I love reading the trip reports, so thought I would jot down some of the fun things that happened on our last visit. It will not be comprehensive, city-by-city, but more of an amusement. We went three weeks, Frankfurt to lots of towns and back to Frankfurt, and used only trains and our own two feet.
In Frankfurt, end of November, besides the markets, we escaped one day to the Palmengarten, which was empty and a lovely respite. It takes about 30 minutes to walk from the train station. The fountain was on and the sun shone, although it was about 5C/40F. The green houses and cactus gardens were warm and steamy; going in and out from hot to cold was quite the event. On the way to the garden, we stopped at Pizzeria Sicilia, 9 Nidenau, a tiny Italian restaurant with wonderful gluten-free pizza. Order at the door, squeeze into a table, and chat with your neighbors a bit if they wish.
At the beginning of December, the trains from France were suppressed, so we had lots of adventures. We had a train pass, but any scheduled trains were more a hope than a certainty, and I spent lots of time in the Reisebüro finding solutions. The train staff were always wonderful. One day, as we stood in the cold awaiting our train to Saarbrücken, I heard an announcement that mentioned our train track. Luckily it was repeated a few minutes later: the train was cancelled and the new train was arriving quite some distance away at the other end of the station. I called to my husband, „Run!“ and we went up and down multiple flights of stairs, across hallways, between people, up more stairs, pulling suitcases, and arrived just as the new train came in. Luckily, we have done this before, and my husband follows me without asking „Why?“ Aerobic activity at its best that makes us feel as though we are still in our 20s (which was over 40 years ago). We were still laughing when the conductor came to click our tickets.
Some days later, we decided to go from Dresden to some small city, and I have actually forgotten where we were going and why. But we took a train that was delayed, and I still followed my plan to change trains in an unknown city, Valhingen-an-Enz, so we could get an ICE that would shorten our trip by three hours. Since we were late arriving, we missed our connection. As it was Sunday, nothing was open. Were we stranded forever or could we get back to civilization?
Luckily, the nice yellow sheets with train schedules were posted, so we found a regional train to a bigger city in an hour; then went to the Reisebüro and asked for help. Our day trip became a nice tour of parts of Germany we had not seen before.
Dresden was lovely, and one day we decided to do laundry. There were no laundromats „close“ to where we stayed, but google found us one about 2km/1mi away, so we walked there, visited two more markets on the way (carrying our laundry of course) and enjoyed an empty laundromat. The machines are so cool, with computer centrales that control the machines. At one point, my husband told me to push „button 9“ to turn on the dryer. That did not work, no matter what we did. A nice lady in perhaps her late 80s pointed to the „9“ and said „Geh, Geh!“ until I realized it was „Gee“ not „Nine.“ Problem solved! (I though she was telling us to leave for a minute, though!)
Everyone stay safe, as we dream of our next trip, either a RS tour or something else.