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Trier has a lot of churches which are worth a visit. On Sunday I made the looooong walk to St. Mattias which is at the south end of town. The map from the tourism office is clearly not to scale.





Reliquary of St. Mattias







Right in the middle of the old town is St. Gangolf’s which has a big bell tower that, well, towers over the city. It is surrounded on all sides by other buildings. It took me a long time to find the passage that takes you to the church. It’s quite small inside but very pretty.







I think my favorite church in Trier though might have been the last one I saw which was St. Paulinus. It’s a Baroque church with a gorgeous ceiling. It’s very over the top. The church in its current form is from the 1700s. But there’s been a church on the site since the 10th century.















Around trier


St. Maartens Kirche




One last shot of the cathedral

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Koblenz
On the way to Mainz I decided to see Koblenz. Since all of the trains connect there anyway it seemed like a good idea. The train ride from Trier is about 1:20. The ride is very pretty as it goes along the bank of the Mosel for a large part of the journey. I stayed at the Mercure Koblenz which is near the Rhine next to the Rhein Messe convention center. My room was not ready when I arrived at noon. So I left my luggage and went out to explore. Koblenz is the place where the Mosel and Rhein meet so it was strategically important for a long time. The Romans had a fort there from something like 9 BCE and a Roman bridge from 49 CE still has remains visible today. I walked along the Rhein a bit and then took the cable car that goes across the river to the fortress on the opposite side of the river. The combination ticket that gets you over the river and back plus a visit to the fortress usually costs about 12 euros. However today there was some special Summer promotion going on and the whole package only cost 3 euros. The cable car cabins hold about a dozen people and run continuously. The fortress is quite large. The current one was built by the Prussians in the 1800s. There is a large garden when you first get off of the cable car. It was very sunny and hot and the big open area provided no shade. There’s a viewing platform looking back across the river.

The fortress itself is a collection of museums and gallery spaces. There’s a small photography museum which was worth seeing. There are some exhibits directed to the fortress. There’s an archaeology museum with items from prehistory through the Romans and Franks and Middle Ages. It is a small collection with nothing especially noteworthy. There’s also a part of fortress that is devoted to local industry. The biggest issue I had with the whole place was a total lack of English interpretation of anything. It was also easy to get lost and the directional signage was lacking.













archaeological museum inside the fortress




confluence of the Rhine and Mosel




From there it was back down across the river. Right next to the cable car station is the important St. Kastor church. It was originally a Carolingian church in the 10th century but it has been in its current form since the 12th century. It is quite nice inside and out.

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By then it was time to check in at the hotel so I headed back over there. It took a little while to check in. Wifi and breakfast were included in the rate and I received a room on the top floor – the 10th. The décor is pretty modern but the room was small. Had a nice view of the Rhein though. Unfortunately the wifi was totally unusable. It would work for a minute and then drop out. I called the front desk and they told me there was nothing wrong with it. But since I was only here one night it wasn’t a huge deal. But it was worse the using the internet in Myanmar. Very disappointing for a first world hotel.

After freshening up I went back out to look for something to eat. I also went to the Deutches Eck which is the point where the rivers meet. There’s a giant statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I on a horse there. I walked from there to the old part of town. Unfortunately the cathedral was closed by the time I got there. It looked quite nice from the outside. Overall the old town is worth a visit with lots of open air places to eat.

The one big problem I had in Koblenz was the bugs! Gnats and other little bugs were everywhere and spent a lot of time flying around my head.








Mainz - Mogontiacum
In Mainz I stayed at the Hyatt Regency which Trip Advisor ranks as number 1 in the city. It is located about a 5-10 minute walk from the Mainz Romisches Theater train station. Coming from Koblenz it is one station farther than Mainz Hbf. The hotel is located right on the river and incorporates an old fort as a small bar. As a Hyatt platinum (thanks solely to the Hyatt Visa card) I was welcomed by Fabian who was very good at his job. No request too trivial and he went out of his way to be helpful. He told me that I had been upgraded to a river view room. The room itself was quite large and freezing cold thanks to the powerful a/c. The bathroom was quite big too. The bed was pretty comfy. You can’t ask for much more in a hotel other than a reasonably priced breakfast which was not offered here. They wanted a whopping 28 euros for breakfast or I could pay something like 32 euros to get access to the Club lounge. I declined and just found one of the million bakeries in every German city to grab something to eat.

