Don’t Hop On In Frankfurt!

After our incredible Farewell dinner, we departed for our final destination, Frankfurt!

We won’t lie, by this point in the trip, we were tired of being cold and usually wet. Thankfully, we had a nice day and a little sunshine.

 

 

We Skipped The Walking Tour

We arrived a bit ahead of our schedule, 9 am arrival, and the ship offered the usual walking tour of the historic city.

As we could see the Christmas Market from the ship and were ready for a chill day, we decided to pass on the group activity.

Right off the river was Frankfurt’s history museum. While we didn’t go in, we stopped in the entrance courtyard to check out some cool statues on display.

 

 

 

Frankfurt’s Christmas Markets

You may not know that most of the cities we visited typically had multiple Christmas Markets. 

The tour included visits to one of them; in some cases, they were scattered across the city, far from the port.

Frankfurt was unique in that several of the markets seemed to interconnect as you wandered up through one of the city’s main thoroughfares.

The beginning of the market was right on the water, just steps from the ship. But at 9 am, most were still closed. So, we decided to wander through, stop for a snack, and continue up as far as we felt like walking.

This may have been one of our favorite markets. From the food offerings to the kids’ rides, the unique touches in the seating areas, and the overall flow, we had a great time.

 

 

 

Leaving a great little shop selling lavender and embroidery, the church bells in the square were tolling. It was a beautiful Sunday morning in Frankfurt.

 

 

 

 

 

Travel Tip

We bought a Dark Chocolate-covered Pretzel to take back to the ship – hey, we’re Philly boys and can’t resist a good Pretzel.

But we recommend you skip the covered Pretzels. While they look great, and they are everywhere, they lack something. It might be because they are baked, cooled, coated, and then shipped out to sit in a stall all day, but they were kind of blah.

 

 

Stopping for a Snack

As we mentioned, most of the market was closed when we arrived, so we stopped into a local cafe for coffee and some pastry.

We chose La Perla at random; we saw indoor seating, and the window display looked appetizing.

If you know anything about us, Chuck went for Chocolate with the Chocolate. Mark almost always goes for something regional and often has fruit – in this case, a Linzer Tart.

 

Service was as expected in a touristy part of the city, but the coffee and pastries were very good.

 

Hop on Hop Off Bus

We’ve done Hop on Hop Off tours in multiple cities around the world. Some we’ve really enjoyed and others were okay – usually given the height from which you were seeing buildings and monuments.

We find they are best when several of the things we wanted to see are spread across the city, near bus stops.

Which brings us to Frankfurt – with time to kill mid-afternoon, we saw that the main pickup for the hop-on hop-off was right in the middle of the market.

We purchased tickets on-site and were ready to board when we were told the bus was full, and they had made a mistake. So we waited nearly thirty minutes for the next bus.

During the tour, we felt there was very little to see. Aside from Frankfurt’s banking history and the modern banks and offices, we could not recall anything. 

So for us, the Hop On Hop Off in Frankfurt would be a hard pass. 

 

Our Last Dinner on the Monarch Queen

Returning to the ship after spending the day in the Frankfurt Christmas Market, we chilled for a bit and headed to the Lounge for a Farewell Reception and then on to our last dinner.

We will say that dinners were some of the trip’s highlights. The food and service were remarkable, but for us, it was the incredible people we met.

Each night we had dinner with the same four people. During the day, each went their own way, and at night we met and discussed our different activities and market finds.

Additionally, we met other incredible people whom we’d have lunch or a drink with along the way!

 

Tomy Temerson

A concert by a zither player wouldn’t normally rank high on our list of vacation activities. Truthfully, we knew it was our last night on the ship and the last chance to hang with friends we’d met onboard.

We could not have been more wrong. Tomy Temerson is a talented musician, and the video setup he had was incredible.

Cameras captured his hands and the instrument as he played, allowing us to see everything on the lounge’s screens.

It was mesmerizing, something we would not ordinarily have experienced.

 

 

 

 

Departure

The next morning, we all departed for home. 

While we’ve done numerous trips with Gate 1 Travel, this was our first river cruise. Despite not being great in cold weather, we wanted to experience it.

 

 

 

So, following this, we’ll have one more Christmas Market blog. We’ll be wrapping up a few things with some likes and dislikes, and then on to our next trip!