Days 18-20: Frankfurt, Badenheim, and surrounds

The last few days have been full of many cool things, and many hot things.

For the hot stuff, well Europe is currently experiencing close to a record-breaking heatwave. The maximum temperatures started with a bearable 32, but today and possibly tomorrow are around 38-39 degrees. Add this to longer hours of daylight, and the temperature peaking around 5pm and the level of comfort less than optimal. And then comes the bonus, as this area is full of 200+ year old houses built to keep warm through snowy, sub-zero winters, and lack the high ceilings, fans and airconditioners that no Australian home would be without, and well, I’ve been sweating almost as much as in Cuba.

This has been a bit of a shame, as I’ve sensibly been taking it easy on the booze (barring one exception to follow), and Germans do love to drink. We’ve been staying in Badenheim with L’s cousins, right in the middle of Rhine reisling country, and the quality has been impressive. But with dehydration a very real possibility, quality over quantity it is.

All I will say about L’s cousins is that they are incredibly generous and hospitable, tolerant and thoughtful, and possibly like the occasional alcoholic beverage. On our first night they took us to a local restaurant for schnitzel and a few drinks (they also understand gluten free so were able to sort out some food for L).

Which is good, because this is definitely schnitzel country. Mostly pork, but occasionally chicken, pressed to under 1cm thick, covered in breadcrumbs and then fried until tender and cooked through. Served with potatoes and whatever the local sauce is, which in Frankfurt is called green sauce and features dill, other herbs, and cream.

Good food to line the stomach, which is good as the white wine spritzer is popular here. Unlike the Australian version, where you pay for half a standard wine serve topped up with soda water in a wine glass, for these folks it’s a 400mL glass, half riesling and half soda water. Cool, refreshing, possibly a little too easy to drink and only 3-4euro. If you’re lucky your group is ordering these from the bar, so you can at least keep a vague count of how many you’ve had, but sometimes it’s just ordering wine and soda water by the bottle and no glass should ever be empty.

Either we ran up a decent bill, or Australians aren’t seen in Badenheim often, so the manager used us as an excuse to finish off a bottle of schnapps that had about 2 rounds left in it. L had a sip before passing the rest to me, so it was the best parts of three shots of schnapps on top of an unknown quantity of riesling.

Maybe there is good schnapps out there, the kind that doesn’t smell like kero and taste like budget grade vodka cut with hand sanitiser, but I’m yet to experience it. I’m not talking about the various sweetened and flavoured schnapps like the butterscotch variety, I’m talking about the +40% natural flavour variety, generally served at room temperature. Maybe it’s my palate, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be tasting, if anything, as the fiery shot burns its way through me, stopping only to deposit the alcohol on an express bulldozer to my brain.

Ah, hospitality.

Following this very hospitably night, L, cousin S, and my aching head went to two of the coolest museums around, the Technical Museums at Sinnshein and Speyer. Sinnshein was first, the only place in the world where it’s possible to see (and go inside) both a Concorde and a Tupelov 144, the Soviet supersonic passenger plane that looks a lot like a Concorde and actually flew first. Both are mounted next to each other, with spiral steps up to each which lets visitors check them out, in all of their 1980s luxury.

There are many other cool things at Sinnshein, lots and lots of cars, including a couple of Third Reich government pool cars (one probably took Hitler touring, while the other, generally used by Himmler, had central locking apparently to keep people in the vehicle). There are trains, too, and artillery (including some 1960s big guns made by Skoda), and motorcycles, and a whole bunch of planes (to enter the carpark, turn at the Panavia Tornado).

The sister museum at Speyer, is about 40km from Sinnshein. There’s no shuttle bus, but S drove. He’s solid when it comes to navigating the autobahns. which is good because driving at 160kmh on the wrong side of the road isn’t a skill that gets picked up overnight. That and going the wrong way around roundabouts, while possibly hungover, is best left to the locals.

Speyer is home to many great objects and craft, but for me it was always about the Buran, the Soviet space shuttle used in upper atmosphere testing (only one Soviet shuttle made it into space, and that one was then dumped in a shed where it was subsequently wrecked by bad weather). It was very cool to be able to walk under and around the Buran, before then climbing inside. It’s kinda weird seeing the dashboard of a spacecraft, especially one with all of the best features the late 1980s could provide.