I had arrived in Mainz around noon. My plan was to visit the Roman-German museum first. Unfortunately the only public transport in Mainz consists of buses (and a couple of S-bahn trains that don’t really get you around in the city). Not that I have anything against buses, but they tend to be slightly trickier to use than trains. Fabian suggested that since it was a nice day I might just want to walk rather than deal with a bus to walking connection. So I walked along the river mostly in the shade. The museum was more difficult to locate than I expected. But eventually I did find it. Not much in English here, but you can buy a small English guidebook for 3 euros. The museum is otherwise free to enter so I figured I’d splash out the cash on the book. It wasn’t quite as helpful as I had hoped as it only gives an overview of each room’s contents and not much on individual items. No photography allowed. There is one floor devoted to Roman things and then the floor above is the early Middle Ages after the Romans. You can also buy another English guidebook for that floor. I skipped that book. Overall the collection was not that exciting. It didn’t have much that I hadn’t already seen elsewhere.



Lots of nice old churches in Mainz. This one is St. Peter’s












Roman-German Museum Mainz


State Parliament, Mainz


Karmelite Church, Mainz - another very old church






Mainz Citadel







The Roman Theater which is located just outside the train station of that name is quite small and seems to be still having discovery work done. It was only uncovered during construction on the train station.




There’s also an interesting museum devoted to Roman ship-/boat-building near to the hotel and the Romisches Theater train station. During construction of the Hilton hotel in the 1980s they discovered the remains of 5 or so Roman boats. They had been well-preserved in the mud over the centuries. Using the shipwrecks as a guide the museum had craftsmen build recreations of the boats using as many old techniques as was practical. Again no photos allowed. I believe this museum is an arm of the Roman-German museum. But again it was free. It was a nice collection of object including the ship sections. The recreations give you a good idea what the boats looked like.

That was about the extent of my Roman ventures in Mainz. There are some other places that would have been worth looking at including the Isis temple museum but I ended up not having time. This website has a nice overview of Roman things in Mainz http://www.roemisches-mainz.de/

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I did wander into several old churches though. There are a handful of 18th century (over-the-top) churches that are certainly worth a visit. Unfortunately the cathedral (Dom) was not open when I was there. They had an enormous crane set up next to the church and they seemed to be doing some extensive renovation to the bell tower. The church was open from 7-9 AM but it was mostly roped off inside and quite dark.

Mainz Cathedral (Dom)








Augustinian Church






















One of the real highlights of Mainz for me was the Gutenberg Museum. The permanent collection is fairly well interpreted in English which I appreciated. Cost was 5 euros. It located right next to the Dom. They have a big collection of early books from the Middle Ages which was very cool. They also have several old printing presses showing how the technology advanced. They have a few copies of his famous Bible. One tidbit I really enjoyed was that no one knows what he looked like. All of the paintings and statues are from 100 years after he died. And they depict an old man with a long beard. In reality he was quite young when he started printing and given the fashion of the time it’s not likely that he had a beard at all. They have a good collection of early Asian printing as well which I found very interesting and there’s an exhibit in the basement about modern typefaces that I really liked. It probably only took about 90 minutes to go through it all.







miniature book


The Rhine

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More churches in Mainz



















I had requested a 13:00 check out at the Hyatt. As a plat I could check out late until 14:00 if I wanted to. I took the S8 S-bahn train from the Romisches Theater station to Frankfurt Hbf. I just went ahead and got a day pass since I knew I would be using the system in Frankfurt as well so that worked out OK. The train ride took about 35 minutes.

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Frankfurt
On arrival to Frankfurt I promptly got lost. The train station is huge and the underground tunnels all look alike. I knew I had to exit the station and go to the right to get to the Le Meridien but I went straight when I should have turned. So I had to pull over and get out the map to figure out where to go.

I stayed at the LM mainly because it was close to the train station and it had decent points+cash availability. The staff was nice. I am SPG Gold (thanks to the Amex Plat card) so I took the free internet as my amenity. I ended up with a room in the new wing. It was tiny. Probably the smallest room I stayed in of the trip. The carpet could use a good cleaning too. I was a little surprised they don’t supply slippers. Even the lowly Mercure does that. The TV was as annoying as any that I came across on the trip. I don’t know why they insist on making you go through menu after menu of steps just to watch the damn TV. It’s incredibly annoying.

My first stop in Frankfurt was the Archaeology Museum which is located in the old Carmelite church. It is a little confusing though since you can visit the old rectory and courtyard of the church for free and see the wall murals from the 1500s (restored in the 1980s). But to enter the museum you have to buy a 7 euro ticket. Once I had that straightened out I was good to go. You can rent an English audio guide for 2 euros. It is good for both the wall paintings and the archaeology museum but they have to reset it between the two as it is two different programs. That seemed like an odd choice to me but eventually it was worked out. The museum has a collection of prehistoric artifacts (mainly the usual spear heads) as well as some Bronze Age things including the grave of a chief of some sort. There is a good bit of Roman stuff mostly centered around the old Roman town of Nida. The collection devoted to the Mithras cult was very good and well-explained. They also have a collection of pottery from Greece and some stuff from Persia.

