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6 nights in Germany - Mainz & Heidelberg - Heidelberg was gorgeous!

Neither of my destinations, Mainz nor Heidelberg are included in RS guides, ah well they were both wonderful, in different ways. (Thanks to KGC, Russ, Nigel, & Ms Jo for ideas for this trip, Tammy for sharing her ideas on Heidelberg, and to Jean for super-light packing inspiration.) I didn’t have time to get to Trier, but have plans for it next time. The plan - meet an English girlfriend at FRA and spend 2 nights in Heidelberg, as she’d never been to Germany, & I added the first night in Mainz, (based upon many recommendations from the Forum) and because it would be easy back-and-forth to FRA, I ended with 2 nights at a German girlfriend’s house outside Frankfurt.

I downloaded the Deutsche Bahn app & linked it to a US credit card, very easy and really useful. Especially for planning for alternative trains when either we screwed up (once) or trains were late (once). I used Apple Pay occasionally when I remembered. There’s more use for cash than I expected, smaller lunch places that only took cash, & Chagall windows at St Stephan's church to buy anything, for instance. I bought 50 Euros at FRA airport at a Deutsche Bank ATM, using Bank of America debit card that has reciprocity, no fee.

I bought a new Samsonite, super light and small 2-wheeler, easy to get around with and carried about 6.5 KG, 14 lbs, including my iPad. (packing report here. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/packing/packing-report-for-sunny-skies-6-nights-in-germany)

Mainz- My main interest in Mainz was seeing the Chagall windows & visiting the Gutenberg museum.I flew from ARN to FRA (no jet lag, yay!) Since I arrived Sunday early afternoon, I prioritized the museum and then saw the cathedral and Chagall windows at St Stephan's on Monday, when museums would be closed. Would have liked to see the Regional Museum, just wasn’t time on Sunday. Easy train ride with only 2 stops from FRA, exited at the smaller Mainz Römisches Theater station (thanks for the advice on the Forum) & walked 6-minutes from train to the Hyatt hotel (used points, another yay). Went straight to the Gutenberg Museum after dropping off my bag, so I could browse a bit & watch the printing demo, (every hour on the hour except 1PM). The demo was GREAT, and more interesting after downloading and watching a documentary by Stephen Fry about Gutenberg.https://youtu.be/n-jkS5qOWS8?si=zwVEz5ArDc-tYfPm. Do you know how paper was made in the Middle Ages?? I stayed quite awhile at the museum & happened to have a nice chat with the director in German about how great the museum was, especially the erudite man who gave the print demonstration. (I recognized her from the documentary.) I find I just enjoy places more when I have some knowledge of what I'm seeing.

Mainz was reasonably busy on Sunday pm, just didn’t feel like dealing with it so opted for relatively quiet bar at Hyatt, not cheap but E40 was worth it to sit quietly, delish club sandwich, sparkling water & a VERY good glass of dry Riesling. Walked 13,000 steps first day.

On Monday I had a leisurely cafe breakfast at Werner's Backstube, (seriously this is really why I travel!), went to the cathedral briefly, (it was OK on a ‘cathedral scale’, sorry but after Rome I might be biased.) on way to AMAZING Chagall stained glass windows at St Stephan’s, opened at 10AM. I had read that Chagall, a Russian Jew, who began designing stained glass in his 70’s, gave this as a reconciliation gift to the German people after the horrors of WW2, what a mensch, I was sincerely touched. They only accept cash for audio guide & postcards, I just had enough money to pay for the audio guide, which was excellent. Got there as they opened, spent almost an hour moving around to different pews enjoying the glorious windows. I may have seen 5 tourists by the time I left, perfect timing I picked up my luggage back at hotel & walked down the street for lunch at Misaki sushi, it was reasonable and good service... To be continued...

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Heidelberg - We lucked out on weather, it had been rainy & chilly but the week was warmer and clear, gorgeous spring weather with few crowds. It really surprised me about Heidelberg, I’d been told to expect hordes, especially afternoons on the old bridge, but it was pretty quiet. I’m sure it picked up on the eve of May 1st, a national holiday, just as we were leaving. And we found it to be a great town for a few nights, we both took beautiful pictures, never saw a large tour bus, some tourists of course like us wandering around, friendly staff except for the odd grump, and just a very nice place to visit & stay 2 nights.

40 years ago I was a part-time student tour guide in Heidelberg for US teens, while studying in Tubingen at the university, so it was great to come back without that burden! I took the train back to FRA mid afternoon to meet my girlfriend arriving from England. I think she was a bit overwhelmed by all the pre-planning I had done, ((blame the RS Forum HA!) but it did allow me to relax and have plans for possible places to eat, timing of visits to museums, well you know what I mean. We stayed at the Hachteufel Hotel near the Old Bridge, perfect location, 4 minutes walk to Rathaus where trams stop to and from train station. clean & friendly hotel with not-too small single rooms. (I got a big kick out of the name of the hotel, as Hachfleisch is literally chopped beef, so I wondered what a chopped devil could mean? (Had to do with an old fable - if you die young & go to hell, it’s because you drank too much, if you die old & go to hell, it’s because the alcohol kept you alive; I think you had to be from the era to find it cute.)

