Tuesday 12 July
Frankfurt
I didn’t sleep well last night. Kept waking up due to a
hard pillow. Noel seems to have slept OK.
Fortunately we are only staying one night in this room (we fly out later
this afternoon to Hong Kong). The bathroom has no ventilation at all and
smells horrible, like an old sewer drain. It even smells like that on the
footpath outside the hotel.
Our hotel rooms on this trip
Looking back on our hotel rooms, the most satisfying room we had was the one
in Becharre, Lebanon. The Singapore one was quite nice too, but that was an
upgrade from a previously booked hotel and cost us NZ$70 more for the night.
It‘s probably worth paying a little bit more for better quality hotels in
the future.
There is a wide selection of food for breakfast. I have a delicate,
flavoured pink yogurt.
Walking around Frankfurt
We plan to spend the whole morning, from about 8.30 am, walking the streets
and downtown of Frankfurt.
The day is clear and sunny with a gentle breeze. Very comfortable to start
with, but gets a little warm by mid-morning.
As we walk we are again impressed with this orderly, planned city. There are
cycle tracks on the sides of the main roads and tram lines down the middle.
There is also an underground rail system. All the streets are spotlessly
clean.
The streets of Frankfurt.
The local people seem happy enough but rather reserved. Noel again blends in
perfectly with many German men his age who have his straight, sandy coloured
hair.
Many of the people running the small stores in this city however are olive
skinned, Mediterranean types.
Another German Fraulein comes to our aide when she sees us studying our map.
She is the third women to offer her help since landing in Germany.
Quite different from the Middle East
where we have come from.
What perhaps impresses us most are the beautiful food displays in the shop
windows. Just about every conceivable variety of food is beautifully
presented. Look at the way the fish is laid out in the picture below.
Fastidiously presented fish.
There are endless varieties of meat available. And
breads galore
Meats in stacks of different cuts.
Breads galore.
Many of the buildings look sleek and modern, with a lot of reflective glass.
Quite a few bicycles around. This one here appears to have all the options.
Fully equipped bicycle.
We see a currency conversion board outside a bank and notice that they spelt
New Zealand, ‘Neuseeland’. Our NZ dollar is only worth half
a euro.
The Neuseeland dollar does not go far here.
In the centre of the city there are traffic-free malls
that were obviously once roads. Very pleasant in the summer.
Pleasant, traffic free road malls.
We
are surprised to come across a 1 euro shop. It is exactly along the
lines of our $2 shops.
The One Euro shop. €1 buys in Germany
approx what NZ$1 buys in New Zealand.
Elegant furniture
Noel wants to have a look in a furniture shop. We are pleased we did, the
furniture is just beautiful, very elegant indeed and finely finished.
Look at the chairs below. The finish is perfect everywhere you see. No flat
or plain finish on the backs. The tables are beautiful also.
Beautifully elegant dining room suite.
No trendy, artificially aged, dented, pock-marked wood here.
This fine oak cabinet below was priced at €1496 euros, about $3000 NZ
dollars.
Fine oak cabinet €1496.
There are also some elegant old buildings I think this one is the
courthouse.
Frankfurt courthouse, we think.
Typical of German cleanliness is this church steeple which is
being renovated. They have covered the entire top part with a sacking
material to keep the renovation dust and debris inside.
Church steeple under repair, shrouded in sacking.
The River Main
We also walk along the well developed banks of the River Main. We see
freight barges continually going up and down the river, also young people in
rowing skiffs.
There is a bridge about every half kilometre across this river.
One of many long river barges (on far side of the river).
There are bridges about every half km.
Noel walking across one of the
pedestrian bridges.
Me on the banks of the River Main.
The water of the river is a bit discoloured. It appears that few countries
have clean, clear rivers like New Zealand.
Back to the airport to fly to Hong Kong
We make our way back to the hotel
about mid-day, pack our bags and head down to the railway station.
At the station we have something to eat. We also come across this highly
elaborate shoe shine machine (see photo below). It strikes me as massive
overkill, especially compared to your average shoe shine boy in Egypt with
just a plastic bag containing a brush and a bottle of ‘creama’. But it is
certainly eye catching.
Over-kill shoe-shine machine at the railway station.
We have a little difficulty finding the right train to take us out to the
airport. This is because there are twice as many platforms than we first
realised. There is another whole under ground level to the railway station
below us. We actually count 34 different platforms and railway lines leading
out of the station. Incredible, even for a city of 4 million people.
We finally get to the airport. Frankfurt Airport is also on a large scale.
The terminal building covers probably a whole square kilometre. Although the
Cairo, Egypt airport exterior ground area would be clearly the biggest we
have ever come across. No doubt because desert land is so cheap.
While waiting at the airport, we see an unusually large number of very tall,
fair headed German men, all around the 6ft 5” mark. This is taller than
Noel’s son Andrew, who is 6ft 3”. Many of the men are wearing suits.
We see one of Schumacher’s racing cars on display at the airport. Quite a
colourful display in the cockpit.
Schumacher’s racing car at the airport.
Unusually colourful display
in the cockpit.
An impressive looking Range Rover is also on display at the airport.
Well presented Range Rover on display.
Off to Hong Kong
Our flight to Hong Kong is a long one, 10 hours, 10 minutes and is an ‘over-nighter.’
In other words we sleep on the plane overnight. The plane is a four engine
jumbo jet.
The last jumbo jet we were on was very noisy, but as we take off, this one seems much quieter. Probably because we are sitting in the
middle, away from the windows. The seats are 3 – 4 – 3 across. It is a
packed plane. Lots of Chinese onboard. As usual we have another good German
meal. Lufthansa do this quite well.
Next day Wednesday 13th July
Hong Hong
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