A day of transition between Scotland and Germany, this was a bit grueling as all travel days tend to be. We got up very early and walked to the airport. We were so glad we had discovered the day before just how close our hotel was to the airport. The hotel charged two pounds per person for the shuttle, but we probably walked it faster than it took the shuttle to get there, let alone wait for the shuttle. Our flight took us to London, then change planes for Frankfurt. There was enough clearing over London that we got a decent view of the Thames, Tower of London and Tower Bridge, and the Houses of Parliament as we landed and took off. Hard to be right there in London and not stay for a bit, but we had new places to explore!
Frankfurt is a huge, huge airport. It was interesting that our plane did not even connect directly with the terminal. We were parked in the space between two terminals and exited via the ramps front and back, then onto a bus that took us to some other part of the terminal. Very odd.

Neustadt an der Weinstrasse

Then we had to find our way to the main train station to catch our train to Neustadt. The signs were surprisingly lacking in clarity and it took a bit to figure out that we had to take a shuttle bus to the other terminal to catch the local train that we knew we needed to get to the main train station in Frankfurt. Phew, we finally found the local train and thus got to the main station, but then discovered our train was running behind and would be about 5 minutes late. Okay, a little worrisome, but we had a 16 minute window to make the change of trains in Mannheim to catch the Neustadt train. Then Frau Veth, our landlady for our apartment, was due to pick us up.
By the time the train finally arrived, it was a full 9 minutes late, then it actually pulled out of the station even further behind schedule. And lost more time on the short 40 minute run to Mannheim. No idea what was going on, but despite our mad run to the correct platform when we finally arrived in Mannheim, we had missed the train by a few minutes. So then we had to figure out the next train, but with the aid of a helpful local, we got on the next train, only 25 minutes behind schedule.
As we walked out of the station at Neustadt, the wine festival was in full swing right in front of us. A little reminiscent of a small county fair. But before we had a chance to take a better look, Frau Veth stepped up and was ready with her car to take us to our home for the week.
The place we are staying is wonderful. Since we now have a kitchen, we’ll have to do some cooking this week! We did pop down to a grocery store to pick up a few basic supplies, but we’ll do more grocery shopping later.
We spent a bit of time checking out the town on the way to dinner, but will scope it out more thoroughly tomorrow.