After the match

Mainz to Trier to London

This morning was all about taking it easy after the long day yesterday and 'excitement' of the match. We slept well and decided to treat ourselves to the hotel's buffet breakfast. Although not included in our room rate and quite expensive at (we thought) €15 per person, it would give us the leisurely start to the day we wanted. So we enjoyed fresh orange juice, good coffee, muesli, fruit salad and some nice bread and cheese in the pleasant restaurant with a lovely breeze coming in through the open door nearby (it was clearly going to be another hot day). We don't eat huge breakfasts and accepted that what we did eat was probably not worth €15 but were OK with that. We got a shock though when the bill came for us to sign - it seemed that €15 would have been the price had we opted for breakfast at check-in but walking in unreserved it had cost us a whopping €25 each! Oh well, you live and learn - but a pricey mistake.

As I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog, Chris likes when possible to get to Sunday mass when we travel, so we went to the 10.00 service in the cathedral, which also gave us another chance to look at the interior. On the way we bumped into our friend Barry who was having breakfast at the Extrablatt in the Schillerplatz - which of course is exactly what we should have done, especially on such a lovely morning! A dog was enjoying the wonderful fountain there, the Fastbrunnen.

Dog + fountain = fun

Afterwards we took a few photos in the large Marktplatz:

We then strolled back to the Extrablatt and relaxed with cold drinks while enjoying the Fastbrunnen for the last time.

Around midday we checked out of the hotel and walked to the Hauptbahnhof to meet up with Pete and Iris. Together we took the train to their home town of Trier, travelling firstly along the Rhine to Koblenz, where we changed trains to follow the Moselle to Trier. The scenery was lovely, with river views, vineyards and (on the Rhine especially) many castles. The first part of the journey followed a route I had taken twice by boat (on a Rhine cruise with Chris's Mum in 2010 and with VT friends in 2015 as part of a Koblenz meeting) but it was interesting to see the same views now from the different viewpoint of a train. It was hard to take photos from the moving train, and the weather had turned a bit cloudy, but I gave it a go!

Trier

The journey to Trier took a bit under three hours, with a change in Koblenz. Pete and Iris live on the outskirts of the city so we took a taxi to their house. Chris and I were to spend the night in the welcoming guest room in the basement, so we settled in and had a brief look at the pretty garden and at Pete's pride and joy - a garden hut full of football memorabilia, mainly scarves.

We then headed out to enjoy ice creams at a nearby Eis Café, Agostino (great pistacchio in particular!) and later relaxed at home for a bit before going out again, this time for dinner in the Biergarten of the Blesius Hotel a couple of miles from Trier's centre. This was a lovely setting and we thoroughly enjoyed our evening. The hotel brews its own craft beers (actually known as Kraft) and both Chris's Helles and my Dunkles were excellent. We shared some 'German tapas' (various spreads with great dark bread) and I then had a very good piece of suckling pig pork with chips and a tasty mustard dip, while Chris enjoyed his Currywurst.

After dinner it was back to the house for a night cap and then to bed. The next morning our flying visit to Germany came to an end. After breakfast Pete drove us to Luxembourg Airport, on his way to work in the city, and we flew home to Heathrow with BA.

Take off from Luxembourg

This flight, somewhat inconveniently, landed not at Terminal Five, as most BA flights do, but at Terminal Three, so we had to transfer to the former to catch the Pod to our car. But fairly soon we were on our way, making the short drive home along the M4. It had been a rather brief visit to Germany but a great one!