DAY 12 & 13 & 14 & 15 & 16 
11 - 15   AUGUST 2021 
FRANKFURT / SAARLAND / MOSEL

I had a night by myself in Frankfurt before David arrived, time to get some laundry done in the Washerei / Laundromat opposite my Ibis Styles hotel.  I realised I’d stayed here last year 2020, and the receptionist Marvin remembered me and my bike, and was very helpful in finding somewhere to store the bike securely.  Because I was gong out of town for a few days I had to find somewhere else for a few days when I left the hotel, so  I u

\sed a secure locker out at one of the suburban stations to lock it up and leave it.  I did the same last year in Dusseldorf. I wouldn’t leave it anywhere near the Hauptbahnhof with so any dodgy and feral people about.  Such are mainline stations in cities.  Birmingham included.

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David’s arrival saw me move to a nicer hotel - I slum it, he definitely doesn’t - and on the Friday evening 13th we met up with Lucas, a young friend I met some years ago when cycling in Germany and who has kept in touch and visited in Birmingham.  I met him last year in Augsburg on my tour, but he has since moved job to Frankfurt and so was on hand to meet up for dinner, which was a lovely meal and occasion as we caught up and chatted.  He has grown in to a confident and able young man, whose English has improved tremendously, he says because in his work he has to use English a lot as a lingua franca for so many of the foreign workers that he leads. A lovely meal and occasion catching up with an old / young friend.  

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Saturday 14th was a day around Frankfurt sorting out train ticket for a trip to the Saarland, and various Covid tests for David for when he returned to the airport.  And then a two and a half hour train trip from Frankfurt to Sankt’Wendel in the Saarland to visit Stefan and Monika and family.  Trains in Germany are not as efficient or on time as we always imagine, but we got there after a long but picturesque trip. The Saarland has an interesting history, flipping between France and Germany over the centuries, most recently being taken by France after WW1 as reparation and then returned to Germany in the 1930s, and then being occupied by France after WW2, only to rejoin Germany in the late 1950s.

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After a lovely family meal with Stefan and Monika and family on the Saturday night, on Sunday we took a trip to the Mosel valley to see the vineyards and taste the Mosel wines, mostly Riesling, which can be sweet or dry, but are always ‘fruchtig’ (there should be an Umlaut on the U), fruity and floral, rather than flint dry as we are so often accustomed to with dry white wine.  The Mosel valley is lovely, with vertiginous vineyards along the banks.  I did the ‘vendemmia’ / grape harvest at San Pio decades ago and I know what a hard slog it can be, but the San Pio vineyards were no way as steep as those in the Mosel.  I think the Mosel, which joins the Rhine at Koblenz, where I will pass in a day or two, is on my list for a cycle tour one day.

Monday 16th we returned to Frankfurt on the rather long train journey, and in the evening went in search of real Frankfurt food in Sachsenhausen south of the river, as Stefan had told us to do, to experience Frankfurt green sauce and German sausage and all parts of the pig and cow that you can eat.  An experience !  

Frankfurt is very diverse, and not a little unkempt, but gets better in certain parts,  quite classy sometimes.  However, I feel that in general, the Main riverside apart, it is not especially a city that has an awful lot to return to.  It’s a convenient stop on the Main on the way to the Rhine.

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My Frankfurt / Saarland / Mosel interlude was lovely, and I really appreciated the kind hospitality and friendliness of Stefan, Monika and family, as well as an opportunity to see a bit of the Saarland and the Mosel, and to find out a bit more about German wines.  Black Tower has done incalculable damage to the reputation of German wines !  I’ll be looking out for nice German wines in Waitrose in the future.