Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Frankfurt, Germany to Nurenberg, Germany
Travel day today, our first with the rental car. Jan and I up and out in a taxi for the 10 minute ride to the 'Europcar' rental office. We got there, signed for the car, Jan got checked out on the GPS, and we were out of the parking lot onto the streets of Frankfurt, into the middle of the traffic scrum. This is a Volkswagen Passat, a seven passenger behemoth, wide and long and high. Also, a six speed standard transmission, fine with me, but the shift gates are VERY narrow and it is blindingly easy to hit 5th gear instead of 3rd, or on the way down to hit 2nd instead of 4th, or start in 3rd rather than in 1st. You can also get it right too, but it takes practice and all the training here is on-the-job. Missing the shifts is not so much dangerous as unsettling with a lot of jerking or funny engine noises, or stalling if you start in 3rd rather than in 1st gear. Really, those train rides were nice and worry-free .......
Back to the hotel, loaded Dick and Shiela's luggage and scooter into the rear luggage area. Which at first looked so voluminous but after all our gear was loaded in there was NO room left. Now, loaded and closed and buttoned up, GPS running (actually both Europcar's Garmin Nuvi and ours) we were on the road. Confusion reigned, the buildings were high and neither GPS could get a clear signal, but we pressed on and after an unwanted tour of southern Frankfurt the highway east was duly found and we were on it. Several false starts later, at least a couple of the errors being my own, we were on the correct eastbound highway, Frankfurt was a memory, and Nurnberg was looming ahead in the distance.
Found the city and the hotel, not that difficult as the journey was short, and we were checked in and then parked in the sub-basement of the hotel. Then out on the town, looking for adventure and lunch and shopping and beer steins. Found them all, bunwiches and bratwurst, wine and beer, and two big steins for Dick and Sheila. A church visit was included, an interesting old place that had been heavily damaged in WWII bombing raids. Sheila really enjoyed it. After, we were attempting to scale the heights to the castle above the town that Jan and I had seen, but Sheila's scooter conked out and we had to turn back into the town center. Moving forward up the hill in the town center, we pushed her up the hill and along the flats toward our dinner spot, the Barfusser. After we pushed for a while, the scooter seemed to recharge and would go for a bit, then we'd push her again. At one point I stopped to buy some sugar-coated popcorn as her scooter scooted ahead under its own power. They wondered where I was, suspecting a heart attack, and seemed relieved when I caught up to them with my popcorn bag. More energy for the pushing.
Then into the Barfusser, a German beer-hall in Nurnberg that Jan and I had visited, for dinner and to end the evening right. This we did, beer and wine and more beer and wine and schnitzels and potato salad.
At last, tipsy and full, we headed home to the hotel. Sheila's scooter quit from time to time, and the three of us pushed her along, including across a main street to our hotel, laughing and joking the whole way, Shiela laughing hardest of all.
