Guten Tag Frankfurt!
I’d love to say that the alarm jolted me out of a deep slumber this morning at 3:40am but unfortunately, as is usually the case when I set a ridiculously early alarm, I am so paranoid about sleeping in and missing it that I wake every hour, on the hour, anticipating the chime. So it’s safe to say it was an early start this morning.
Our cab turned up faithfully at the ungodly hour of 4am and deposited us safely - mostly due to there being no crazy traffic on the roads yet - and barely conscious, at the Naples International Terminal. Despite practicing our ‘guten tags’ and ‘dankes’ all the way to the airport, I greeted the Lufthansa flight attendant with a “ciao” and said “grazie” when she showed me where to sit. Duh! At least I didn’t regress back to Greek.
Once onboard, we were told by our Capitano with the soft German accent that the weather in Frankfurt was “very unsettled” with wild thunderstorms, and there was going to be a one hour delay before take-off. Rossco was able to drift off into a peaceful sleep to while away the time and I consumed (well tried to consume) probably the worst coffee of my life. The cup was delivered to my tray table containing an extremely dark substance, masquerading as coffee, appearing to be thick with the sludge of undissolved coffee grains. There was a stick in it that was standing up on its own. The flight attendant explained that I needed to put the lid on and drink it through the lid, which had a filter stretched across it to catch (most of) the coffee grains. A good idea in theory; now they just need to work on the taste.
We were in a holding pattern over Stuttgart until the storms eased and then touched down to a steamy day in Frankfurt. Since we are only in Frankfurt for one day, a little detour on our way home, we had decided to stay at a hotel right at the airport. I was convinced there was some way to enter the hotel without leaving the confines of the airport but Google Maps had other ideas, taking us on a wild goose chase around the perimeter of the airport, culminating in a steep walk up the car ramp in the carpark (possibly not the easiest or the most conventional way to enter). Ross was chivalrous and wheeled my bag as well as his own up the steep slope and let’s just say we were both a little hot and bothered by the time we reached the elusive hotel.
We dropped off our bags and headed for the subway, armed with detailed instructions from the concierge about how to get to the city centre. It was so strange to see all the street signs written in German. We had thought the Greeks were fond of syllables but the Germans leave them for dead. With out of control word-lengths and most words looking like swear words or containing a derivation of the word “fahrt”, it was a giggle-out-loud affair as we found our way to the ticket machine. Even though the machine had the option for English, we couldn’t find the station we’d been told to find. There were different track numbers, line numbers, ticket options….they don’t make it easy if you’re not German. A lovely German man saw us struggling and came to our aid, demonstrating how to order a ticket and then hanging around while we used the machine, just to make sure we didn’t need any more help. He found us down on the platform and offered us a map of the whole subway system on his phone, suggesting I take a photo of it so I’d know where we had to get off. The kindness of strangers puts a spring in your step doesn’t it? He was such a legend.
We made our way down to the River Main, not surprisingly the main river in the town, and up the Hauptwache shopping mall, with its buskers, balloon sellers, flower stalls and department stores. Rather than the mopeds we were so used to seeing zipping around Italy, the preferred mode of transport for the Frankfurters was the good old-fashioned pushy. The whole centre of the mall was dedicated to bike racks and people on bikes criss-crossed the cobblestone squares all over the city and rode along the river. We noticed straight away that, unlike our Italian friends, German drivers actually stop for pedestrians on zebra crossings and seem to give way and generally obey the road rules. And just when we’d started to get used to the chaos…
While we were in Germany we thought we should sample some local fare - Rossco especially keen for a bratwurst (or a brockwurst or a rindswurst or even a stadtwurst.) They are the wurst. Secretly hoping for a frankfurt in Frankfurt, we found a quaint little German pub that looked like something out of a Brothers Grimm fairytale and lo and behold, there on the menu was “frankfurt green sauce with 4 and a half eggs and potatoes”. Very specific. When it came to the table, much to Ross’ disappointment, there wasn’t a frankfurt in sight, just the promised green sauce, 4 and a half eggs and potatoes. We worked out the green sauce was from Frankfurt so it was called “Frankfurt green sauce”. Ohhhh.
Still on the hunt for some good German small goods, we found a takeaway sausage seller and Ross signed up for a ‘Number 7’ - not specifically a frankfurt but close enough. Our eyes both nearly left their sockets when we saw the size of the Number Sieben - it was the biggest sausage we had ever seen! There was no eating this baby on the run so we sat down on the steps in the town square, not realising there was a wedding in progress inside. Before long, the bride and groom and extended family had exited the building and were splaying out across the steps lining up for the perfect wedding picture; the kind of memory framed for future generations to remember.. and there, forever more, written into history, will be Ross photobombing in the background, tucking into his huge German sausage.
As we wandered through the city this afternoon, we spotted ‘The Australien Shop’ and our curiosity meant we just had to have a look inside. We gave a hearty “G’Day” to the sales assistant who seemed a little embarrassed that he wasn’t Australian. Apparently he was minding the store for its Aussie owners and had an impressive array of all things Aussie, including boomerangs, Jatz crackers, Cadbury chocolates, boxing kangaroos, Weet-Bix, didgeridoos, Milo and of course…Vegemite, servicing the big expat community living in Frankfurt, desperate for some homegrown supplies.
The “Old Town” part of Frankfurt was gorgeous with its picture-perfect fairytale buildings with window boxes on dormer windows; little turrets and slate shingles. A huge gothic Catholic church - Frankfurter Dom -dominates the Frankfurt skyline and beckoned us to take a peep inside its vast interior. Originally built between 680AD and 1550AD, the soaring arched ceilings and brick columns, punctuated by dangling chandeliers had all been rebuilt following the allied bombings in WWII , when only the facade had been left standing.
There was a beautiful big cobblestone square, in the old town, with an impressive fountain in the middle, that was gearing up for a party tonight. Port-a-loos were being trucked in, scaffolding set-up and barricades put in place. A few enquires revealed that a flock of jubilant Frankfurt football fans would be descending on the city centre tonight to celebrate Frankfurt’s win in the Europa League final - a big deal for sure. The players would even be there to fraternise with the fans and it was bound to be huge.
Our airport hotel is massive. We are on the 7th floor and I reckon the hallway from the lift to our door is about (no exaggeration) a kilometre long. We are a needle in a haystack. We may need a map just to find our way back to the front desk. Sadly, we can’t get the tv to work - we were looking forward to seeing what fun German shows we could watch. The main thing is, there’s a comfy bed and we will need as much sleep as we can get before our long haul home tomorrow.
So, here endeth our fun-filled Greco-Italian anniversary jaunt across the globe. We have had an absolute ball and feel so grateful to have been able to visit such incredibly beautiful places and parts of God’s creation, and to lock in so many amazing experiences and life-long memories. Thanks so much for reading along and enjoying it with us!
Auf Wiedersehen, Arrivederci and Antio Sas!
