Frankfurt Info

Kelly, Heidelberg is an easy one hour ride from Frankfurt. You can take a nonstop train from the airport to Heidelberg and it's a 50 minute ride. You can also take the train from the other Frankfurt station, but you have to transfer, I think. There is also the Lufthansa bus that goes from the airport to the very edge of Old Town Heidelberg. Ride time is about an hour. Heidelberg is quite nice - I was just there and I thought it was charming. You could easily do it in a day:) There's a nice pedestrian pathway, a river to walk along, the architecture is pretty and there's nothing too intimidating about it, especially since this is your first time abroad. Just FYI, if you arrive at the Heidelberg train station, you'd probably need to take a cab to the Old Town...I walked it last week and even at a fast pace it took me about 15 or 20 minutes. The Lufthansa bus left me about a two minute walk from the entrance to the Old Town.

Thank you for the information......sounds like what I am looking for!!

You can indeed cruise the River Rhine. If you do a google search for Rhine River cruise you will find several companies that offer these cruises, most lasting several days. There are day cruises in that area, but I see that most might be seasonal.

If you stay in Frankfurt it is very easy to catch a train that will take you to the Rhine and to the ships for a short cruise. The train leaves every hour from track 24, at 08:53, 09:53, 10:53, etc. If you ride to Ruedesheim or Assmanshausen you can get on your boat there. The last time I did this trip, which was just a couple of weeks ago, getting off the train at Assmanshausen was the better stop logistically, as it matched the train and the ship schedule better. Ride the ship up to Ober Wesel or St. Goar or even farther to visit any of these lovely towns. Suggest riding the train back, as the ships go a lot slower traveling back south. You can get a ticket called "Quer durch Deutschland" or All Across Germany for 48 euro, that will let both of you ride all the Regional trains you like, as well as give you 20% off on your ship ticket. Day trips from Frankfurt can include Heidelberg, Mainz (do see the cathedral), Würzburg, Bad Homburg, Büdingen, Marburg, Michelstadt, or Seligenstadt for a start. Do you know where your Father lived or visited when he was 17? Let me know if I can help out here. Send me a PM and I will see what I can do to help make his trip (and yours) easier. Do you have a hotel? Frankfurt has a Federweisser Fest going on right now that is nice to sit at on these lovely fall days and evenings.

"I am thinking of staying in Frankfurt and explore the town and maybe 1 or 2 easy day trips. I would like to tour the Rhine River by boat.." The best city near FRA for daytrips to the scenic part of the Rhine, which lies northwest of FRA wouldn't be Frankfurt (more than 1 hour by train from the scenic part) or Heidelberg (which lies even further south of scenic part.) Your best bet would be Mainz, which is on the Rhine 25 min. west of FRA by direct train and about 30 min south of the scenic part. Single tickets for FRA-Mainz cost 4.10€ at the airport's "Regionalbahnhof" station. Mainz' old town area is especially nice: http://www.mainz.de/WGAPublisher/online/html/default/akah-67wd32.en.html Cruises are possible in October. Schedules for low and high season are here: http://www.k-d.de/english/kd-scheduled-cruises/kd-rhine-timetable/#c572 The best way to do this is to take a direct train from Mainz to Bingen, where the good scenery begins, and cruise north from there to St. Goar (home of Rheinfels Castle, about 1.7 hours), Boppard (about 2.5 hours) or Braubach (home of Marksburg Castle, about 3 hours.) http://www.st-goar.de/17-1-.html http://www.marksburg.de Then return to Mainz by train. A daypass called the "Rheinland-Pfalz Ticket" covers all this train travel from Mainz for 3 persons at a cost of 29€ total per day (good after 9 am on regional trains): http://www.vrminfo.de/en/tickets-and-fares/ticket-offers/rheinland-pfalz-ticket/ This pass should give you a 20% discount on the cruise tickets too!

A daytrip to Frankfurt or Heidelberg is easy from Mainz. Find schedules here: http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en A daytrip between Mainz and Frankfurt will cost 25.70€ for 3 adults - buy the "Gruppentageskarte" (group day pass) at price category 5 from a ticket machine at the Mainz station. A daytrip to Heidelberg from Mainz is possible on the cheap too; repost with your probably day of travel if you want details.

Thank you for the info!! yesterday was a little overwhelming learning the trains. We were able to visit downtown and had a wonderful time. The food we found was ok. Hopefully we will find better today. We are headed to train station to find the Rhine River. We are going to try and follow Jans directions as they seem the simplest. Lol.