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Published: August 19th 2018
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Theodor-Heuss-Brucke
Bridge over the Rhine connecting Mainz and Frankfurt After getting to the hotel I phoned my aunty, Ingelise (my late dad's younger sister), who lives near Darmstadt and who we will be catching up with Monday and Tuesday. Firstly to let her know we arrived and to confirm our meeting location and time but also to make sure my phone was working ok. We're meeting her in Frankfurt Monday morning, she said she is going to meet us on our arriving platform. She sounded very excited about us being here and it will be great to see her as we haven't seen her since she came to Australia over 7 years ago.
The first part of our walking tour was along the esplanade on the edge of the Rhine River. A beautiful walk watching boats passing by and nice to just be outside on a beautiful late Summer day.
Like I said in my earlier post we learnt quickly that German people are really nice but they take everything you say literally. For instance we went to a café in Mainz (pronounced Minez) with a dodgy sounding name (see the photo) for a coffee and cake. The coffee was exceptional and the cake even better. When the
waitress came over to see how we went, I said "it was terrible" and displayed her an empty plate bar a couple of crumbs. She was horrified and I then quickly reassured her that everything was perfect and the color and smile then returned to her face.
What we also noticed was that this part of Germany is basically closed on Sunday. There were cafes and bars open but little else except for the churches, we were hoping to find a supermarket but they were all closed. What we also noticed was the architecture and how could you not notice it. For a city that was 80% destroyed during the war the rebuild is amazing with so many beautiful buildings, samples of which are scattered through this blog.
We were also amazed by the number of Audis, Mercedes and BMWs on the road (I know they're German brands but still I know how expensive they are in Australia). Mercedes taxis included. At one point we saw an M series BMW, well we actually heard the sound system first then the stunning car. We only caught a brief glimpse as he was going pretty quick and it sounded like
an F1 car. It was like being at Brighton Le Sands on a Saturday night. Not long after a police car, an Audi, came past and we both agreed it would have been interesting had he been there a couple of minutes earlier.
After our coffee and walk we returned to the hotel as it was getting close to lunchtime. The view from the Hilton is stunning as it is situated on the banks of the Rhine River. We went to the outside eatery in the hotel and enjoyed a burger and a beer (Riesling for Vicki). Again I used my "terrible" line to Wolfgang (our waiter) when he asked how my beer was. He was similarly horrified till I explained what I meant. He came back with another beer for me, a smile and a complimentary glass of Riesling for Vicki.
After lunch we got to check in to the hotel. By now we were both pretty tired. I got a little sleep on the plane, probably five hours tops, but Vicki had next to none as she is still troubled after her recent shoulder surgery. After a shower I laid on the bed and must have
Riesling and Beer
Rhine River in the background fallen asleep straight away as I didn't hear a thing until Vicki said to me it's 21:00. So we had around 7 hours sleep which was very needed.
Please scroll down for more photos as the blog only adds photos within the area of the text. Everything else is below here.
Time for more sleep now as we have to be in Frankfurt at 10:30 tomorrow morning to meet my aunty. Till then, good night!
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Cathy Schofield
non-member comment
Have fun
Looks gorgeous enjoy that TERRIBLE CAKE ??