Day 52 - Passau, Frankfurt

Sunday 17 July: After an overnight journey, we disembarked back in in Passau this morning after completing the 15 day cruise.

We had a breakfast in the railway Turkish Cafe and made our leisurely way to the Flix bust stop to catch a bus to Frankfurt. I never arrived, even though we had booked online.

Fortunately the next bus, an hour and a half later did arrive, late, which also caused some concern.

This was one of those testing occasions when travelling that despite having planned everything, it still goes wrong because of something out of your control.

This meant that instead of arriving at 7:30 pm, we would now arrive at almost 9pm in Frankfurt - and then have to find the accommodation in the dark.

Fortunately the WiFi on the bus was working, so I could catch up with some posts.

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We finally arrived in Frankfurt around 9pm, after 7 hours on the bus. We were exhausted from doing nothing and  I was a bit queasy from trying to update these pages on the bus  as we travelled.

The Air BnB room we'd booked was about a 20 minute walk from the bus station, but we were actually glad for a chance to stretch our legs.

We dumped our suitcases and set out almost immediately to look for somewhere to eat, and decided on a Turkish restaurant in a district nearby. We just shared a lamb kebab with salad and a lentil soup - first time we've seen red cabbage with Turkish food.

Tomorrow we'll have a little time to have a look around Frankfurt before we catch another bus around midday for a 6 hour ride (only we hope) to get to Utrecht, Holland, and then catch a couple of trains to Etten-Leur to see Frances' cousins, Ineke and Ed.

Day 53 - Frankfurt, Etten-Leur

Monday 18 July:  We spent the available time in the morning exploring Frankfurt. It has an industrious air, with a mix of historic and modern buildings together. We strolled along the Main River and then into the old town and square.

We stopped by an exhibition of Pioneers of Comics that were ground breaking in their style. Unfortunately it was closed as most museums are on Mondays.

We spent a relaxed couple of hours before heading back to our Air BnB which was conveniently located 5 minutes from the river and about 10 minutes from the town.

We then walked to the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, bought some supplies for lunch and caught our (on-time) long distance bus to Holland.

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The 2 bus trips from Passau to Holland were with Flixbus, a German-based company. There are many similar companies offering this service in Europe. They usually have toilets, WiFi, power sockets, coffee and snacks on board. Flixbus is at the lower end of the scale – the Jetstar or Ryanair of buses.

It is only possible to book online. They also have a reputation for not leaving on time and never answering the phone. On the trip from Passau to Frankfurt, the first driver was grumpy and rude, and almost falling asleep at the wheel before being relieved.

The second driver was much better. On the trip from Frankfurt to Utrecht, the driver was Dutch, with a sense of humour. When we told him Frances was Dutch, he said "now we can tell jokes about the Germans". We called him the flying Dutchman.

His replacement, we called the Slow German, although the young German driver did try. It was 'interesting' to watch him sell a snack, take payment, give change and record the transaction while driving. Also there was no internet on the second trip. When we complained, he said "sometimes it doesn't work".

Ed was kind enough to meet us in Utrecht railway station (partly under construction) when the bus arrived, and not only escorted us the 2 short train trips to Etten-Leur, but also provided a dinner box with bread rolls, cold water and beer - better service than Flixbus.

We'll now spend some relaxing days with Ed and Ineke Nelemans-Batist in Etten-Leur.