Carmelite Monastery wall murals






Archaeology Museum, Frankfurt







I walked from there to the recreated Old Town. It was all destroyed in WWII and then rebuilt in the same style. This includes the town hall and some other buildings around the square. Getting to the cathedral takes some work as there is a lot of construction going on. The cathedral was rebuilt after the war as well. It’s not as grand as several of the other places I visited.
Frankfurt has a couple of nice pedestrian bridges across the Main and areas along both sides of the river where people like to just hang out. It was quite crowded actually.

Frankfurt Cathedral




Frankfurt Town Hall Square - Old St. Nickolai Church




Frankfurt Town Hall Square


St. Katharine Church








Frankfurt Cathedral (left) and Three Kings Church (right)




More locks...this one made me chuckle

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Saalburg
The next day I was up early to visit Saalburg the reconstructed Roman fort. In order to get there by public transit you have to take the S5 train to Bad Homburg and then bus #5 from the station that ends right by the fort. The bus only runs once every 2 hours so you don’t want to miss it. Again I just bought a day pass since it was cheaper than a round trip ticket would have cost. Make sure you buy the right ticket though. I found the ticket machines in Frankfurt somewhat complicated. And I saw a guy get busted on the train for not having the right ticket. He was quite upset that the map doesn’t really tell you that that you need a ticket for outside of the city center.

Saalburg itself is great. 5 euros to get in. The fortress was first reconstructed 100 years ago under Kaiser Wilhelm II and more buildings were added in the last 15 years. The buildings look great. The main museum building has a very good collection of things from the site. Apparently a lot of the stuff was found in the wells. So it was all preserved under the water. Things like shoes, wooden buckets, and cloth would have otherwise disappeared but they were all preserved. The collection of shoes is especially large. They have many other things including keys for locks, pottery, glassware, and other decorative items. Besides that main museum there’s not a whole lot else to see. There’s a film with computer generated animations of how the fort and surrounding settlement looked at various times. Overall it took about 90 minutes to see it. And I was back at the bus stop with plenty of time to spare before the next bus arrived.
































The town of Bad Homburg looked like it was worth a visit in that small German town way. There’s a pedestrian only market area and some other stuff that looked like worth seeing. There’s also a Thai temple that the King of Siam (Chulalongkorn, Rama V) donated and had shipped over to the town after he had stayed there briefly. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see any of that because me feet were hurting too much. I think I needed different shoes for this trip. I did a ton of walking and got some pretty bad blisters.

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Back in Frankfurt after lunch I went to the Frankfurt history museum which is down in the old town area. They’re building a new part of the museum so there’s a big construction site next to it that is full of water. The current museum is 3 buldings all joined together. One was built in 1200. Another part was the old toll tower and the largest part was a big house from the 18th or 19th century. It costs 6 euros. The building is a little confusing to get through. The woman at the cash register explained that when you go through there are big heavy doors that separate the buildings but you just have to open them to go through. The collection is built on the collections of several prominent Frankfurters. So it is really a collection of collections. There’s a room at the beginning that has a case devoted to each collector that lights up when you get close to it to show what’s inside and there’s some audio (German only) purporting to be the collector explain (I assume) what they collected and some things about their lives. The concept is kind of neat but you end up setting them off when you’re not trying to. The docent stuck in that room must go insane. The oldest part of the building has a copy of the crown and orb of the Holy Roman Emperor. I thought that was pretty cool. The copies are quite old.

The Germans love their scale models
















I also visited the Three Kings’ Church which is a very pretty from the outside church on the opposite side of the river from the Dom. Inside it’s not a whole lot to see. It’s a Lutheran church so there’s not much bling like all of the Catholic churches in Mainz or Trier or Cologne.
I decided to do a little shopping Friday evening. All of the stores in Germany still close early most days at 8 PM. When it’s light out until 10 it seems crazy that everything is closed. There are some big shopping malls on the Zeil that are open until 9 at least. So that’s where I went. It was basically the same stores as the US or anywhere else in the world with similar prices.
I had one of my bigger meals of the trip on my last night at a place called something like Saltzkammer. The food was very good but the portions were enormous. It was almost like being at home.

