Dreaming of a White Christmas - Day 18
Frankfurt
Back in Germany’s central west, the air is noticeably colder, but the
atmosphere is also conspicuously more Christmassy than in the Netherlands.
We docked in Cologne early this morning and were supposed to have our
cases outside our cabin door by 06:45 so they could be taken to the shuttle
buses for transfer to the railway station. Wallsy told me he had set an alarm
for 6, so we would be up and ready to go in plenty of time.
The announcement at 07:30 regarding disembarkation arrangements came as
a complete surprise to us both, jolting us from our sleep. A degree of panic
ensued, although my case was already packed and just had to have the toilet bag
added so it could be zipped up, Wallsy
still had to wrangle a few things into his. We were however, going to have to ‘lug’
our ‘luggage’ off the boat ourselves.
We raced down for a coffee and breakfast snack, still trying to work out
why the alarm had failed to go off, then gathered our possessions and made our
way to the bus. We were soon on our way back to Cologne Railway Station where
we had about an hour and half to kill before our train to Frankfurt.
The train arrived on time and the whole process of boarding the correct
carriage and finding our pre-booked seats happened smoothly. There was even
luggage storage in this 2nd class carriage, unlike the earlier one we
had travelled in from Prague to Schwandorf.
The high-speed train made short work of the trip, soon 90 minutes had
flown by and before we knew it, we were pulling into the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof.
The air was noticeably colder when left the station for the 10-minute walk to our
hotel.
Hotel Scandic Museumsufer is an ultra-modern hotel, in direct comparison
to the incredibly old and characterful hotel in Prague. The Sandic is, as the
name suggests, very Scandi in its presentation with sleek white everything and
minimalist furnishings. Wallsy was immediately taken by the chair in our room
which he thought was a therapy couch and quickly settled in for a counselling
session.
After settling into our rooms we set off for a walk towards something
resembling lunch, which we found in a burger bar on the edge of the Old Town. Appetites
sated, we all went our separate ways to browse the Christmas Market, sample the
Gluhwein and generally explore the locality, that is, until the cold
started to penetrate, and we decided it was time to return to the warmth of our
accommodation.
There will be time for more exploration tomorrow when the temperature is
meant to reach both a high and a low of 4 degrees. Better dig those winter woollies
out of the case again. Tonight we have dined in the hotel bar and retreated to
our rooms to rest and research our options for a day in Frankfurt.
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