Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Train ride to Frankfurt, Day 3


Day 3 of our trip was really a travel day. We left our hotel fairly early and went to a patisserie across the street and bought some croissants and other patries (for lunch and breakfast) and headed to the train station. The Paris Metro is so easy to navigate even during the morning rush and with two large backpacks, that we were at our destination in plenty of time to sit on a bench and eat our breakfast.

As always, the train to Frankfurt left on time. We were riding on a German high speed train that at one point reached a speed of 372 km/hr. We were cruising.

Our train ride was interesting because of our neighbor across the aisle. He was an Iranian man who had traveled to Paris and had a mishap trying to check into a hotel so was going to see his friend in Amsterdam instead. He was so lonely that it didn't matter that David and I were both reading, he was talking to us as much as his limited English would allow. At one point, he asked what kind of music we liked and pulled out his cell phone and started to play different songs...VERY loudly, which was really weird on this nice quiet commuter train.

We finally reached our destination in Frankfurt and gladly shed our neighbor and headed to St. Goar where we were to meet our tour group. My funny thought changing trains halfway there was "look at that old antique train they have on display." That antique train was our final mode of transportation and we barely made our connection since I wasn't hurrying to it as everyone else was.

St. Goar sits on the Rhine River and is a gorgeous little town. Our hotel looked right over the river and we have a room on the upper floor with a phenomenal view.

That night we met our tour group for dinner. It was unremarkable bratwurst, sauerkraut and potatoes, with a starter of cream of asparagus soup. Our dessert was strawberries on a custard.

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