Germany Trip Report , Days 1-5: Schwäbisch Hall, Frankfurt

We had a lovely trip to Germany Sep 27, 2015-Oct 11, 2015. 

When we plan our trip to any country we look for the highlights of that country… as in this map for Germany for instance.

However, for this trip we had our constraints because it was Son’s 2 week official trip with return ticket Houston-Frankfurt; training Bases were Waldenburg (Schwäbisch Hall, Sep 28-Oct 2), Hengelo, Netherlands (Oct 5), Pulheim (Oct 6), Weimar (Oct 7-8). Thankfully the return flight was on 11^th, Sunday. All transfers were by road by the transport company arranged by the office.

Now the challenge was for me to join at a convenient time and to choose some interesting spots to cover given this official plan.

WHAT TO INCLUDE:

Germany has a wealth of castles, historic spots and natural beauty. Other than the cars and engineering Germany is justifiably famous for, there is plenty of top notch wood craft, miniature work, apart from the cuckoo clocks and weather houses. We wanted to sample some of these. We could not hire a car because of logistic constraints but there is a pretty good railway system covering the country and we managed to pull off a memorable holiday.

The map above shows our bases (4 blue arrows and the lone black arrow)... 1st one, Waldenberg is indicated by a blue dot and blue letters Wa

Our itinerary:

 Our final itinerary played out as follows:

Sep 27-Oct 2: Son enjoyed the medieval town of Schwäbisch Hall in the evenings after training hours

Oct 2, Friday, 2015: I flew in to Frankfurt on Oct 2nd and son joined me that night taking 3 trains from Waldenburg. Staying at an airport hotel at Frankfurt was a logical choice.

Oct 3, Saturday, 2015: The scenic mid Rhine valley… UNESCO Heritage site…fortunately for us there was a winefest that day in Boppard with fireworks at 9 pm for 15 min…it was a GREAT day!

It included a train trip from Frankfurt flughafen to Bingen, Walk through Bingen, then scenic cruise to St Goar enjoying several castles perched high up slopes green with plantations, ferry to Goarhausen, regional train to Braubach, hike up to Marksburg Castle and a German tour of its interior, train to Koblenz and transfer south to Boppard. There were live bands and a festive atmosphere in Boppard culminating in spectacular fireworks.

Oct 4, Sunday, 2015: We enjoyed the lovely medieval village of St Goar, hiked up to Rheinfels castle St Goar before catching our train to Cologne. Son took 2 trains to reach Hengelo, Netherlands while I stayed put in Cologne

Oct 5, Monday, 2015: Lovely visit to the Köln Dom (UNESCO heritage site), attending mass at the reliquary altar, then a stroll through the picturesque altstadt (old town), after booking the 4pm English tour at the Fragrance museum Farina House, creator of the original Eau de Cologne. When son returned in the evening, tour of the same places with him

Oct 6, Tuesday, 2015: Transfer to Pulheim in the early morning by train, then transfer to Weimar in the evening… through lovely German country side in a steady drizzle.

Oct 7, Wednesday, 2015: Stroll through Classic Weimar, again UNESCO heritage site (What Stratford-upon-Avon is to Shakespeare, Weimar is to Goethe and Schiller)

Oct 8, Thursday, 2015: We had more of classic Weimar in the early morning; training ended by afternoon

We had to return to Frankfurt for the return flight on 11th morning, it was too tight to include Munich or Berlin;

We decided to include some castles in the vicinity… Gotha (Freidenstein castle), Eisenach (Wartburg castle), Kassel (daytrip to Sababurg Sleeping beauty castle and Trendelburg Rapunzel castle)

Around noon on Oct 8, we took the train to Gotha, stayed at a heritage hotel in the castle park… managed a 3 hour visit to the lovely Freidenstein castle

Oct 9, Friday, 2015: After a stroll through the charming medieval village of Gotha, we took the train to Eisenach. We kept our bags in the station locker, took a taxi up to Wartburg castle, admired the awesome views and then took a German tour of the insides and the museum. We then took a train onward to Kassel

Oct 10, Saturday, 2015: We visited Sababurg Sleeping beauty castle and Trendelburg Rapunzel castle. In the evening, we trekked up the Berg Park in Kassel Wilhelmshohe enjoying the dense tall trees and the water cascading through the lovely architectural features. We took the 8.30 pm ICE train to Frankfurt hbf to reach Frankfurt by 10 pm

Oct 11, Sunday, 2015: We took the 6.15 am S bahn train to the flughafen and boarded our 9.50 flight.

