My second trip to Europe was probably the craziest so far. Dave and I were pretty early in our relationship and his son, Ben, was interning in Mannheim, Germany for eight months. The goals of the trip were to see how Ben was doing, for Ben and me to get to know each other, and for Dave and me to get a taste of some areas so that we might identify places to return to for more in-depth exploration on future trips. I found round-trip, direct flights for about $450; so, on pretty short notice, we booked our flight to Frankfurt for a 10-day visit over the Easter holidays and off we went.
Many lessons were learned on this trip; many courtesy of the fact that we had no plan. On the plus side, we had ultimate freedom to do what we wanted and we happened upon some pretty amazing places on our journey. However, it also caused us to spend a lot of time trying to decide what to do next and trying to find accommodations whenever we landed somewhere for the night. There will be many blog posts about this trip which became our “five countries in ten days” adventure.
Keep reading to learn from our pleasant surprises and misadventures in Ben’s home base of Germany.
Germany
Ben picked us up in Frankfurt on Good Friday and we drove down to Mannheim. First lesson learned that would become a recurring theme on this trip, was that many businesses close down for religious holidays. Looking for lunch, all we could find open was a Chinese buffet!
After lunch, we explored Mannheim a bit and drove over to Heidelberg for dinner and a stroll. The “plan” we settled on was to drive north along the Rhine into the Netherlands and to return down the other side through Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. We weren’t sure where we would stop or what we would see; all that would be done on the fly. We spent the night in Ben’s dorm room in Mannheim, and, in the morning, with just our clothes, a road map, and a few travel books we set off by car.
Cruising the Rhine in Germany
We knew we wanted to stop and see the Deutsches Eck and the cathedral in Cologne but our journey began on the other side of the river. I had always wanted to cruise the Rhine and I got my chance as unbeknownst to us at the time there are car ferries. For less than ten euros, our ferry took us across the river and dropped us in Rudesheim. At the time, what struck me, was that German towns look a lot like the German area at Epcot Center in Disney World, Florida. Rudesheim was clean, pretty and easily walkable. We had schnitzel for lunch at a café on the river and then strolled up the main street exploring shops and the church.
We loved this little town so much so that on our second trip to Germany we made it our base for three nights on the Rhine! On that second trip, we used the ferry system to cruise up and down the river at greater length to explore more towns – a very economical way to experience the river from the water.
We continued up the river to Koblenz and the Deutsches Eck. The Deutsches Eck is the “corner” (eck means corner in German) where the Rhine and Mosel rivers meet. It is well worth seeing. We decided to spend the night in Koblenz and that is when the fun began!
Let’s Make A Deal
It was early evening on Holy Saturday when we started looking for a hotel. We left the Deutsches Eck and drove around for a long time trying to find street parking. As a result, when we finally landed we were in a part of the city with few hotels (maybe we were just on the wrong street?), so we were having a hard time finding any at all. Finally, just before 8:00, we found one and walked in and were told that we were lucky because the lady at the registration desk was just getting ready to lock up for the night. Then our game of “Let’s Make A Deal” began.
We hadn’t really talked about how we were going to handle accommodations with three of us and were trying to be frugal. She started throwing out options at varying prices — did we want separate rooms? ; separate floors?; private or shared bath?; upper or lower floors? This last was important because there was no elevator. It felt like a game show. Did we want door number one, door number two, or door number three? We chose the most economical which was that Dave and I would share a room with a private bath on the 4th floor and Ben would have a room with a shared bath on the third floor. We figured Ben could at least shower in our private bath in the morning if he didn’t want to use the shared facilities that came with his room. That settled, she informed us that the hotel didn’t take credit cards. Thankfully, when the three of us pooled our euros, we had just enough.
Bunny Fun in Germany
Now we needed to find something to eat. Remember, it’s now approaching 9:00 at night on Holy Saturday in Germany. A few blocks from our hotel we found the one place that seemed to have any signs of life. We knew the evening would be memorable when we walked in and saw the life-size Easter Bunny hanging in effigy from the rafters and noticed the waitresses dressed like Playboy bunnies!
We had a traditional German meal with beer. As we finished up, the DJ started spinning some classic American rock tunes. Our waitress was prompt in clearing our table for us and we soon found out why. The manager (we think) of this establishment, in full bunny regalia, brought a young lady over to our table and asked us if we would clear a space so she could climb up on the table and dance. She really wanted to get the party started! We were stunned but said okay. The girl turned out to be an exchange student from Italy. She was tiny, probably 5’2” and thin, cute and friendly, and she spoke English pretty well. She turned to Ben and invited him to join her up on the table and he did. Dave looked at me and said, “You should get up there too!” which, not being a shy person, I did. So there are the three of us – me, the little Italian girl, and Ben – dancing on the table with Dave seated below. There were others also dancing on tables and the joint was jumping. As Dave tells it, our table was small and he was concerned that it would collapse under us so he was trying to hold it together and debating in his own mind who he would save if it did collapse. Would he save his son? His girlfriend? Or the pretty little Italian girl? We’ll never really know because the table held together just fine. It was, indeed, a memorable evening.