The museum also had a smaller version, an unmanned drone, that did go into space to test the heat shielding. And a moon rock. And a Soyuz capsule. And an Antonov — those big planes that transport tanks and elephants and things, and by tanks we’re talking more than one at a time. It’s quite a spacious beast. On the less spacious side was the 1960s U-Boat, because who doesn’t want to wind their way through a cramped metal tank on a 30+ degree day?

These museums are worth checking out, but do also make it easy to get museum fatigue and between them there is just so much stuff. L, S, and I had a great time checking out as much as we could.

We finished this day with a warm stroll through the old main street of Speyer, admiring the whopping great church and other structures all built before white people started to call Australia home.

We had two home cooked dinners at Badenheim, full of family and food. L’s cousins are good people. There was a lot of meat, creamy potatoes, beans, spaetzle (German pasta), fantastic sauces, and possibly my favourite was a creamy salad of julienned celery root and mandarin, an unusual but crunchy mix. After my first evening, I took it easy on the wine spritzers, sticking to just water.

What is it with all the fizzy water? Europeans, especially central Europeans, love the stuff. It’s the default all through here and Poland, and asking for still or “no-gas” is almost weird. I don’t mind the occasional glass, but I did find that getting it all the time a little too much (on the other hand, L loved it and couldn’t get enough).

After museum day was Rhine day. We drove the short distance to Bingen, where we boarded a ferry and headed down the Rhine. This part of the Rhine valley is quite steep, making for breathtaking scenery. All along the sidescling, almost impossibly, vineyards and castles. These vineyards are worked by hand: while it might be technically possibly to get a tractor down them, it’s a one-way trip. The castles are just as impressive, perched on hill tops, and fortunately built before unionised construction, as I doubt it would have been easy getting the huge stones into position.

The highlight, and something I totally wasn’t expecting to see on this trip, was the Lorelei, as fabled in story, poem and song. An incredible natural stone monolith that dominates a narrow curve in the river, just before the town of St Goar. It’s pretty amazing.

We disembarked at St Goar, a very tourist-focussed town, with the plan to have a quick wander before heading back if Bingen on the train (as it’s against the current, what takes an hour or so downstream takes at least twice that upstream). L had been talking about possibly getting a new pair of Birkenstock shoes while in Germany, and lo and behold there was a B store for L. Shopping sorted, we wandered back to the train station as it was getting very warm.

Back in Bingen, after a bit more walking in the sun, we stopped for some chips and a beer, because that’s what you do. Then it was another stroll to catch the car ferry across the river to Rudesheim, home of much tourist shopping and a great able car that goes up the mountain to a huge monument dedicated to victory in the Franco-Prussian War. I guess there’s a bit of irony there, as while the Franco-Prussian war was a factor in the unification of Germany, the nation then lost the next two major wars it was involved in (and ended up divided again, it only temporarily).

And speaking about the war, I have made sure to not mention the war. It has come up in conversation a couple of times with the family after a riesling or three, to then be followed, as soon as appropriate, by a resounding toast of “Never again”. And I’m not pressing the issue: while it’s easy to paint the big picture in black and white, a lot of people did a lot of good and bad things between 1939 and 1945, and the feeling I got was that many Germans are just as concerned about the rise of far right populist movements as the rest of the world.

So unmentionables generally left unmentioned.

Our final full German day was spent with the family, first at Badenheim and then via the autobahn to Frankfurt. With S driving, baby A was in the front passenger seat, while L and I pulled faces and waggled fingers at her until she went to sleep.

I should probably put something in here about German countryside in general. It’s pretty, quite postcard pretty. lots of gentle green hills (mostly vineyards in the part we’ve been travelling) and regular towns all with a big church spire or two. There are also quite a lot of wind turbines: S explained that many are privately owned and possibly government subsidised. There generally wasn’t a lot of wind moving on the days we were there, but then again it was extreme heatwave.

Our final feed with the family was at an apple wine garden in Frankfurt. It’s a popular spot and drink with the locals, not so much tourists, which was quite nice, though I did sweat a lot into my schnitzel. The apple wine is a strongish cider, quite scrumpyish, sharp and dry, that is also generally mixed with soda water to taste.

I checked into my hotel (which had airconditioning!!!) and spent a couple of hours just hanging with L before the next part of her adventure as she takes on the Balkans. Her train was supposed to leave a little before 7pm, but with the heat playing havoc with rail schedules (even Australian train schedules get affected on 39 degree days) the train was about an hour late leaving, providing a little bit of concern whether L would make her connection. Fortunately, her connecting train was also delayed, so after hearing that she wouldn’t be stranded in Munich, I got what sleep I could before my next transit day and a half ahead.