I decided to spend sunset down by the river since that is one of my favorite times to take pictures. With the bridges and buildings I knew it would make for some interesting photos. There were also a few clouds in the sky which were very pretty. I looked behind me and noticed that the brighter sky over the city had better clouds so I pretty much ran to see if there was something good to shoot over there. And I made it just in time to take some pictures of St. Paul’s church. I kind of missed the window on that though.
















I had noted that all of the flags in the square in front of the old town hall were rainbow flags. I didn’t quite understand why until I saw a notice at the nearby tram stop that the trams would not be operating for some time on Saturday because of the Christopher Street Day parade. Christopher Street Day is essentially GLBT Pride day. It is celebrated at different times all over Europe. And it just so happened that Frankfurt’s was that weekend. Since I wasn’t due to fly out until 8 PM it was nice to have a chance to see the parade which kicked off at noon.

So Saturday morning I was up in time to get breakfast, do most of my packing and then head out. The parade itself was rather small but the route was long and it seemed to move very slowly. It turned a lot of corners which I think slowed things down. The parade consisted of several large trucks with very large sound systems blasting club music, some outrageous drag queens and other fabulous people, a youth group, some folks protesting Russia’s anti-gay policies, political organizations, athletic groups, etc. About what you see in any such parade. But everyone was having a good time. Lots of tourists lined up to watch as well since it snakes its way from the old town hall through one of the main tourist areas.













That’s it for the photos I am afraid

I had to check out of Le Meridien by 4 so I headed back there about 2:30 to freshen up and finish packing. I noticed that there was an Austrian flight at 6 to Vienna so I thought I would try to see if they would let me switch from 8 to 6. But no such luck. The guy at LH check in said I would have to deal with UA to make a change (it was a UA award). I asked again at the lounge and was told the only way to make a change would be to pay a big change fee. So I resigned myself to 3+ hours in the lounge.

OS 126
FRA-VIE
20 Jul 2013
Sched dep 20:10 Actual 20:10
Sched Arr 21:45 Actual 21:35
A319
“Business” class 2C
Austrian’s gate at FRA was about a 10 km walk from the LH lounge at the far end reaches of the A terminal. I arrived pretty much just as boarding was starting so I was on the plane quickly. We ended up being 2/12 in “business” class so it felt pretty private for the short flight. The very attentive FA served a quick dinner of a pasta dish that smelled very good and tasted pretty good too (and lots of bread). I asked for a ginger ale which is my usual thing but they didn’t have any so she suggested this Austrian drink called Almdudler which is very similar to ginger ale. It was pretty good. Not as sweet. The can said something like “the Alpine herbal soda”. Flying time was only about 50 minutes. But it took us a while to taxi for takeoff and then after landing we made almost a complete lap of the airport to get to our parking spot in the F gates. The airport was basically deserted when we arrived a bit after 21:30. Another 10km walk and I was out of the airport.

Thanks to some suggestions here I stayed at the NH Hotel right at the airport. It’s just a walk across the parking lot. My prepaid rate was about $100. The room I was given looked nothing at all like the pictures on their website. Furniture from about 1979. TV from 1990. The room was large but had lots of wasted space. But I was only going to be there for a few hours so it was OK. But I will think twice about NH hotels in the future. The location was unbeatable though.

Next morning I was up early and at the airport around 8:15 for my 10:25 departure. I already had my boarding pass and the luggage was checked through at FRA so it was just a matter of getting through security and passport control. My boarding pass said that boarding time was 8:45 which seemed insane to me. I got through security with the usual trouble and there was no line at passport control. Right after that the Austrian lounge is on the right. There’s another lounge as well that I could have used with my Priority Pass membership but I didn’t notice that until I was on my way to the gate. The OS lounge is very small for what should essentially be their flagship lounge at their main airport. And the food offering was a joke. A pile of cold croissants and a couple of baskets of bread. That was it. The drink selection was a bit better. Maybe the Senator lounge is where they keep all of the good stuff. I wish I had realized the PP lounge was right there as I would have gone there instead.

I asked the lounge lady about the odd boarding time and she told me that there were document checks so they opened things early to accommodate that. But I should start walking around T-1 hour. Since there wasn’t much to do in the lounge I left a little early. This whole document check etc process was a total inefficient joke. I know that for flights to the US and some other places they have to do this extra stupid security check but some one needs to come up with an intelligent way to do it. Basically they had announcements telling everyone on US bound flights to go to the transfer desk at gate 27 for document checks. The flight was leaving from gate 21 but they are close to one another. So you stand in a line at gate 27 to have some one look at your passport and stamp it. Despite the fact that the guy who checked you in at FRA also checked your passport. Then at the gate there was another huge line which was Y class pax with another line for C class and elites but only one person working the whole thing. She made an announcement that if you already had your boarding pass stamped you didn’t need to stand in this line. But she didn’t tell you where to go or what to do instead. The gate area was very small and apparently was only meant to hold business class and elites and those needing extra assistance although that wasn’t clear from the outside. The entire thing was very poorly designed. You’d think the Germans or Austrians or Swiss would come up with a reasonably smart way to do this. At least and ZRH they screen you at the entrance but let you into the gate area which has restrooms and so forth and they have 3 or 4 people doing the checks so it moves fairly quickly.

