23 December 2017
For our flight from New York to Frankfurt, we had the very pleasant surprise of being upgraded to Premium Economy. Thank you Lufthansa — very nice! That made everything much more comfortable and allowed me to at least get a few hours sleep. Unfortunately Nicole and Katelyn weren’t able to sleep though.
We arrived at our hotel at around 7:00am, but amazingly were able to check in to our room at that time. Thank you Citadines Frankfurt! We decided to sleep until around 11:00 before setting off to explore.
After getting our SIM cards (a process that required visiting at least 8 different shops — so much for German efficiency), we wandered around the main shopping area (platz) and grabbed something to eat at the Christmas markets. Katelyn particularly enjoyed her crepe with Nutella!
Nicole wins a car
While we were getting ready to check out the following morning, Nicole received an email from a new shopping centre near our house in Rockhampton. They had run a promotion to give away a brand new Suzuki Swift, and Nicole (at the prompting of Katelyn) had entered one docket to win. That morning Nicole received an email asking her to call the Parkhurst General Manager urgently. Our SIM cards wouldn’t allow international calls, so she emailed him and he called straight back to say we had won! Amazing!!! Nicole has never won anything, so she’s certainly started in style.
It still feels very surreal and hasn’t sunk in properly yet. The General Manager said he would look after the car until we get back, and promised (tongue in cheek) not to put too many kilometres on it in the meantime.
Driving on the wrong side
We then caught a taxi to collect our hire car. We had booked a BMW X1, but received a BMW 318 instead. It was a nice car, however there was one problem — they had put the steering wheel in front of the passenger seat! Driving on the right hand side of the road for the first time, in a country where I can’t read the road signs, was challenging to say the least.
Nicole was a great help, augmenting the GPS navigator with additional tips plus, most importantly, warning me at every intersection to keep to the correct lanes. We came up with “tight right” and “loose left” as key phrases to help prevent me from inadvertently driving into oncoming traffic. So good was Nicole’s guidance that we never once did this. Thanks very much Nicole!
By the end of the day (after driving to Heidelberg then Rothenburg) I was starting to get the hang of it and getting up to 100 mph once.
Heidelberg
Our first stop was Heidelberg. We found a park at the old town and went for a walk. The highlight here was a stop at a lovely Italian cafe. The fellow serving us was a real character, and spoke fluent German, English (thankfully) and Italian. I had a fantastic tiramisu with the best coffee I’d had since leaving Australia (the USA doesn’t do coffee well).
Rothenburg
Then it was on to Rothenburg, a beautiful old walled village. I had been there 25 years ago and, unsurprisingly, not much has changed. In many ways Rothenburg was like one big, old gift shop, with all sorts of decorations and knick knacks for sale. Needless to say that Nicole and Katelyn were quite excited about this. We had a very nice dinner, washed down with a nice local beer. I also got to use my new tripod to get some night shots, which I was quite happy with.
Nuremberg
Then we headed off in the hire car to Nuremberg, where we would spend one night. It was raining when we arrived, so we decided to take a rest for the afternoon while the weather cleared. After having a nice dinner at the hotel, Nicole and I headed off to the old town to explore, while Katelyn relaxed in the hotel room.
I really liked Nuremberg. While it was not quite as picturesque as Rothenburg, it did have a lot of character plus seemed to have a lot more energy, with all sorts of people wandering, shopping and drinking. Nicole suggested that I try a Gluewein drink (warm wine), which I did. I can’t say that I enjoyed it much, however I will hang on to the mini mug that it was served in.
Munich & the Hofbräuhaus
The next morning it was back in the car for the drive to Munich. We were only there for less than half a day, so restricted ourselves to a walk around the old town centre, heading towards Marienplatz and the Glockenspiel sitting high above it.
To finish our exploration we had to visit a beer house, so wandered into the Hofbräuhaus. We’d just taken a table when a family from Portland (Oregon, USA) asked if they could sit with us. They had just flown into Munich and were heading to Prague the next day. They were lovely to talk to and had a son that will be starting to study journalism and photography next year. We touched gently on politics during our time together and, unsurprisingly, they weren’t Donald Trump fans and essentially apologised to us for the biggest mistake the country had made in a long time. A sad state of affairs that they felt the need to do this.
So it was back to the hotel, sleep, wake, drive to the airport, return the hire car and catch our flight to London. While it was a very quick trip to Germany, we all agree that it was worth doing. Katelyn got to experience what a non-English speaking country is like, and we all got to see some of the magnificent history that Europe has to offer. I couldn’t live in Germany, but really love the place and how efficiently it operates. Friendly smiles aren’t as common as they could be though. 😐
Towards the end I also started to get more confident in speaking basic German to some people. For my troubles, I received a smile and then a response in English. At least they appreciated the effort.
Auf Wiedersehen!
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