glennaa11

Intro

I devised this trip mainly to visit some of the Roman Empire sites located in Germany. I had seen a documentary several years ago about Xanten which was a Roman outpost in Northern Germany that has been somewhat restored (rather controversially) to what it was like during Roman times. It is a big archaeological park. So I knew about that but very little otherwise. I knew there was a Roman museum in Cologne that was closed the day I planned to visit several years ago on a trip there. So Cologne was added to my itinerary. After doing a bit of research I discovered that Trier was once a huge Roman city and is the oldest city in Germany as a result. Ultimately the itinerary became: Hamburg, Cologne (day trip to Xanten), Trier, Koblenz, Mainz and Frankfurt (day trip to Saalburg).

Checking United there was plenty of availability to Germany for the summer time. I planned the trip in January/February. Originally I booked IAD-GVA-HAM on UA (767) connecting to LH. But a couple of months later the GVA-HAM leg became GVA-MUC-HAM which was a lot of extra flying so ultimately I changed the outbound due to that schedule change to IAD-FRA (747-8)-HAM all on LH. The return I booked to try out OS’s new business class. So I would fly FRA-VIE-IAD. Obviously the return was a little round about as there were plenty of FRA-IAD seats on UA but I try to avoid UA when I can, especially the 777 C class with its 2-4-2 seating.

For last several years I have traveled with a DSLR and handful of lenses. It was a lot of kit and heavy to boot. So earlier this year I made the decision to lighten my travel load. After doing a good bit of research I settled on Micro Four-Thirds and the Olympus OM-D E-M5. I had seen it last year on my trip to Asia and found it intriguing. For this trip I only had the OM-D and four lenses. The whole kit including several little accessories fit into a small space. Most of the photos in this report were shot using the kit 12-50mm lens which I believe is underrated. The camera was attached to my right hand pretty much everywhere I went unless it was clipped to my belt or I was on a train. I used a LowePro Flipside Sport http://store.lowepro.com/backpacks/f...e-sport-10l-aw One of the nice features of this bag is that the whole inside divider structure is removable. So I could just keep everything in that section, remove it from the bag and put it in my carryon. It was incredibly convenient. This camera isn’t cheap but it takes beautiful pictures and once you understand it, the menus and operation become second nature very quickly.


LH 419
IAD-FRA
4 Jul 2013
Sched dep 18:10 Actual 18:10
Sched Arr 08:15 +1 Actual 07:35 +1
747-8I
Business class 87C (87A) Upper Deck
My friend has a limo service called Bavarian Limo so I had him pick me up and drive me out to Dulles in his 7-series. Since the plane tickets cost next to nothing I decided to splurge a little and it helps out his business which is still pretty new.

Arrived at IAD at about 16:00. No lines at LH C class check in and I was quickly helped. I had checked in online but was unable to print a boarding pass. I think it had something to do with my browser blocking popups. BP in hand and bag checked through to HAM it was down to security. It was surprisingly busy. I had figured anyone who was traveling would have gone on Wednesday night instead. Priority doc check line was a bit slow and then the scanner lines were very long. But ultimately I was through and down to the B gates LH lounge by 16:30 or so.

The LH business class lounge is a bit of a dump. It’s located downstairs. It’s a small space that I would imagine gets pretty crowded with a full flight. They did have some nice little sandwiches and cheese though.

At around 17:30 I headed over to the gate. I guess they do board via the lounge if you choose to do that and then you walk down a corridor that takes you to the gate. About the time I arrived at the gate business and first class boarding was starting. I stopped first to shoot a couple of pictures of the giant bird taking us over the Atlantic.



When I checked in the upper deck was almost empty but we ended up being about 15 out of 28 including a family with two young kids (maybe 8 and 10) who were in the row ahead of me. The boy was full of energy but settled down before long. I had selected 87C on the aisle but the lumbar support was stuck in the fully-deployed position which would have made it impossible to sit in the seat for very long. But since 87A was empty I just sat there instead. Kind of disappointing that a brand new plane would have a broken seat. The flight attendants tried resetting it a couple of times but it didn’t work. It still had the new plane smell and everything looked quite clean so I assume this a/c was recently delivered.

The crew was 3 for the upper deck. A man and woman in their 40s and a younger woman who looked to be in her 20s. They were quite friendly and attentive during the service.
The meal service started as soon as the seatbelts sign went off. I wanted to try and get as much rest as possible and had considered skipping the meal but ultimately decided to eat.
I am not able to sleep on planes, and this plane was no different. I did lay down and rest for a few hours. The seats seemed rather hard for sleeping to me. One nice thing about this seat is that there is a good amount of storage including big bins along the windows and a small compartment at foot level for little things like your wallet and passport. There’s a bottle of water in there as well when you board. The headphones are contained in a compartment by your elbow where you can also stash some small stuff. The headphone jack is located inside the compartment along with the USB input.



view from the upper deck


dinner




The flight was basically uneventful. The lights were turned on about 1.5 hours before landing which is probably protocol but seemed a little longer than necessary given the number of passengers. As we all woke up breakfast was offered.

breakfast


Arrival in FRA was about 40 minutes early. The flight attendants downstairs held the masses back so we could get off first which was nice. FRA is one of my least favorite airports. It’s too big and spread out. I worked up a good sweat transferring from B to A. Passport control was perfunctory. It was a looooong walk to get to the A gates. Up and down and up again. Once there I found the business class lounge which was mobbed. I don’t think I have ever been in a more crowded lounge. I decided to grab a quick shower. I had to wait a couple of minutes at the desk there for the attendant to show up and she quickly opened a room for me. The room was fairly big. Rain shower head. After freshening up I grabbed something to drink and found a seat at one of the tables that looks out over the ramp. Shortly before 9:30 I made my way over to A17 for the flight to HAM.

LH 012
FRA-HAM
5 Jul 2013
Sched Dep 10:00 Actual 10:15
Sched Arr Actual 11:15
A319 “Business” class 4D
This is basically a shuttle service. The flight was quite full. “Business” class was about 18/20. Flight time of about 50 minutes and they still manage to squeeze in a little breakfast service. Not much to say about this flight. We left a little late because the captain said we had 2 no shows whose bags needed to be offloaded. But then 2 people got on very late and sat up front. So I don’t know if they were standbys or if they were the missing pax.

Arrival in HAM was easy. It’s a fairly small airport quite near to the center. My bag was among the first ones off and from there I exited and found an ATM. Then the S-bahn. The train station is in the airport. Ticket machines are in a small lobby and also on the platform. It was deserted when I got there so I followed the easy directions on the screen and got my ticket. There was a train on the platform which left shortly after I boarded. I think they are every 10 minutes most of the day.