Frankfurt: Nice beginning to travels in Europe

my porter at DFW Airport,
grand-daughter Kacie

Phillip and I are in Frankfurt, Germany, adjusting to the time change. Our flight was uneventful, just the way we like it, leaving DFW Airport at 4:30 pm, Sunday, arriving here at 9 am Monday. The flight itself was 9-1/2 hours, the time zone change accounted for the other 7 hours.

Our hotel is near the Hauptbanhof, the main train station. Since this stop is more for catching up on sleep and less for seeing the sights, our hotel is ideally situated. I expected to drop off our suitcases and walk around when we arrived, but the hotel clerk was able to check us into our room before 11 am. That was a pleasant surprise.

Phillip and I walked around a bit yesterday, after a little nap. Lots of commercial buidlings in Frankfurt. It is a banking and business center. We saw this one, unique and where's the other half of it? When we could see it around the other buildings, we used it to orient ourselves.

We also walked to the Main (pronounced like "mine" not "mane") River. A nice tree-lined walkway along it for as far as we could see. Boats were also available to give tours along the river, but I'd read that this river is the least picturesque of all the rivers we will visit, so we didn't visit the boats.

This morning's breakfast (included with the room) gave us another reason to really like our hotel (Bristol Hotel). Bacon and eggs on the buffet, as well as all kinds of cold cuts, pastries, and cheese. Unlimited coffee and juice. Smoked salmon and bagels, muesli, fruit. We ate in the breakfast room before we noticed the patio area, open for diners also. We finished our coffee on this patio. Even though we were just two bocks from the train station, no city noise at all - well, no noise unless an emergency vehicle drives anywhere near. They have that high/low/high/low wailing siren which we definitely notice because it is so different from our sirens.

Romer 

Frankfurt was heavily damaged during WWII, so most of the buildings are sixty years old or less. We actually found our way into the Romerberg (Old Town) area and I didn't realize it until I looked on Google maps to find out why people were taking pictures! The Romer was the site of the Imperial Hall where Holy Roman Emperoros celebrated their coronations. Today, it house City Hall in a building that was built during the post-war era.

Our favorite stop today was at the Kleinmarkthalle. It's an old-school market with a garden seed and flower section, about twenty sausage shops, numerous bakery shops, spice shops, and other food-related vendors. Gelato, not ice cream, is popular here, so we had a mango gelato in a waffle cone for just 1.4 euros each. Delicious!

After our Kleinmarkthalle visit, we walked down what is nicknamed Fressgass' (loosely translated as "feeding street). And that's where we purchased our first of many wursts on rolls. This one was pork sausage with herbs, fresh off a grill, on a fresh roll with mustard. Since we'd just had the gelato, we only bought one, 3.5 euros, and split it. Many more of those in our future!

Back at the hotel to write this post. Some thoughts about our first 28 hours in Europe:
-  The food isn't as expensive as we thought it would be, but the coffee is more expensive than expected. This makes our hotel breakfast even more attractive. Single cups of coffee run over 2 euros for a small at McDonalds (yes, there are McDonalds here).
-  We love the many small cars here, cars that make our Yaris look like an SUV. They are short enough to legally park perpendicular in the parallel parking spots. They aren't Smart cars, and I think they are even shorter than Smart cars.
-  Phillip is enjoying himself, probably because I'm not taking him to castles or museums.... yet. A lot of people watching, which we both love to do. This is an international city, so a lot of diversity here in the food and the people. It's been a great start to our adventure.