Some of the best discoveries are by accident. A couple years ago we decided we wanted to visit Athens, Greece while flying through Frankfurt, Germany. When we arrived in Germany we found they were celebrating a 3 day holiday, and flights out were all booked. So we decided to make the most of it and spend some time in Frankfurt. We searched some of our favorite apps for things to do and came across a day pass for cruising the Rhine River. We talked to our concierge and learned that it would be easy enough to navigate to the departure point via train.
We took the shuttle to the Frankfurt airport, and from the train station there took a train to Mainz, our departure point. German trains are pretty easy to figure out, and you can buy your tickets from a vending machine that supports the English language. It was a short ride to Mainz, where we learned it was the home of Gutenberg. It also houses a museum dedicated to him and his contributions. If we did not have a ferry to catch we would definitely have paid it a visit. Oh well, another reason to go back.
After we got off the train we tried to follow the GPS to the docks. One thing you have to watch out for is that the GPS does not tell you if it does not know an address, it just sends you to the geographic center of the city. It was not long before we realized our mistake. A local recognized we were lost and out of our element and offered to help. One thing I have noticed about Germans is most of them speak excellent English. She gave us directions down to the river and from there we were able to find our ship and the kiosk which validated our electronic vouchers.
The ferries are very comfortable and have a variety of food and drink options and bathrooms. We passed by castles and small picturesque villages at every bend. The schedule is fairly complex with all of the different ferry services that go up and down the river. We realized it was important we know when the ferries stopped servicing different towns to make sure we did not get stranded. I never fully understood the day pass we had, it seemed they wanted our itinerary, and didn’t want to view it as a hop on hop off day pass (as it was advertised). But they were very accommodating and we didn’t run into any issues. For future reference it is easy to buy tickets at each stop, so if you get a map and plan out stops you can travel from town to town. It isn’t very expensive.
We determined we could go as far as a small village called St Goar and still have time to return to Mainz. We hopped off at St Goar and had a wonderful meal at a small hotel (to my right in the picture). After dinner we walked up the street and found some very fun shops, including a coo coo clock shop that was featured in a Rick Steves episode. We found a stein shop where I was able to purchase a limited addition King-Werk stein. They told us they do not sell on line, the only way to get them is direct from their store. We wrapped up the day with a pretzel from a local bakery that was absolutely amazing. Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. So good. From there we headed back to Mainz and took the train back to our hotel.
One day we will go back. I hope to take about 3 days cruising the Rhine and stay at one or two of the castles along the way which have been converted into hotels. We would cruise all of the way to Cologne and stop at a number of villages along the way. It was so serene. To this day it is one of my favorite accidental discoveries.