Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 16:11:05 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Rhine River Valley.... and a drive.
hallo,
I was awake most of the night last night after waking up at 1am. Finally I
reset my cellphone alarm for 8 and fell asleep around 5 or so. (Thanks to the
virtual bonker for the virtual bonk on the head to knock me out.) When I woke
up, it was 11:30 and my alarm was turned off. First time my cellphone failed to
wake me up!
So now I had to rush. I stopped at "a U.S. fast food chain restaurant" for a
quick burger to go ("take-away" as its called here), then realized I'm not
allowed to eat it while driving. So I gobbled it up pretty quick, and was on
the road again at 12:30 PM -- a good 2-3 hours behind where I wanted to be.
Well, as things turned out, I didn't need the extra time after all. On the
agenda for today was the Rhine river. There are two roads that run parallel to
the river down from Koblenz -- B9 and B42. I was on B42, starting from Bonn,
through Koblenz, and all the way down to the towns of Bingen, Wiesbaden, and
finally Frankfurt, always following the river.
Koblenz is a great town -- a very scenic city where the Mosel empties into the
Rhine, and surrounded by mountains and vineyards...
Starting from Bonn, B42 was on a 4-lane highway, a little far from the river
but still some good views across the river of some small towns. Very quickly
though, the road joins the edge of the river and doesn't leave it for the next
200 kilometers!
As I mentioned in yesterday's email, this time last year I was driving along
the Mosel from Trier to Koblenz, and then took the Autobahn (A3) from Koblenz
to Frankfurt.
This year, I finished the second half of that river journey, down the Rhine
from Koblenz..... and THIS section is far more scenic than anywhere along the
Mosel!
It seemed like practically every other town on both sides of the river had a
hilltop castle behind it... looking after it since medieval times... I have the
photographs of some, but there were just so many! Finally I put my camera away
and enjoyed the scenery myself.
From east to west: mountain range/castles -- railroad tracks -- B42 -- Rhine
river -- B9 -- railroad tracks -- mountain range/castles.
One of the prettiest roads in Europe! :) errrr... outside Switzerland.
Anyway, the above description is true from Bonn to Bingen, where B9 drifts away
southward and the river and B42 turn east toward Frankfurt. From Bonn to Bingen
is the most scenic section of this trip. And with a few stops along the way,
the trip took me 2 hours.
From Bingen to Frankfurt was along the river too but no castles this time. Much
of this was also on the autobahn, and this trip took about 1/2 hour more -- I
was in Frankfurt at 3 pm.
"NOW WHAT? Should I head back to Bingen and go up on B9 to Koblenz? Nah, I
think I'll go for a drive."
I was still itching to push the speed barrier from yesterday. Today, there was
no wind.
Well, I was on A66 which comes into Frankfurt from Wiesbaden, and I thought I'd
continue on that road since there didn't appear to be too many towns along
there on the map, and sort of do a small circle from A66--A7--A5 northeast of
Frankfurt -- my estimate was about 3 hours for that loop. "Sounds good!"
What I did not see on the map is that A66 stops being a freeway through the
city. Normally I wouldn't care much about traffic, but not now. I wanted to
DRIVE dammit!!! So I started making a few turns seeking alternates, and ended
up on A3, which goes southwest of the city eventually towards Munich.
No I didn't go all the way to Munich, only up to the first city (Wurzburg) and
turned around there and came back to Frankfurt.
I had been on this section of A3 before -- December 2003, my second time
driving in Europe. So I knew the road goes into the mountains over there a
little bit. Oh well, anything south of Frankfurt would be like that anyway and
I was not about to go back through the traffic to go north.
There were sections of road construction (80 or 120 kmph limit), there were
sections of turns through the mountains (160-170 kmph average), and there were
sections of straight open highway (faster)!
I did break yesterday's barrier of 210. Not by much, but then again its almost
impossible to maintain those kinds of speeds for more than a few seconds at a
stretch, before its time to slow down again because some SURELY AMERICAN JERK
cuts in front of you going 130kmph thinking thats fast enough for the left
lane.
GRRR
Road rage running high, speeds higher, I decided to open the windows. Good way
of cooling down (literally), because that forces you to go slower!
Yeah, right! That lasted a few seconds and I was at it again. 210-215-220...
"HEY! why dont you LOOK where you're going?"... 210-190-170-130....
140-150-160-180.... road construction... 140-130-120-100-80... circle with 3
slashes through it.... 100-120-150-180.... 200-210-220.... "YOU IDIOT!"...
200-180-150-120-100... 120-150-180-220....
That was pretty much the routine all the way to Wurzburg. By the time I reached
Wurzburg it was starting to get dark, so I decided to turn around and head back
to Frankfurt.
No such antics after nightfall. The ride back was at a smooth and steady 130
kmph (for all of you: do NOT drive this speed in the left lane!!!) or 80 during
road construction... I bid auf wiedersehn to the rental car at Frankfurt
airport and checked into my airport hotel, which is where I am now.
Tomorrow -- correction, TODAY -- is my flight back home. 30th flight across the
Atlantic, 19th and 20th overall on a Boeing 777.
Pictures will be up soon...
You can ignore the rest of this email now, it's only for my reference on the
webpage...
A note to myself: Doing Frankfurt--Bingen--Rhine River--Koblenz--Mosel
River--Trier--Frankfurt is possible on a 3-day weekend if I get the inbound
Dallas flight. If its the Chicago flight, then only one of the rivers.
2nd note to myself: Gas station on A3 rest area with good chocolate pastries
just before entering the city from Wurzburg side - can do final fillup without
overfill here. Another gas station inside airport at the 1st circle. Follow
T1/T2 signs and right turn to T1 (straight goes to T2). Stay in left lane for
rental car return. AA is in Terminal 1.
Along the River Rhine, and the last picture is the sunset near Wurzburg:
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