Frankfurt – Koblenz – Rüdesheim am Rhein – Frankfurt
After completing yesterday’s blog post where I sang the praises of the staff at the Hotel Maritim Frankfurt where we are staying, this morning we wandered down to breakfast just as we had the previous day, only to be greeted by a different staff member, one hitherto to be known simply as “Lady Adolf”. It turns out that the online booking I made doesn’t include breakfast, even though we were assured yesterday that it did, a fact that Lady Adolf was determined to loudly advise us of in front of the rest of the customers who had gathered for their morning feed. When we pointed out that we’d been checked off on yesterday’s list, but strangely omitted from today’s, she barked back something about her needing to check with reception, then made it perfectly clear by her demeanour that she had no real intention of doing so. Sensing that we were getting nowhere with her, we retreated back to our room, grabbed our day packs and headed off towards the main station (Hauptbahnhof) for an earlier than anticipated start to our travels.
It was a chilly 1°C, with a low, misty cloud hovering over Frankfurt, but we were well prepared with thermals, jackets, scarves and beanies, and it actually made the short walk to the station quite pleasant. Germany has a large number of different companies operating rail services throughout the country, and it can be quite confusing trying to work out what tickets and services you require, but after a few false starts we managed to find a really helpful fellow at the DB (Deutsche Bahn) information centre, who sold us a ticket that would enable us to travel anywhere within the country on regional trains (excluding the high-speed ICE services) for the day, with the catch being that the ticket wouldn’t come into effect until after the morning peak (9:00 am), which meant we had a little under two hours to kill before we could catch our first train. He also advised us that the ticket would only be valid until 5:00 am the next day, to which we replied that if we were still on the train at that time, something had gone horribly wrong. Turns out, that wasn’t a million miles away from the truth.
After briefly leaving the station to try and find a half-decent café with toilets, we aborted that plan due to the number of ill-at-ease hanging around the railway precinct in the pre-dawn, and instead opted for some pastries and weak coffee inside the main market hall. With breakfast out of the way, we headed to platform 18 to await the arrival of the 9:08 Frankfurt to Koblenz, a train that would take us along the Rhine River, through the famous Rhine Gorge, to a point where the Moselle River has its confluence with the Rhine.
We thought we were in for a nice, leisurely train journey with stunning scenery, however after boarding the train and (luckily) getting a couple of seats, it soon became clear that A LOT of people in Germany commute throughout the regions by train, at all times of the day, and the train soon became quite crowded. Much of the early stages of the trip were through some decidedly unscenic stretches of Frankfurt, and after crossing the Rhine near Mainz, it didn’t get any better for a long time, until we swung into the station at Bingen, on the opposite shore to Rüdesheim at the entrance to the UNESCO World Heritage listed Rhine Gorge. From here the train sped along the river’s edge, through towns such as Bacharach and Boppard, until it reached its terminus at Koblenz.
Before leaving the station we spoke with a helpful information officer about wanting to cross the river to catch a return train along the other shore of the Rhine, and it turns out that those trains actually depart from the Koblenz Hbf as well. With that established, we headed off towards the Altstadt (old town), stopping briefly at Konditorei Cafe Baumann for coffee and some most excellent cake. From here it was a short walk to the old town, where another set of Christmas markets were in full swing.
We spent some time wandering around the markets; unlike the Frankfurt markets that were mainly located along one long street, the ones in Koblenz were tucked away in nooks and crannies throughout the narrow cobblestoned streets of the Altstadt. Having just had coffee and cake though, we weren’t really in a food and beverage kind of mood, so eventually we wandered off to explore a few more of the streets around the old town.
We eventually made our way through to the Moselle River, which rushed past brownly on its way to join the Rhine. The name Koblenz is derived from the Latin cōnfluentēs, and literally means “at the confluence”. I would have liked to have made it as far as the confluence, where a huge equestrian statue of Emperor William I (Kaiser-Wilhelm) celebrates the unification of Germany, but unfortunately we had a train to catch to our next destination of Rüdesheim, and with trains only running every hour, we needed to ensure we made it back to the station on time. Nonetheless, as we walked back through the town, past fancy shops and delicious looking bakeries, we made a note that we would definitely like to return to Koblenz someday for a longer stay, perhaps when the weather was a bit warmer.