It had been a hectic albeit very satisfying holiday and we had a great flavor of this wonderful country!

TRAINS:

http://www.bahn.de/p_en/view/index.shtml

The above link helped look up train timings and we bought super saver tickets for the Waldenburg-Frankfurt leg at €19; same price for the direct ICE train from Kassel to Frankfurt for our penultimate day too. We followed the golden rule mentioned by Train experts, "never travel by the last connection because that may leave one stranded". It worked …

PEOPLE:

We greeted everyone with a "Guten tak" and had some travel vocabulary in German. We received a smiling warm response through out. Germans we met up with were the warmest, friendliest lot. There were several instances when they volunteered help and made our life easy. I'm enumerating them as the report goes on.

WEATHER:

We had cool pleasant weather early October and it rained only in the nights.

Fall colors were awesome everywhere…

ARCHITECTURE:

The unique half timbered houses are a delight to watch

CRAFTS:

There were elves/pixies everywhere true to the fairy tales gifted to the world by the talented Grimm brothers… elves in medieval fountains, or in flower patches in private gardens… these gnomes seem to be really hard at work during the night producing marvels in the gardens they live!

Great miniatures:

Cute porcelain figurines:

Delicate paper art:

We always stopped at cuckoo clock displays in shop windows and enjoyed their varied actions during chiming… guy taking a shot of his beer for each chime… girls twirling etc…

Lovely weather house here.

I'm giving a report and pictures of our stay as explained above.

Days 1-5: Schwäbisch Hall:

The team was put up at Hotel Scholl, Schwäbisch Hall.

The hotel is composed of four historic houses that have been combined into one hotel over the decades. The oldest building, the Thomas Schweicker house, is a protected landmark that is more than 550 years old. The hotel is 2nd from right in the picture below.

We can see the half timbering. Half-timbering refers to a structure with a frame of load-bearing timber. Spaces between the timbers are called panels, they are filled-in generally with a mixture of clay and chalk with a binder such as grass or straw and water. The frame is often left exposed on the exterior of the building. Very charming.

 A walk around the town is interesting. The older buildings are mostly medieval, and with Timber Frame, Gothic and Baroque styles.

This is the Town hall.

This is St Michael's Church, Schwäbisch Hall; it was consecrated on 10th Feb, 1156!

The staircase is famous, plays are staged here.

Kocher river flows through the town and it's a nice walk across the bridge.

So altogether, a quiet experience with old world charm!  

Oct 2, Friday, 2015: I flew in to Frankfurt on Oct 2nd morning. Park Inn by Radisson at Frankfurt airport was a logical choice for stay as we wanted to move onward to the mid Rhine valley early next day.

Park Inn by Radisson: 

Overall experience was excellent. A few little things can be fixed for better convenience.

The website gives confusing instruction for the shuttle from the airport. Actually it's at exit 7, right on that side of the road.... I wonder why they don't have the stop along with the other shuttles a little further down. Those are marked in a sign board and this shuttle stop has no marking. I happened to see their colorful shuttle after going up and down after crossing the street and ran up to board it.The check in experience was a little weird as well...Reached the hotel at 9am on Oct 2nd, our room had already been paid for and I was going to wait for Son to join me from Waldenburg where he was on official training.

I was hoping for an early check in as airport hotels can very easily do that. The young guy at the reception told me I can check in at 3pm their usual time; if I needed early check in, I can pay another €65. I can store my bags though... When I made a repeat request for early check in, he consuIted the girl with him and she said no as well. I said we are regular customers of their airport hotel and he can check we had stayed at their Oslo hotel just 2 months ago. I asked to speak to Julianne Sturm, he went in to an inner room and came back with the welcome news that I could check in at once...

Great for me, all's well that ends well...I had remembered the name of their manager from reviews.

The room is spacious, the headboards of the bed have a touchscreen which lets the lights around the headboard change color as per our choice... quite pretty...

Excellent wifi access in the room, the reception girl helped me out with getting it. The young guy lent me a Samsung charger when mine did not fit the socket... so no hard feelings regarding the initial issue of check in. They were both polite and helpful...

The room had a lovely view of the garden, it was a pleasant stay. We booked the shuttle for 6.30 am the next day and reached the airport train station for our onward journey.

So this was a good stay for interim wait for our Rhine cruise and will be suitable for early flights as well

http://adventuretrav.blogspot.com/2016/10/germany-trip-report-days-6-7-mid-rhine.html

covers mid Rhine valley