In Part one, we spent two days exploring San Francisco before jetting off for…somewhere else. That somewhere else was Frankfurt, Germany!
Day 4 (part 2) and 5: San Francisco to Frankfurt
Getting off the ground took a long time, as the San Francisco airport is down to two runways due to construction. We were scheduled to take off at 4:30 p.m., didn’t board until almost 5, and we actually took off at…(it’s 5:52 as I write this, and the pilot just told us we’re 12th in line, so…getting there, but a bit longer yet)…6:30?
Since we knew this was going to be a long flight (about 10 hours), we sprung for Premium Economy class. We’re finding it a nice upgrade – a little more space and legroom and some extra amenities, just enough to make a long flight noticeably more comfortable. Since we brought our own entertainment (iPads loaded with books, movies, and TV shows), I just set the seat back monitor in front of me to track the plane as it flew. Our route was a nonstop straight shot northeast out of San Francisco, continuing on over Canada, Greenland, Iceland, a bit of Scotland, and the Netherlands before descending into Germany.
The flight itself was fine, with nice smooth takeoff, flight, and landing, and friendly staff. Even a fun little set of welcome goodies, including earbuds, toothbrush and toothpaste, sleep mask, socks, and a little case to hold them all. I, unfortunately, do not sleep well (or at all) on airplanes, but I dozed and zoned out as I could and otherwise watched the first Resident Evil movie and a couple Max Headroom episodes and finished one Discworld novel (Reaper Man) and started the next (Witches Abroad).
We landed in Frankfurt, taxied forever, and then, accompanied by pained groans from many of the passengers (including us), pulled up next to a couple sets of stairs and a few buses. Everyone got packed onto the buses like proverbial sardines, and they drove us to a gate (and while it felt like they drove the long way around, I expect that’s probably not actually the case). But once we got to the airport, the rest — including customs and the new biometric scanning system — went nice and smooth. They even stamped our passports; we weren’t sure if that was still a thing that happened or not, so we were excited to hear the ker-CHUNK of the stamp.
From there, it was a quick swing through baggage to get our backpacks, around the corner to the train station, four stops to the Frankfurt Main Hauptbahnhof, and two and a half blocks to our hotel.
We were pretty well exhausted after going for over 24 hours, but with the time change, it was just four in the afternoon. We got settled into the hotel, and then wandered out to find food and a grocery for some simple hotel breakfast supplies. Food ended up being (very good) cheese fries from a little place that only does fries, as it was simple and we were too tired decide on anything else. We found a supermarket, but only after missing a turn and discovering that our nice quiet hotel is about two blocks off of a red light district…that was an amusing realization.
Back to the hotel, a small load of sink laundry, and then pushed ourselves to stay awake until 8 p.m. to (hopefully) knock our jet lag around and onto local time.
Day 6: Frankfurt
The battle with jet lag isn’t over yet, but we’re making good progress. While neither of us had our best night’s sleep, we stubbornly refused to completely awaken when we started to, and took the morning nice and slow, not leaving the hotel until around 10 a.m.
Once we did get going, we had our first full day exploring Frankfurt. We had only a rough plan, so started off on a more or less random direction and ended up next to the Städel museum, at which point going in seemed like the only choice that made sense. Right off the bat, they had a really neat exhibition of prints by (and related to) Pieter Bruegel the Elder; most of the rest of the museum was its own (very impressive) collection. Another current exhibition by Elmgreen & Dragset, in addition to its own installations, includes lifelike sculptures placed throughout the museum, often in humorous juxtaposition with the museum’s regular collection. We had a lot of fun stumbling across these additions.
From there we wandered over into the Altstadt (old city), had our first sausage meal, and then visited the Frankfurt Cathedral (Frankfurt Dom/Kaiserdom Sankt Bartholomäus), including climbing all 328 steps up (and then down again) to the top of the tower to see the views of the city. Once done with that, we wandered the Altstadt some more and picked a couple more museums that might be on the list for tomorrow, ventured a bit into one of the main shopping areas nearby, and poked our heads into a couple more churches.
By this point we were starting to fizzle, so we went by a place we’d spotted earlier to get currywurst (my first time in 35 years, and just as good as I remember), stopped by a grocery for drinks to hydrate with, and came back to the hotel. As we were getting ready for bed a thunderstorm rolled over the city, and we got to watch the rain and see the clouds light up with lightening for a little bit.
Day 7: Frankfurt
Our plan for the day was to get an earlier start and hit two museums. Then a jet lag induced lack of good sleep took effect, and we got neither.
We did get out and about, but not quite so early as planned, and then headed for our first planned stop, the Historiches Museum Frankfurt (history museum). This was neat, and in a gorgeous building that had been recently remodeled, but had lots of info about and peeks at the old building incorporated into it. However, it quickly became apparent that we did not have the stamina to make it through the full museum, so we went off to lunch.
A little later, happily stuffed with schnitzel, we peeked at the Museum of Modern Electronic Music (MOMEM), but didn’t quite feel drawn in. Instead, we decided to walk back to the river and stroll along in the shade of a tree-lined cobblestone path, enjoying the views of the city and looking at some of the other museums we could have gone to if we were here longer or had more energy.
After that, it was back to our hotel, figuring that we were better off declaring ourselves done for the day. A couple hours’ rest gave us enough energy to grab dinner from the corner pizzeria…and that perked us up enough that we decided to walk down to the train station (just a couple blocks further down the street) to scope it out and make sure we knew where to go for the next part of our trip.
We grabbed gelato on the way back, sitting at one of the many outdoor seating areas, people watching as we ate, and then came back to the hotel. And that wrapped up another day in Frankfurt.
Day 8 (part 1): Frankfurt to…?
It’s a travel day!
Slept as late and as well as we could (still not adjusted, but getting there), packed ourselves up and out, and walked down to the Frankfurt train station (Hauptbahnhof). Since we’d scouted that out yesterday, we were able to get some food and go directly to our platform. A while later, our train showed up, and we found our seats. We’d reserved first class seats, and it seems we got lucky, as the other four seats in this cabin are unoccupied, so we have a cabin to ourselves for this part of the trip.
And with that, we say goodbye to Frankfurt and hello to…?