DAY 6
Thursday 26th June 7:36am Offenbach
We have just left the Sheraton Hotel in Offenbach and are back on the bus. It is a perfect morning with clear blue skies and great temperature. It might get hot but we are going into the mountains of Switzerland today. Germany won last night and so the black, yellow and red flags are everywhere. We had a perfect stay at the Sheraton. It was almost five star luxury. For breakfast I had fruit salad, multi-vitamin juice, scrambled eggs, bacon, tomato and mushrooms, then coffee (actually the best coffee since beginning this trip. I don’t drink coffee everyday because my body reacts badly, but the few I have had have been terrible. No wonder they drink their coffee black because the milk is processed muck.
I used the internet this morning to check my email. I bought 10 minutes for €3. I wasted quite a bit of time trying to use a German language browser with no address box to type in the URL’s as well as a German keyboard which is different to ours. Their “z” and “y” are in opposite positions to ours and the “@” key is attached to the “q”. I found the “att ch” key to use the “@” symbol. I sent off a brief email to Greg, Ryan and Dad but Dad’s bounced so obviously I’ve got that wrong somehow. I also replied to the lady at Gordon TAFE saying I was looking forward to our interview scheduled for tomorrow. We’ll see how that pans out.
We are back on the motorway with a lot of morning traffic. At this stage it is all moving along nicely. It has been interesting seeing the flash German cars speeding past our bus. On these roads there is no speed restriction and only a recommended speed of 130 km/hr.
Our tour guide Deborah marks our daily route on the map with a highlighter and then passes it around so we can mark the route on our maps. This is good. Deborah just filled us in on the history of Germany which was very informative and interesting. We had a little language lesson and a round up of the day to come – three countries in one day because we go to Strasbourg which is in France, then to Switzerland after that, having begun the day in Germany.
26/6/08 9.46am Heidelberg
We stopped at Heidelberg Castle in the beautiful town of Heidelberg Germany. It is another one of the many German castles that were destroyed by the French. Overlooking the town the castle is a ruin with restoration work being done. The grounds are open to the public and beautifully laid out with leafy green trees, gardens and lawns. Red squirrels ran about chasing each other up and down the tree trunks. Heidelberg looks like a lovely place to stay longer and explore. Alas we are back in the bus and off again to Strasbourg in France for lunch. Eduardo skilfully negotiates our way out of town along the narrow streets.
26/6/08 2.18pm Strasbourg
Strasbourg is a beautiful French town with vogue trams and narrow lanes and old French buildings. We had a brief look inside the cathedral before deciding on a restaurant to eat lunch. My first conversation in French to the old French waitress and waiter were almost successful. I could understand some of what they said to me. The name of the restaurant was Le Tire-Bouchon on rue des Tailleurs de Piere in Strasbourg. Sound romantic. We ordered a plate and coffee each and Michael had a glass of red wine and I had white wine. One plate was beef and fried and the other was a soft meat and salad vegetables. Both were delicious. While we ate roving musicians played very French music and sang along the narrow lane. We finished hastily with an espresso then dashed back to the cathedral to meet up with the tour group. It cost €34 and Michael left a €6 tip for the waiter. The young French waiter seemed very nice and patient with my bad French.
26/6/08 3.15pm
The road is still a double lane highway with a medium strip in the middle. It is busy in both directions but does not have the feel of the fast German motorways. We are currently travelling across flat farm land with lovely French towns here and there. In the distance is a hazy pale blue silhouette of mountains. It is fairly clear with fluffy white clouds across the hazy sky. I am really enjoying hearing conversations in other languages and our lunchtime experience in Strasbourg was my first chance to hear French being spoken all around me. I could pick up a word here and there and realise I would quickly pick up the language were I to stay for any time.
26/6/08 4.34pm
All across Europe along the motorways are roadside stops for petrol, toilets and food. They are mini shopping centres. We stopped at one just inside Switzerland to go to the toilet and exchange some Euros into Swiss francs. €50 got us 78 Francs or whatever it’s called. It was so easy. Just put the euro note into the machine and out come the Swiss francs.
Earlier we crossed from France into Switzerland at Basel. We had to stop for a passport check but didn’t have to get out or show our passports as Deborah had the numbers all listed and did the transaction. Then the bus went straight into a tunnel that took us under the town then out and over a bridge across the Rhine, then back into a tunnel and under the rest of the town, then straight onto the motorway again.
We are now back on the bus and starting to travel up into the hills. Deborah is telling us about Switzerland.
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