LONG day, 13,500 steps.

FOOD - Breakfast was an additional E12 and there was no kettle in the room to make tea, so we paid for breakfast there, as getting out to a cafe sans-coffee or tea just didn’t work for us. It’s so nice to travel with a like-minded friend! The breakfast was excellent, fresh, included cappuccino (YES!), usual small buffet, orange juice, and a very pleasant morning server. The breakfast room was truly a work of art, decorated with antiques & a gorgeous over with the castle carved onto it. Everyone who worked at the hotel was gracious, helpful and we really enjoyed the hotel. We had dinner there the first night, I think it was E50 for 2 people for a main course, no alcohol. I recommend the spatzle with cheese and a salad.

Heidelberg Castle - We paid to take the cogwheel train all the way to the top, wow it was steep. And had really great views! We stopped off at castle on way back, skipped the tour because the Pharmacy Museum kept us busy for quite some time, I could have gone back up the next day to read more, so much info about history of pharma, definitely worth the time, but feet ached by then so walked back to Old Town to wander, took amazing pictures, visited the old bridge and had an OK but not great pizza somewhere nearby. Frankly the food at hotel was excellent, we could easily have eaten there a second evening.

It looks like we didn't do much that day, but there was a LOT more to the day that started by getting up at 6:30AM to take a train to fetch a lost cell phone... more on this later ! 13,500 steps

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Find a GREAT place to eat cake! I had sussed out Cafe Gundel in Heidelberg, where we bought our take-away pretzel sandwich lunches and I bought 'cobble stone cake', choice of dark or milk chocolate covered cake. I took these to my GF's house and they were a huge hit. Just wished I'd skipped lunch and just eaten cake!

Apple studel at hotel... sorry more tomorrow.... it was wonderful!

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What worked and what didn’t - Note that the trains leave from Terminal 1, where I'd arrived from ARN, a Schengen destination. My friend's plane came from LHR, Terminal 2, internaional. There is a bus through a heavy duty construction zone, I found out. Coming back with GF, I searched out the Sky Train (I think it was called) but it was a SCHLEP from Terminal 2 back to Terminal 1, then upstairs and somewhere in there down a LONG corridor. Note to self - I was so happy I packed light!! I think it was a 20-minute walk from arrival hall to train station, if you know exactly where you're going.

Well the first day it took us 3.5 hours to get from FRA to Heidelberg, (versus 1 hour to get back!.) We heard a lot of others complaining about service on the ICE that day, making calls to friends and not sounding polite about it, & one woman was yelling at the conductor, like gee lady go sit down. I learned later from my German friends, we should have walked to the Regional Train Station (after looking on the app to be sure trains were going) and taken a slower train. Lesson learned! Coming back to FRA, we ended up leaving Heidelberg at noon in order to make absolutely sure my friend would make the 6PM train back to London in time. We asked a few people, some said 1-2PM, but one waitress said don’t trust it on the eve of a May Day, basically a 4-day holiday weekend. Friday was a work day, but many take it off. Of course the trains were on time! HA. My German friends told me they add in 1.5 hours to any train trip, just in case.

I would like to stress just how NICE (almost) everyone was to us - I always approached people with 'Excuse me, I'm sorry may I just ask a question' in German, (think Bonjour in France) people were SO kind and helpful! One woman realized we had no clue which way to catch the tram from the main Heidelberg train station, she walked us across the tracks in the other direction from HER route to show us the board with different trams, then went back to her side.

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What happened when my very tired girlfriend forgot her phone on a train! (It ends well but since it's a tale I'm leaving room for it here.) Sorry for the cliffhanger but it's late evening in Sweden, will get back to this tomorrow!!

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This sounds like a dreamy girlfriends trip! Dark chocolate cobble stone cake for me, please!!

Nice cliffhanger.... I'll be watching for the "go back for the phone" episode. This is why I tether mine to my purse, though I'm pretty sure a couple of gals on my tour were having a chuckle at my expense. Oh well, I still have my phone!

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10708 posts

Such a nice trip report - how wild to go back to a place where you used to give tours as a student !

I have always wanted to go to Heidelberg - I believe the first foreign postcard I ever got came from there - in about 3rd grade maybe from a classmate who had gone home to visit family with her German mother. I really need to make the effort to go - bookmarking your report !

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Great report! I didn’t know about the Chagall windows in Mainz. I’d love to see them.