Lively kids at breakfast again. I could see that Germans like all kinds of herbal teas from the selection available near the hot water urn.
It was raining as I crossed the bridge to the station. There was uncertainty whether there would be services due to the threatened strike. An old lady at Cochem station checked with me which direction the train was going. She was from South Africa and travelling around Germany. At Koblenz station I bumped into her again. She told me that Bingen hostel was full of groups. So much for the idea of overnighting in Bingen. She didn't hold much hope for Bacharach either. Ah, youth groups, they are the scourge of indy travellers during high season.
The rain was starting to depress me. It didn't help that a train strike was threatened for Sunday which might make it difficult to get to Frankfurt Airport. It occurred to me that I could get my plane ticket brought forward by a couple of days. I needed to think about this. In the meantime I put my backpack in a locker and walked into the city to see the monument of Wilhelm I on horseback at the Deutsches Eck (German Corner) which stands at the confluence of the Mosel and Rhine. On the other side of the Rhine is Ehrenbreitstein where there is a hostel which I had considered staying a night in. No idea if it was full of groups. I would have to cross the Rhine if I wanted to do this.
The currents of the Mosel and Rhine are very strong and this cruise boat had to oversteer by a lot to go where it wanted.
In the town there is Münzplatz, where the mint used to be, and these statues depicting a market woman and a local official. They don't seem to be mentioned in the official tourism site.
Jesuit church.
Windows with fancy decorations.
A building with an old corner tower. If I recall correctly it's one of 4 towers at the crossroads like this, each slightly different.
Government buildings.
By this time I had made up my mind. I was tired and a bit homesick, and I didn't fancy sticking around for the train strike. I went to an Internet and call centre and looked up the phone number and address of my airline's Frankfurt office on the Web. Over the phone they said that it should be no problem to leave earlier, lots of seats, but come down to our offices. So I got a ticket to Frankfurt for 20€80. A bit of sticker shock, coming from Italy where trains are relatively cheap, but to be fair, it was a long distance up the Rhine then the Main. Also I was not eligible for any of the discounts offered to residents, or special offers.
90 minutes by train to Mainz. Lots of schoolchildren getting off and on the train. Going home from school or from trips, I wondered. Then 40 minutes on the S-Bahn. This passed Mainz Sud, the nearest stop to a possible hostel then passed Frankfurt airport where I would be returning to. The airlines offices were just around the corner from the Hauptbahnhof. Piece of cake and no charge to change the ticket to leave the next day. The deed done, I then had a fast-food lunch and sent my relatives a SMS to let them know I would be 2 days early.
I decided spend my last night in Germany in a hotel for a change. If I got one near the airport I could get shuttled between the hotel and airport both ways and avoid any issues with trains. I went back to Frankfurt International and asked the booking service to locate me one. An unsmiling woman consulted her book of addresses and found me one in a village near the airport called Sindlingen.
The hotel seemed to be run by Indian or Pakistani immigrants, and was perfectly serviceable with all the standard amenities. Lest you think Sindlingen is a bucolic location, it's on the edge of an industrial park and I had views of factories and chimneys from my window. It was probably rustic a long time ago, before the factories took over. The village is neat and quiet. It had good services and there was a supermarket just around the corner from the hotel. I couldn't resist buying a last bag of cherries there.
The sun peeked out to taunt me, on my last evening in Germany. But there were still black clouds in the sky and the forecast on the TV predicted bad weather until Saturday. The news also said that the train strikes were predicted to continue. I walked down the street and found a Vietnamese restaurant whose owners were actually Chinese. I chatted with them a bit over my meal, then went back to become a bed potato facing the TV.
It was raining as I crossed the bridge to the station. There was uncertainty whether there would be services due to the threatened strike. An old lady at Cochem station checked with me which direction the train was going. She was from South Africa and travelling around Germany. At Koblenz station I bumped into her again. She told me that Bingen hostel was full of groups. So much for the idea of overnighting in Bingen. She didn't hold much hope for Bacharach either. Ah, youth groups, they are the scourge of indy travellers during high season.
By this time I had made up my mind. I was tired and a bit homesick, and I didn't fancy sticking around for the train strike. I went to an Internet and call centre and looked up the phone number and address of my airline's Frankfurt office on the Web. Over the phone they said that it should be no problem to leave earlier, lots of seats, but come down to our offices. So I got a ticket to Frankfurt for 20€80. A bit of sticker shock, coming from Italy where trains are relatively cheap, but to be fair, it was a long distance up the Rhine then the Main. Also I was not eligible for any of the discounts offered to residents, or special offers.
I decided spend my last night in Germany in a hotel for a change. If I got one near the airport I could get shuttled between the hotel and airport both ways and avoid any issues with trains. I went back to Frankfurt International and asked the booking service to locate me one. An unsmiling woman consulted her book of addresses and found me one in a village near the airport called Sindlingen.
The hotel seemed to be run by Indian or Pakistani immigrants, and was perfectly serviceable with all the standard amenities. Lest you think Sindlingen is a bucolic location, it's on the edge of an industrial park and I had views of factories and chimneys from my window. It was probably rustic a long time ago, before the factories took over. The village is neat and quiet. It had good services and there was a supermarket just around the corner from the hotel. I couldn't resist buying a last bag of cherries there.
The sun peeked out to taunt me, on my last evening in Germany. But there were still black clouds in the sky and the forecast on the TV predicted bad weather until Saturday. The news also said that the train strikes were predicted to continue. I walked down the street and found a Vietnamese restaurant whose owners were actually Chinese. I chatted with them a bit over my meal, then went back to become a bed potato facing the TV.
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