Flippin' cold in Frankfurt and made it back to Mainz

Mainz has changed a lot...don't remember this restaurant 

but I finally found my old cafe

my spot in the sun ... the hot chocolate I remember

Mainz old town

beautiful music drew me into this church

Christmas markets stalls being constructed

modern Mainz 

along the Rhine

elegant old buildings

Frankfurt main train station

central business district

My flight from Doha goes to Frankfurt and I intend to take a train to Zurich to catch up with a friend from Hong Kong.

Just a 2 minute walk from the Central Train Station (South exit) is the Hotel Excelsior http://www.hotelexcelsior-frankfurt.de/en/ a really good place to base yourself while in Frankfurt.

Although my single room is small, and not well heated, the hotel is more than good value, with a substantial good quality buffet breakfast, free internet (that works) free local phone calls and free mini bar and snacks in the lobby, and the staff are welcoming and helpful.

Mainz, a city on the Rhine about 25 mins by train from Frankfurt and the place where Johannes Gutenberg created the word’s first printing press in 1440, is a place I want to return to. I often stayed there when I worked for QANTAS. Although I never did try the famous “pigs knuckles” which most of the crew enjoyed, I did find the only place in Mainz old town where you could sit even on a winter’s day and find a bit of sunshine (if there was any).

I had discovered this café on my first trip, and it became a favourite place to escape the cold, with a book and a hot chocolate (Italian style, dark, thick, not very sweet, with a dollop of fresh cream).

So after checking in, and having a shower and nap after flying overnight from Doha, I catch the train to Mainz in search of that little café.

It’s been years since I have been here and when I get off the train nothing looks familiar. I pop into a hotel and get a map and make my way towards the river where I can orientate myself, but very little seems the same. In a big square workmen are putting together the wooden structures that will soon become a Christmas market full of colour and atmosphere, with the smell of fresh pastries and fried onion in the air and the sounds of people laughing and having fun.

I wander around for a while and stumble across the old part of the city, its cobblestone streets lined with elegant shops, but I can’t find the café I am looking for.

I am just about to give up, when I enter a sunny square look up to see tables and chairs outside a small café. It is the one I used to come to.

And my little seat with the sunlight streaming through the window is waiting for me, and as I dip my spoon into the cup and bring the hot sweetness to my mouth it is the same taste I remember and in that moment all is right with my world.

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Frankfurt is a big city, with long, wide avenues, a busy financial centre and a great sprawl of shopping areas dominated by the Zeil.

It is also situated along the river Main whose banks are lined with walkways and cycle paths and cruise boats some doubling as floating restaurants.

  

In the local guide I have found a place that has salsa dancing and I am keen to check it out. It is located on the other side of the river near Frankensteiner Platz in Grobe Ritter gasse. I intend to go the first night but by 5pm it is so dark and cold and my energy is low, that I decide to have an early night instead.

The next morning, I am up early and feeling better so I go for a long walk and by chance end up in the same area late in the afternoon. It is still early so most of the places are closed, but it is clearly a popular spot to go out with lots of small eateries and pubs along a series of cobblestone laneways.

I find the venue but it is closed so I ask Melanie, a local, if it will be open later and she says it depends, but invites me to go to her small pub (kleine Holle at Klappergasse 3 Sachsenhausen Frankfurt) if it isn’t to try some honey wine, a local specialty. She recommends a small Thai place for something light to eat, and so I spend a lovely evening, eating Thai food, then having a drink in a funky Jazz café run by a handsome Croatian man and having a honey wine in a themed pub with Melanie and her two children Felix and Stephanie (These two kids- 7 and 9 years old- adopt me, in spite of the language difficulties and I end up gluing and pasting with one and playing a weird card game with another)

Melanie is a warm earth mother type who opened the pub two years ago and caters to students and others wanting cheap, home cooked food and a place to relax and tap into their creative sides.

When I leave, with still warm baked bread (a parting gift) in my hand, I am feeling very blessed and in spite of the cold and dark, it is not very late, so I decide to walk back to the hotel.

The lights of the city guide me back along the river, and I pass joggers and lovers and dog walkers enjoying the night.

I am mindful that eight months have passed since I set off on my mid life gap year and I have covered many air, train, car, bus, ship and foot miles in that time, but perhaps the greatest distance I have travelled has been within myself.

fabulous cheap Thai meal 

interesting theme pub

sunset 

enjoyed a walk along the river