Once I got inside the velvet rope boarding started pretty soon.

OS 93
VIE-IAD
21 Jul 2013
Sched dep 10:25 Actual 10:30
Sched Arr 14:35 Actual 14:30
B767-300ER
Business class 4A
I had seen last fall that OS was upgrading their C class cabins to what looked like a pretty nice product so I wanted to give them a try. Hence my somewhat nonsensical routing from FRA to IAD. At the time of booking what I really wanted to do was fly FRA-VIE early in the day to get a whole day in Vienna before departing the next morning, but that was not an option for whatever reason.

The OS 767 is very nice. There are two versions and this flight was on the smaller one which has just 7 rows in C arranged 1-2-1. The other version has two more rows I think. I picked a window seat. It is staggered product and I ended up in 4A which has the seat right on the aisle instead of right next to the window. But it’s still close enough to see out.

The entertainment screen is large, bright and very high def. There are lots of little storage areas including a waterbottle holder, a laptop holder under the video screen and a holder for your cellphone or glasses next to your shoulder. There’s also a shoe storage area but it’s a little small.

The seat has lots of adjustments which are done via touchscreen next to the armrest. There’s also another touchscreen next to your head when the seat is in the fully reclined position so you can get back up. The seat goes 180 degrees flat and is very comfortable. As a side sleeper I liked that you could raise the backrest part slightly which reduced neck strain since the pillows are not really all that supportive. I managed to nap for a couple of hours. It is certainly one of the most comfortable seats I have sat in. The seat cushion also has adjustable firmness.

Lunch service took a long time. The C cabin was almost full but the timing seemed a bit off. Maybe it has to do with the chef onboard? Do they really do all that much cooking differently than other airlines? They do the table cloth thing, bring you a little container of nuts and some butter, and you get some bread. And then nothing else happens for a while. And then the appetizer cart comes out and they let you choose what you want and plate it for you seat side. They do clear the dishes quickly when you are done. But then it is another long wait for the soup if you want it. Then another wait for the main course. I had the fried chicken which was pretty good but nothing special served with some dry rice and peas and some sort of cucumber salad thing. Then another longish wait for dessert which was pretty tasty. There was good choice of things for dessert including this sort of chocolate mousse with banana that was very good. I also had the strawberry ice cream. The signature dish seems to be this fried apricot and marzipan thing served with vanilla sauce. There’s also fresh fruit and cheese. It’s all served off the cart for you.
The entertainment system looks great but the programming selection was really lacking in my opinion. Only a few TV shows and movies. Probably about 100 choices altogether including music selections.

We arrived more or less on time and then went through the usual IAD dog and pony show. It doesn’t matter how fast you get off the plane because they hold the “mobile lounge” shuttle to immigration until all of the pax and crew get on. This was my first chance to use Global Entry and it was very quick. No lines and about 20 kiosks that were all empty. My bag was also already on the belt so I was out of the airport and in a cab in record time.

All in all, a great trip. The weather was almost perfect. I got to see a lot of Roman things. Spent time in more churches than I have in my whole life, I think. Miniature Wunderland is amazing and well worth the trip. I really liked Hamburg and would happily return there. And Mainz as well. Trier was the real standout though. Great city just oozing history.

offerendum

Great report. I was fooled by Mercure Porta Nigra (a Dorint this time) about 10 years ago. Terrible hotel. You did a relly nice journey and visited even some places I weren´t myself so far.

deniah

nice trip!!!

Askartus

Very impressive trip and beautiful pictures. ^
And I hope you enjoyed my home town, Cologne.

Since you did the Römisch-Germanisches Museum and took a picture of the Dionysus Mosaic: During the G8 Summit in 1999, the participating presidents had dinner there.

DL17

This is how a TR should be. Thanks for the lovely tour and pictures

Policypeddler

I enjoyed your report. Great pics.

ysolde

Really enjoyed your TR! Amazing descriptions and wonderful photos. You have definitely given me some ideas for the future! Thanks!

Daddyblitz

Woooooooooow, great pictures !!!!!!!!!!!!!!