On to Germany, Day 5

So on Friday we left our B&B in France and headed for the German border, our destination Frankfurt. It's about 370 miles from the Disney park area to Frankfurt, so it was over a six-hour drive. I planned this one longer driving day so that the rest of our time down the Romantic Road (a famously picturesque route between Frankfurt and Munich) would be more leisurely. The drive was beautiful, too, and we enjoyed seeing the French countryside with it's pretty rolling hills, tiny towns, and bright blue skies. We even got to see this unique highway art; it did make the drive a lot more interesting, and it was interesting already!

Our first challenge on the drive was trying to figure out which pump to use at the gas station, but we were able to find some very friendly English-speaking folks also headed to Germany who helped us. Knowing French would have been so helpful in these tight spots! But we bumble through, don't we?

The second challenge and the most interesting thing about the drive was that we didn't see a border crossing. We were expecting something obvious (you know, like a sign that said, "Hey, Americans, pull over and validate your passports right here"), but we didn't see anything--no signs, no obvious border, nothing. The only way we knew that we had crossed into Germany was that the towns abruptly changed. The towns in France were somehow more haphazard and busy than the ones in Germany, and the second we crossed into Germany we noticed the neat little towns with houses painted in muted earth tones, uniformly-colored roofs, and a completely different feel. Not having seen anywhere to do anything with our passports, we just kept driving. (I know, you're thinking that wasn't such a great idea, and the passport-checking border officer at the Munich airport several days later would certainly agree with you...live and learn, live and learn.)



The tufty trees (see pic--well, what would you call them?!!?) ended up being my favorite part of the French leg of the drive, and all of the quaint little villages were my favorite part of the German leg. AND, we thoroughly enjoyed the drive. It was amazing to see such beautiful scenery, and the 6+ hours really didn't seem like that long (except for Kyle and Don, who were driving).

Our cool stop on the way was right before Frankfurt, where we went to the Frankfurt temple. Like some of the other temples in bigger cities, you can't see it until you're right on top of it. In fact, we thought we had taken the wrong road until we were almost literally in the parking lot. The temple is on a side street, and it's tucked between houses, condos, etc. It's also VERY beautiful.


When we got to Frankfurt, it was pretty much like other big cities, only with German signs (the kids particularly liked "ausfahrt," which means exit but is very funny to an American ten-year-old) and fewer traffic laws. After checking into our hotel, we went for dinner and ended up a schnitzel place. It was amazing food--nicely breaded and deep fried huge cuts of meat with a variety of tasty sauces, very delicious and more to my liking than most of the French food we had eaten...I guess I'll always be a meat and potatoes gal. The funny thing that happened at dinner was that we asked the very nice owner/waiter if it would be possible to have tap water, and he smiled and said, "This is Germany--we don't do that here." I know, I read Rick Steve's guide books, but you can't blame a girl for trying...