our own city tour of Frankfurt (the city of banks), found we were staying near the Red Mile!!??!! And had a frankfurt in Frankfurt!

We then caught the very fast train (ICE-Inter City Express) to Hannover where we were very glad to meet Anne (Liane’s cousin), Heiner (her husband) and Johanne (their daughter and Jochen’s sister).