The train from Koblenz to Frankfurt via Wiesbaden crosses the Rhine just south of the main city and heads along the eastern shoreline through towns such as Braubach, Kamp-Bornhofen, and our immediate destination, Rüdesheim. It’s actually a more scenic route in that it offers a better view of the opposite shore, and tends to stick a lot closer to the shoreline. When it passes through towns, it often seems to cut right through the middle of them – I guess the steeper sides of the gorge here mean that real estate is at an absolute premium, so there’s nothing wasted by building a buffer zone between the rail line and the houses.
I wish I could have taken a photograph of the platform, or lack thereof, at Rüdesheim am Rhein, but unfortunately there was no time – you step down from the carriage onto a thin strip of concrete that runs between two sets of tracks, and the doors to the station are literally only opened for long enough for the people departing to get off and push their way upstream through the crowd of people rushing to get on. It seems very disorganised, somewhat dangerous, and frankly, quite un-Germanic, but as we were constantly being reminded by German citizens that day, when it comes to railways, any notion you might have about Germans being organised and efficient go right out the window. In fact, when we spoke to the shopkeeper in the store where we bought some more Rüdesheimer Kaffee cups, he was surprised the train was even running, and intimated that the B&B he owns next door does a roaring trade housing tourists who have made a day trip from Frankfurt or Cologne to Rüdesheim, only to find themselves stranded due to an unannounced strike, track maintenance works or faulty running stock.
Rüdesheim am Rhein is one of our most favourite places in all of Germany – having been there a few times before, we were really keen to return and to be able to experience their Christmas markets for the first time. But of course, our number one priority was the aforementioned Rüdesheimer Kaffee, a local specialty featuring hot coffee served over a sugar cube that’s been caramelised in flaming brandy and topped with whipped cream and flaked chocolate. We headed up through the narrow lanes to the main street (little more than a laneway itself) and found our favourite café, and in a matter of minutes we were experiencing once again the magnificent warming effects of this wonderful brew. Just what the doctor ordered to keep the cold at bay while we explored yet another Christmas market.
Mindful of the time, and the fact that it gets dark in these parts by 4:30 pm, we pushed our way slowly through the crowds as we headed back to the station, but unfortunately a combination of narrow streets, crowds of mostly elderly tourists, and tired feet from the previous day’s walking, meant that we made it to the main road outside the station just in time to see the 3:53 pm train pulling out. Thankfully, at this stage of the day the trains were scheduled to run every 30 minutes, so our disappointment at missing that train was held in check, only to return in full moments later when the announcement came over the loudspeaker that due to “personal failure”, the 4:23 pm train would not be running.
With an hour to kill, we sat down in the station and watched it gradually fill to capacity before the 4:53 train finally appeared out of the darkness almost 10 minutes late. We stepped out onto the tracks and pushed our way through the crowds, managing to make it to a seat on a train that would end up stopping at every station to take on more passengers, creating a swelling mass of humanity with varying levels of personal hygiene. To make matters worse, after finally reaching the city of Wiesbaden, the train then reversed onto a different set of tracks, and we found ourselves travelling backwards for the final 30 minutes of our journey back to Frankfurt, where we then had to board an S-Bahn train for two stops back to the nearest above ground station to the hotel (as unfortunately our ticket didn’t allow for travel on the Underground system).
In the pitch black, we made our way from the station all the way around to the other side of the Festival Hall, stopping briefly at the hotel to dump our bags before walking a little way further to an Italian restaurant for dinner. In France, the thought of heading to dinner at 6:00 pm seems abhorrent, but in the midst of December in Germany, it’s what everybody does. The meal was good, but not great, something we’ve discovered in the last few days, but thankfully the service was fast, and we managed to make it back to the hotel by 9:00 pm to try and finally get a proper night’s sleep.
Postscript: didn’t happen…