Frankfurt
Arrived in Frankfurt around 11:00am local time after 11 hours in the air. Did not succeed at getting into business class as it was full. We did, however, get a bulkhead seat. Lot's of leg room which was nice. The bad part was not being able to sleep at all on the plane. Made for a very difficult first day. After getting through the airport which, I must say, is a snap next to Canada and the US grabbed a taxi and headed for our hotel. The drive in was remarkably quick. I guess that is to be expected when your cabbie drives at about 200 km/hr. That I must say was pretty cool. After arriving at the hotel things got even better for a super cheap €58. We got the only suite at our hotel! That's on top of the already complimentary mini-bar. Niiiiice. So after having a shower to try and shake the "I've just spent 11 hours on a plane" feeling we headed out to walk around Frankfurt.
The hotel we are at is right across from the main train station. Very handy. It is the largest train station in the world. Processing 1700 trains daily. Pretty impessive. Thankfully it was Sunday and it wasn't too crowded. Dawdled around until we found the tourist information office. Went in and booked a 2.5 hour city centre bus tour. As we were leaving a family that had also booked the tour (and who it turned out later were also Canadian) came in and were told very sternly by the lady behind the counter that they were supposed to return by 2 o'clock. Not 1 o'clock. Lisa and I made note not to return until 2.
So with an hour to kill we thought we'd walk around and check out the area immediately surrounding the Hauptbanhof (train station). It was ... interesting. If you were looking for Girls! Girls! Girls! Girls! you would have wanted for nothing. Since we were not in the market for Girls! Girls! Girls! Girls! we found the immediate area a little bit of a downer and understood why a family may have shown up back at the tourist office to kill an hour leafing through pamphlets in German.
In any case the bus tour was well worth it. It was a very intersting tour going over the cities past and present. THe most interesting thing was the Altstadt or Old Town. The interesting thing is that it is not all that old. All of the current building on the old town were built around 1980. 80% of Frankfurt was levelled during WWII and very few of the old buildings remain. This includes Johann Goethe's home. Goethe is to German literature what Shakespeare is to english literature. His house has also been faithfully recreated.
Anyhow by the end of the tour I was falling asleep. being awake for 26 some odd hours will do that. So we will be picking up the car tomorrow morning and heading south towards Munich.
Will talk to everyone later.
Andrew
The hotel we are at is right across from the main train station. Very handy. It is the largest train station in the world. Processing 1700 trains daily. Pretty impessive. Thankfully it was Sunday and it wasn't too crowded. Dawdled around until we found the tourist information office. Went in and booked a 2.5 hour city centre bus tour. As we were leaving a family that had also booked the tour (and who it turned out later were also Canadian) came in and were told very sternly by the lady behind the counter that they were supposed to return by 2 o'clock. Not 1 o'clock. Lisa and I made note not to return until 2.
So with an hour to kill we thought we'd walk around and check out the area immediately surrounding the Hauptbanhof (train station). It was ... interesting. If you were looking for Girls! Girls! Girls! Girls! you would have wanted for nothing. Since we were not in the market for Girls! Girls! Girls! Girls! we found the immediate area a little bit of a downer and understood why a family may have shown up back at the tourist office to kill an hour leafing through pamphlets in German.
In any case the bus tour was well worth it. It was a very intersting tour going over the cities past and present. THe most interesting thing was the Altstadt or Old Town. The interesting thing is that it is not all that old. All of the current building on the old town were built around 1980. 80% of Frankfurt was levelled during WWII and very few of the old buildings remain. This includes Johann Goethe's home. Goethe is to German literature what Shakespeare is to english literature. His house has also been faithfully recreated.
Anyhow by the end of the tour I was falling asleep. being awake for 26 some odd hours will do that. So we will be picking up the car tomorrow morning and heading south towards Munich.
Will talk to everyone later.
Andrew
posted by Glen Scotia at 8:33 PM
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