On the road again … I just got back from a trip to Frankfurt Germany. First of all, I am certainly counting my blessings that I actually made it out of Germany. My flight out on Thursday afternoon was less than 12h before German airspace was closed due to the volcanic ash that is wreaking havoc on air travel all over Europe.  Since I had a Frankfurt-Chicago flight, they were able to fly a more southern route and avoid the cloud.  I have some friends stuck in London, Frankfurt and even one in Qatar ; I hope they all can resume their travels soon.

Off course, I took time to check out the city,  have some excellent German food and take pictures to report back on this blog! 🙂

On the Sunday, I took a  2h bus tour of the city.  It was a good choice to be able to see the main features of the city. In all honesty, there is nothing spectacular about Frankfurt, but its very clean and also very modern.   I enjoyed visiting this city and found it to be very safe.  Below is the city skyline. Frankfurt is the financial capital of Germany and most banks, including Deutche Bank occupy the buildings in these pictures.

Romerplatz, typical German architecture (I think …). Very nice place to walk around.

This guy on the bus tour seemed somewhat less enthusiastic about his visit than I was!

Of course, what would be a visit to Germany without Weinershnitzel?  (which is a sort of breaded veal for those not familiar with the dish)  I ate everything here 🙂

Finally, the beer! I innocently ordered “ein bier” (one beer …) and received this bad boy!  One liter of beer.  (33 fluid ounces or 0.26 gallons for US folk) It actually looks smaller on the picture than it really was. Needless to say I did not order a second one (but did finish that one …)

As a last note, what else does Germany have a part from nice buildings and good food?  Think about it?  Cars!  WOW. This place is a car geek heaven.  2/3 of all cars are less than 4-years old and are either Mercedes, VW/Audi or BMW. Plus, so many nice models/features that we never see in North-America. For example, this Ford station wagon.   Why are they hiding this on the other side of the Atlantic?

Or this Audi Q5 with a TDI engine. In N-A, only available with a gas guzzling V6.

Anyway, loved this trip and wish I had a bit more time to visit this place. In the mean time, I am glad I was able to fly out and feel sorry for my friends and the thousands of people stranded for probably days before they can fly home.