Gengenbach, Germany to Frankfurt, Germany
Woke a little later, downstairs for breakfast (much more crowded this time, since we were later). Discovered that someone brought their cute Samoyed to work!
Decided to check our luggage at the airport when we pass through Frankfurt to avoid needing to lug it around and leave it in the car while we sightsee. So, we need to pack so everything for the next day and flight are at hand.
Hit the road, heading towards Frankfurt, but with a stop in Baden Baden for a highly rated Black Forest Cake at Café König. Sylvia ordered a soup (beef broth with dumplings), Vix ordered a salad. I ordered a cappuccino.
We stopped for gas somewhere along the road and saw a tank being hauled.
Continued a couple hours to Frankfurt and dropped our luggage off at the Lufthansa counter- discovered that the Frankfurt airport is designed to cause frustration. Mental note- nothing there is easy.
Spent some time trying to figure out how to get to our hotel- needed to park at a parking garage (note: no tickets- the gate scanned our license plate and we typed said plate into the payment machine upon leaving) and walk ~5 minutes into cobblestone pedestrian streets with our luggage.
While trying to check into the hotel, we were told that there was a system outage and that A) they couldn’t give us a key, so we’d have to get someone to let us into the room whenever we needed to be let in (though there would be someone staffed at the front at all hours) B) no internet. When we got to the room, it was super well decorated and designer focused, but there was NO AIR CONDITIONING! It was unusually hot, so we’d need to keep the windows open, but the hotel was in the middle of an area of town filled with bars.
While Vix and I sat down to swelter, Sylvia explored the hotel and discovered that parts of the communal kitchen did have A/C, so she asked if there were any rooms that had it. After some back and forth where they basically said, “no dice”, they finally admitted that there was a top floor room with A/C available, but we’d need to upgrade ~30 euros. Sold. We packed up and moved into a much larger and MUCH COOLER room for the night.
Checking google maps for nearby highly rated restaurants, we discovered that Frankfurt has everything – Swedish, Ethiopian, Thai, Japanese, etc. Picked an Italian place, Restaurant Longobardis – Frankfurt across the river and made a reservation then walked over early. Vix ordered the Tagliolini Pistachio, Sylvia had the ???, and I had the Perla di Bosco pinsa, all delicious (never had a bad Italian meal in the entire trip) I also had a Limoncello Spritz and an Aperol Spritz (another one!).
We took a stroll back to the hotel after dinner because it was still rather warm. Frankfurt is another city, like Prague, Munich, and Vienna, that feels vibrant and full of life- we passed people exercising in the park, hanging out, and eating along the river walk.
Sylvia and I went out for a walk as the sunset was happening and walked along the river and one of the big bridges over the river Main. Frankfurt seemed very full of life and history, but we only experienced a small sampling of it. Would like to spend more time there someday.
(~14,000 steps)