Westin Grand Frankfurt
Just as with the Westin Miyako in Kyoto, I used points to upgrade to an executive room in advance. And just as with the Westin Miyako in Kyoto, the 2,500 points per night were well worth it. As this was to be a two-night stopover, mostly to decompress a bit from our tour of Japan, we just wanted an easy, relaxing experience, and that's what we got.
The hotel seemed strangely empty, even though I overheard a front desk agent telling another guest that the hotel was sold out.
The room was up to Westin standards:
And we had dinner and drinks in the lounge the first night before passing out from exhaustion and jet lab at around 7 (fortunately, we made it back up to our room first).
The next morning, we were still on Japan time, so we were waiting outside the lounge when it opened for breakfast at 6:30 (okay, around 6:30…things weren't exactly on time, and we ended up waiting around before knocking on the door and being let in around 6:35).
Breakfast was great, and it was nice to be in a part of the world that did bread and pastries right.
After breakfast, we spend a few hours walking along the Main (pronounced like "mine") River before our walking tour with
Frankfurt On Foot. For 12 Euros per person, this is among the best tours I've taken in Europe. Dave, the owner, is an American expat (along with being an Army vet and retired linguistics researcher) who has a hilarious, worldly perspective on a city many write off as a transfer point. It really made Frankfurt interesting.
Though, like our hotel, the city seemed strangely deserted for summer.
Following the tour, we'd been walking for around six hours straight, so we stopped by
Atschel for some eagerly-anticipated Apfelwein and sausages.
The meal was terrific, albeit more food than we'd been served in weeks. After waddling back to the hotel, we relaxed in the lounge, skipped dinner and went to bed early again.
The next morning, after breakfast we checked out of the Westin and hopped on the subway back to Frankfurt Airport, happy, exhausted and ready for our flight back to the States…