8/22 Friday

I was a little hasty on the good bye to Germany. Didn’t realize there would be so much to do in Frankfurt but before I tell you about Frankfurt, let me fill you in on our drive to the airport! I guess not a day will go by without some sort of crazy adventure, especially when you are in the car. We left Wolfstein, heading to the airport. Did you know there are several “Frankfurt” airports? Well neither did we but fortunately we realized we were going in the wrong direction before we had gone too far and were able to get ourselves headed in the right direction. Sorry to say, the poor little Garmin icon once again went in crazy circles trying to figure out what we were doing AGAIN! She’s getting  a break now since we are on the train Saturday.

So back to Frankfurt, we got to the airport, turned in the car – oh crap another fiasco – we went to Terminal 1 and were told no, you need Terminal 2 car return.  So around we go and finally get to the correct rental area. We are like a Laurel and Hardy comedy duo! So after we turn in the car, we head over to the airport for more euros on the cell phone then off to figure out how to catch the train to the hotel! I asked someone how to get the tickets – the people here are so darn nice and so helpful. So I told Jim and he got in line and someone helped him get the tickets. Now for a funny part: 2 young Japanese boys came over to me to ask how to get to their train – uh oh! I gave them to Jim and he helped them.

Guess what I found at the train station!!! Trains – this was so cool.

Got to our hotel, checked in, got rid of the baggage and out the door we went in search of lunch and sights. Turned out there is a street fair with many food vendors, music, tons of restaurants and tons of things to do.  First things first – eat! oh no not meat again! At least it was a grilled chicken so we shared 1 helping! Frankfurt is beautiful so we looked at a map and headed toward the river and enjoyed the amazing view, buildings, stroll. Here’s a selfie of us on the bridge looking down the river. Do we look happy or what!

We walked forever and saw some amazing sights. 

Off to see more sights. We found the cathedral and decided to go up to the observation tower near the top of the bell tower. I said, oh there’s an elevator right? No – steps and I said a lot? 66 meters (that’s 216 ft. high for you non-metric folk)!  Oh good night! Off we go and climb and climb until I thought my legs were going to fall off at the hips! Why don’t they have an oil you can take to help your bones when they start creaking? Oh gussie this was a tough climb, I was letting folks pass us, especially the kids! Jim kept asking me if I was ok and I said well no actually but let’s keep going – I’m still breathing! We finally got to the top but let me show you what it looked like on the way up!

Obviously this next shot was taken early on the climb!

The view at the top was worth every step we climbed.

After all this hard work it was time for a beer! Yup that’s what I said – most folks were eating ice cream and drinking coffee but others ventured off into the outdoors where food, wine and beer were plentiful.

While heading back toward our hotel, we found this driving down the street and oh was it pretty! A brand new Tesla convertible! jazzy!  

Ok here is the sign for the day! This just cracked me up – beautiful jewelry store!

At the end of the day, after our evening meal – we stopped right here and bought some fruit!

This is the final blog post from Germany! Now I can say:

Auf Wietersein to Germany – thanks for the memories, they are beautiful!