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TUESDAY 10th JULY 2012
FRANKFURT
Again a leisurely start to the day, and after a beautiful hotel breakfast we requested a late check out for this afternoon as we don't fly until ten twenty. Very kindly they let us have our rooms until 4pm which will enable us to have a shower and a change of clothes before we leave!
We set out for a walk about the city of Frankfurt. Carefully avoiding the rough area we encountered yesterday, we walked about a kilometre into the main CBD where we found a huge tree lined mall full of all the shops. We kept moving on and eventually found ourselves at the Main River, which winds itself through the city! There were a few tour boats operating but we decided to give the tours a miss and so we kept wandering along the nice lawned banks of the river! There were a couple of the large river cruising boats tied up to the piers, one just setting off as we passed by.
After stopping at one of the tour operators booths to find out what attractions were about, we quickly realized that Frankfurt is mainly a business hub and a transit stopover for planes and trains! Apart from the city bus, the only tours available were day tours to other cities in the region such as Mannheim and Stuttgart and those tours were for six or eight hours and had left long ago!
We walked back to the area by the CBD and found of all things the "Kakadu Cafe", a supposedly Aussie place, but which was actually very un-Australian apart from the selection of "crocodile burgers", "kangaroo steaks" etc!
There were plenty of Aussies in and about Frankfurt though and we found out there had been an Ironman Event over the last weekend and plenty of Aussies had competed in it!
We had a coffee and sat to waste a bit of time - unless you have something really planned, late flights are a pain in the butt and in hindsight we really should have stayed an extra day in Berlin, caught the train this morning and just had a quick look here before heading for Singapore!
By this stage it was about one o'clock and so we headed back to the hotel for a nap and a chance to use the free wifi before we had to shower etc.
By four we were all organized and so we checked out and then sat in their very comfortable foyer and had a couple of drinks! About five thirty we ordered a taxi and a very happy and funny Turkish taxi driver entertained us out to the airport! He sang and cracked jokes and was totally unlike any taxi driver we have ever seen! Made a great change! Imagine having a driver like that in Perth!!!!
At the airport we checked our bags in - priority line of course as we are traveling Premium Economy on the way to Singapore! - and then got some duty free stuff as we tried to kill the remaining few hours! Not a lot of shops in our terminal though, I guess Terminal 1 is the main area - it is a large airport with two terminals and a third under construction and our Qantas flight is from Terminal 2 - it didn't take us long to browse them all, so it was just a matter of waiting!
The final security screening (and a very thorough one at that) was right at the departure lounge and once our boarding call was made we went through, again getting priority because of the Premium Economy!
When we reached our seats it became patently obvious why so many people are using the higher classes of flight travel! Two big seats by ourselves, double the leg room and a glass of bubbly when we sat down! Yay! Way to go! It was really worth all the extra Frequent Flyer points it cost! Just the extra was enough - didn't matter if those in front reclined, we still had heaps of space!
Our taxi and take off were delayed for half an hour, and once airborne the captain told us we were the second last plane to get clearance to take off before the 11pm curfew came into effect! God only knows what would have happened if we had been made to remain in Frankfurt overnight! All I know is we were very lucky as we could see at least six planes waiting behind us to take off!!!!
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