Frankfurt, Germany

Our first inter-Europe trip — well, more like inter-Germany. One reason I was excited about moving here was being able to travel within Europe at incredible prices. A good friend of mine from Florida, Lana, was visiting her family in Wiesbaden (an hour from Frankfurt) for the holidays so why not start our travel adventures and take a weekend trip? I figured this would be the best way to see how traveling via train to different cities worked before taking on a country. It was also Robert’s birthday weekend and my stepson Vin was in town so even more the reason!

Our round-trip tickets for four cost us about €30 each. We had a travel time of about 4 hours with assigned seats on our way there using a high-speed train via ICE (InterCity Express) with speeds nearing 200 miles/hour. However, to save on cost (and we’re talking like €300-400), heading back would take 8 hours with 3 connections, transfer times (“layovers”) and no assigned seats. The trains would be through RE (Regional-Express) that run at normal speed where multiple stops would be made like the regular subway lines with people coming and going. Bring it.

Once we were all checked in at the hotel, we wasted no time and headed right to the city’s center. We surprisingly had no plans, just walked and decided what direction to go as we went along. We found a very popular shopping district where people packed the streets despite the cold and gloomy weather. In that area, we walked through MyZeil mall that had crazy steel architecture, learned about handmade traditional cuckoo clocks, walked over the “Locks of Love” bridge built in 1868 (Eiserner Steg) and spontaneously jumped on a double decker river cruise.

The evening came quick but it was amazing to see the city come to life. The lights were still up from Christmas and their majestic beauty filled the streets as far as you could see. It turns out that Frankfurt has the largest Christmas Market in all of Germany. Unfortunately, we missed it by just a few days. Luckily though, we found a glüewein stand on the way back to the hotel which softened the blow a little.

We loosely planned our last day there as a day to hang out with Lana on this side of the globe and try to visit places we saw from the pamphlets we picked up in our hotel lobby. One area we wanted to see for sure and now leaves a picturesque scene in my head when I think of Frankfurt are the buildings in Old Town. This is the first time I’ve seen a place that resembled what Germany always looked like to me before I experienced it in person. It felt like we were on the set of a movie taking place in Germany, or like we were walking through “Germany” at EPCOT minus the overpriced food and beer.

We wanted to go up the 200-meter high Main Tower or try to climb the 328 steps up the Cathedral of St. Bartholomew to see Frankfurt’s skyline. But because the weather was gloomy once again, we didn’t want to burn calories just to be disappointed. We did get close enough to both sites and admired the view from below. Oddly enough, we ended up finding this rooftop restaurant/bar at another shopping mall while trying to find shelter when it started raining. The raindrops lessened as we got to the top and it was high enough for us to take a few pics and call it a day. (And yes, I did say meters but I haven’t googled what that converts to.)

Oh, and who loves some good hotel stories? We stayed a bit out from the city center but were able to meet people that came from other places. One family missed their flight home so they were “stuck” in Frankfurt for the weekend. One couple kept racing to see who could finish their beer first and another couple scammed our bartender right in front of us by not paying for their drinks or food. Our bartender, Laul, told us how they pulled it off and how upset he was but that didn’t let it burn his cool. He surprised us by taking a candle from the shelf where the liquor was stored, grabbed desserts in the kitchen and gave us a small bottle of champagne with two glasses to toast for Robert’s birthday. What a great way to end the weekend.

We got lost walking around and questioned seeing that same “silver thing” we swore we just walked by five minutes ago. We failed on four back-to-back Yelp attempts to fulfill our pizza cravings. We shuffled through trains and sometimes struggled to find seats that were near each other. We complained about the weather a lot and didn’t do as much as we hoped. We worried about toting kids since our first trip to Europe didn’t include them. But rather than being frustrations, every single one of those little things made wonderful memories of our first inter-Europe trip.

I was excited but a little nervous to get outside of Berlin where we are finally starting to feel comfortable, but now I can’t wait to see where we’re headed next. It’s such a crazy feeling that our norm now is, “hey, want to check out this country?” and that my immediate answer is, “yes, yes I do.”

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