Frankfurt Continued
Boat trips are for 50 minutes or 100 minutes and every hour from 11am to 4 pm daily.
www.primus-linie.de/en/fahrten/Rundfahrt-inFrankfurt.30.html
To explore Frankfurt and the surrounding area to do it justice you should allow yourself around five days, you can choose to stay in the city which has a surprising amount of green spaces or stay on the outskirts in small family run hotels and eat in family run restaurants, you can have the best of both worlds as nowhere is more than an hour away from the city.
There are so some great places to explore around Frankfurt all no more than a hours drive, here are a few suggestions
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Bad Homburg
Go north and you will find the town of Bad Homburg, a place to rest and relax, its centre has a 100 acre Kurpark, which includes a spa that provides every treatment available and has its own therapeutic waters, but take your credit card this town is where the rich and famous go. Prices start from €25,00
If you feeling a bit home sick stroll through the park, its design is essentially English, water fountains, gravel walks and lawns, not forgetting the tennis courts built here in the 19th century as the game arrived from Britain. Surprisingly you will also find a Siamese Temple and Russian Orthodox Church here, the first was a present from the King of Siam in appreciation of the spa’s healing properties and the second to serve the expanding Russian Community.
www.bad-homburg-tourismus.de/en/
Hochheim
Hochheim, packed with beautifully renovated half- timbered historic houses, the perfect place to take a guided tour. The combination of narrow lanes, cobbled streets lined with wine growers houses and pubs created the perfect environment for listening to the history of the town and sampling local wines. If you're looking for lunch try the Riesling-Stuben it has a cozy rustic ambience and if you like half-timbered houses, this is the right place for you. Afterwards visit Hochheim's landmark, the church of St. Peter & Paul. It is the only church in Hesse with frescos of the late baroque period.
Talking of wine (well we weren't but we are now) Hochheim is the centre of wine country where Reisling rules, forget Blue Nun, no offence, but it does remind me of my wine bar days in the early eighties where I probably drank my fair share, vintage Reisling is highly sought after, A great way to get know the region and its wines is to take a tour of the vineyards in a covered wagon and taste the wines in situ.
You can visit the Queen-Victoria Monument Prince Albert of queen Victoria fame, liked the odd glass or two he brought his wife here in 1845, there is a monument marking the occasion and Buckingham place still receives to this day a supply under the label Victoriaberg. Indulge in the famous Jefferson-Wine at the Jefferson memorial plaque, built to honour the visit of the former president.
Rudesheim
This is a charming and sublime town and is popular with tourists as a river boat stop along the Rhine. In town one of the great curiosities is Siegfrieds Mechanical Music Cabinet Museum, showing an eye-bulging collection of automated musical instruments, you are guided around the exhibits by an enthusiastic knowledgeable and eccentric guide and it’s not hard to see why, with over 400 square meters of exhibits which include a collection of exquisite mechanical music boxes. Adults 7 Euro and children 4 Euro
www.ruedesheim.mittelrhein.net/musikinstrumente-museum/
Possibly Ruedesheim's greatest claim to fame, the Drosselgasse is a wonderful little street which was originally used as a pathway for the fishermen and other sailors on the Rhine to move between the river and their homes or other destinations in the area.
Here you will find lots of great little shops selling clothes, bags, souvenirs and all manner and means of local craft. It is also chock full of great cafes, bars, beer halls and the like. And the oom-pah-pah music in the street is a delight to hear.
Buy the ring ticket, you can take a cable car to a viewing spot at which you will find an imposing 38-meter tall monument that commemorates the Franco-Prussian war. The ground is even here and you can walk across the top of the ridge that has some splendid views, including the river Rhine which appears through the breaches of the pine wooded forest. For the brave there is the chair lift at Jagdschloss Niederwaldhotel from where take the chair lift down to Assmannshausen, if you don't like heights close your eyes and think of England.
Take the river boat upstream to Rüdesheim (which completes the "Ring ticket") as you meander past castles and under bridges, the pace is so relaxing, I drank Rudesheimer coffee made from grape brandy and served with sweet yeasted bread baumstriezel and reflected “all rivers have their own narrative they flow like old songs and we let ourselves be drawn into their rhythm", on the banks we see occasional couples embrace, overcome by the loveliness of it all.