Whats an Australian Doing in Moscow?

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Thats how I was greeted by the Immigration officer in Frankfurt. After first disembarking from the plane, there were police at the gates asking to check everyone's passports. Seeing an Australian passport we were waved through, they only seemed concerned were the Russian ones.

Last stop and one I was definately looking forward to was Frankfurt, after spending some time there at the end of my trip last time. With not so much time, and even less after a 3hr delay in Moscow we hit the ground running, booking two tours, one a day trip to the Rhine River the next day.

Heading out to the Rhine, our first stop was lunch where Coke cost more than wine! Lunch was nice though and after it was out to the boat that would take us on a cruise down the Rhine. Watching the captain dock we were surprised at his skill and how fast he was doing it until he crashed right into the dock! Oh.. This will be an interesting trip but luckily that was his only crash of the day. Crusing along the Rhine was gorgeous, as we past castle after castle, finally stopping to return to the restaurant to do some wine tasting.

Ice wine is unique, it can only be picked on the first night of the year that the temperature drops to -7. The entire village rushes out to help with the harvest, picking each grape by hand. The grapes are then squeezed, ALOT of grapes are squeezed, it takes 80kgs of grapes to make on bottle of wine. Not bad stuff!

The next day we took a city tour which left us in the oldest part of town and we proceeded to do some shopping before heading to a nice little Irish pub for dinner before heading to the airport =(

The journey has come to an end.. Watch this space for the next one!

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