We flew an overnight flight directly from Seattle to Frankfurt Germany. Baggage restrictions are so tight on Condor Air our first challenge was to pack minimally. Our flight took off at 5pm Seattle time and landed around 11:30am the following day, Frankfurt time. Needless to say, each of us maybe got a couple hours sleep, despite our plan to sleep a full night on the plane.
After arriving at Frankfurt and navigating a rather long route to the car rentals, we ended up with a fancy Diesel Hybrid with Navigation, which means better gas mileage and help with navigating a whole new system of roads & signs. It took a while to get the navigation to use English and immediately out of the airport was tons of construction with confusing temporary painted over lines.
Though jet-lagged, our plan was to stay up until 7pm, which didn’t give us much time in the area. We drove to Weisbaden, Germany to visit the city Katie’s Nana grew up in. We took an 1888 mountain cable trolly called Nerobergbahn Öffnungszeiten up a steep hill to get the best view of town and a bite to eat. The mountain cable car is entirely powered by water. They fill the water on the trolly at the top of the hill, then use gravity to pull the 2nd trolly up. Then let the water out at the bottom of the hill. Genius.
The restaurant was fun because they only had a German menu. Aven & Katie ordered mystery food and then we took in the view before heading back down. After navigating weird streets with impatient rush hour traffic, we were able to find.a small grocery to get some highly coveted water. Of course, the water was warm, as with all their drinks. Didn’t exactly quench our thirst on a very hot day.
We drove to Mainz, got in our hotel. Navigated through an overtired Azie, who wouldn’t admit sleepiness yet fell asleep in 2 minutes. Most of us fell asleep around 7pm and woke up at 3am. Hopefully we can further adjust to the local time after a long day of castle hopping.