Day 0/1 - Traveling is no picnic and Frankfurt

On Friday we left our house around 12:30PM, our neighbor, Duane took us to BTV. Our flights to Germany were less than ideal, flying to Newark to fly to Boston seems ill advised and it was. We made it to Newark with no issues, but our flight to Boston was delayed, since we had a 2 hour layover in Boston, any delay risked missing our international flight. At one point they started rebooking us and then right in the middle of it, they said we are going....we got off and arrived in Boston at 9:30PM with a 10PM departure. We ran what seemed like miles from Terminal B to E and got to the desk with 10 mins to spare. The dude at the desk said he had been paging us....right....  Regardless, after lots of stress we were on our way....we were just hoping our luggage made it. 

We arrived in Frankfurt at 11:30AM Saturday. our tour had airport pickups at 12 and 14:30, we hoped to catch the 12N pickup but it was not to be. When our bags arrived we only had one of two bags. I waited in the long line to get some help finding the bag. I will say the personnel at Lufthansa were very good. They were certain my bag made it to Frankfurt but we just could not find it. We looked, they looked, every bag carousel but all came up empty. We did all the paperwork to declare a lost bag and I was thinking about how many days I can wear the same underwear. As we were leaving the baggage area at 2:15, to catch that last shuttle to the hotel, June looked over at carousel5 and there it was. We have no explanation but were relieved that it mysteriously appeared. At this point we were exhausted from the lack of sleep, nearly missing our flight and searching for our bags....but there was no time for the weary to rest. 

We arrived at the hotel at 3:10PM and met our tour director, Vanessa, checked in and had to be back on the bus at 3:30PM for a quick introduction to downtown Frankfurt. It was a 20 mins bus ride to downtown and I think we both were passed out for most of the ride. 

We drove thru the financial district of Frankfurt and arrived Romerberg, After a brief overview from Vanessa we were set free for an hour or so to explore. 

Frankfurt downtown square.

June and I walked to the Eiserner Steg, which is an Iron Bridge that is just covered in Love Locks, This is similar to what we saw on one of the bridges in Italy.  The views were spectacular and there was a big party with music going on on the other side of the river. 

We returned from the Mains River walk taking in the many sights including this church. 

When we got back the square, I had to have my first German sausage from a street vendor. 

After returning from downtown we had about 30 mins to freshen up before our introduction dinner at the hotel restaurant. We had a nice meal with drinks and ended up having after dinner drinks with some new friends, that did not take long :-).

Tomorrow, we will take short cruise on the Rhine on the way to Cologne.