Calling Mainhattengirl (or anyone else too) for Frankfurt questions
 

Hi Mainhattengirl

You have given me some good advice in the past and I just want to ask you a few more questions :)

1. I have finally booked my hotel - staying at the Golden Leaf from 24th to 28th Dec. I have looked at the location instructions on their website and it confuses me - am I able to get a direct train from Frankfurt Airport to Ostbanhof station, or will I need to transfer at the Frankfurt Main Hbt first. I am hoping to just be able to get to the hotel by direct train from the airport rather than train and then a tram as it says on the hotel website.

2. I am a little confused too with the train passes. I am looking at spending a day travelling around some villages along the Rhine and also going to Speyer - for the re-opening of the Christmas market on the 27th (as suggested by Russ). Are you able to confirm whether Speyer comes under the Rhine region for the train pass? Then how should I get to Mainz (on route to Speyer)? Would it be a good idea to buy also a Hesse day train pass for the return portion of Frankfurt to Mainz and return? And then once arriving in Mainz, switch to the Rhine pass? Can I buy these passes on the day of travel at any train station at any time? And if so, are the ticket machines clear (I am a bit scared to use these). My thoughts at the moment are to leave Frankfurt early, get off at Mainz, spend an hour or so there, head north to wander around 1, 2 or 3 nice villages, then head down to speyer in mid afternoon/evening for the Christmas market, returning to Frankfurt mid evening. It sounds ambitious all in a day, but I've done crazy things like this before and if Im up and about early, I think it is manageable. What do you think?

3. Can you recommended some nice suburbs of Frankfurt or villages not to far away in any other direction for another possible day trip/or to spend an afternoon in? Maybe by using another Hesse day pass.

Lastly, I just wanted to know how the Frankfurt Marathon went, I read on another post you were going to walk it - I watched some of it by 'live feed' over the Internet - it looked totally incredible, I was so wanting to be there myself. Maybe another time !

Thanks for your help and to anyone else who also might be able to answer my questions. :)

For getting to your hotel, yes, riding the S-bahn and then the tram #11 is the easiest way. The tram stops right out in front of your hotel.

One of my favorite places to visit in Frankfurt is Höchst. For going outside of Frankfurt, I like Kronberg, Bad Homburg, or Dietzenbach. You don't need a Hessen Pass to visit these, just a one-way ticket for 3.80 euro.

To get to Mainz, just get a one way ticket there. A Hessen ticket would cost you 30 euro. You can buy these tickets any time, and if you are concerned about getting the right one, just go to the ticket counter, give them an extra 2 euro and you get exactly what you want or need, the ticket to Mainz, plus your Länder ticket for travelling along the Rhine.

Just a simple ticket to Speyer from Frankfurt are only 19.60 anyway, so it may be just as easy to get one of those, instead of using the Länder ticket.

I would not go to the Rhine and then to Speyer. They are in complete opposite directions from each other. Not too good to combine them in one day of sightseeing. Speyer is not that far from Mannheim, so go that direction. Maybe visit Heidelberg while in this area if you want to add something. It does get dark by around 16:30, so you don't have a lot of sightseeing daylight.

Didn't do too good in the marathon. Dropped out at 13.5 km. My over-confidence got the best of me this time. Need to train better. Thanks for asking though.

Hi Mainhattengirl, thanks so much for your suggestions. I've looked up the towns you mention and they look great, especially I like the look of Kronberg. I think I would quite like to go there.

I am wondering whether on public holidays (christmas eve, christmas day, boxing day) if there is a limited train/tram service?

Also I've read elsewhere that the same ticket can be used for both the trains and trams - is this correct? So I could get on the train at the airport, hop off in Frankfurt, and use the same ticket for the tram to the hotel? If this isn't the case, it may be better to just buy the day ticket at the airport to cover me for both the train and then the tram?

Also, do you know the approximate cost of a ticket from Frankfurt to Mainz. I had a look on the bahn.de site and I saw some ticket prices were up to 15 euro - this can't be correct surely.

Thanks for your help in advance. The questions may seem a bit silly but I am a little worried about when I first arrive, with limited German, not used to using ticket machines at all, and it will be dark. I think I'll be okay once I've ridden the trains a couple of times and learnt the ropes! It'll be a challenge :)

For local towns around Frankfurt, don't use the DB website, go to the RMV website, switch it to English and put in your destinations.
http://rmv.de/

A one-way ticket to Mainz costs 7.15 euro right now (prices may go up a bit in Dec.)

Your ticket from the airport also covers the trams, buses or other U-bahns in Frankfurt. As long as you are still going from point A to point B. You just can't use it as a round-trip ticket. Holidays mean the public transportation goes over to a holiday schedule similar to Sundays. Christmas Eve it will slow down a bit more, but everything still runs.

Kronberg is lovely, but the castle is closed for the winter. A couple of other towns that are very pretty are Büdingen and Idstein. Crammed full of half-timbered houses, some lovely old churches, city walls, etc. I like visiting Mainz too, with the 1000 year old cathedral and also St. Stephans. Walking into the beautiful blue glow of the Chagall windows is an amazing experience.

If you were arriving earlier in Frankfurt, you could have heard the Pealing of the Bells at 17:00. This is 50 bells in 10 of the downtown churches that ring together for 30 min. The Römerberg will be filled with about 10,000 people listening to this. Cool experience!

"My thoughts at the moment are to leave Frankfurt early, get off at Mainz, spend an hour or so there, head north to wander around 1, 2 or 3 nice villages, then head down to Speyer in mid afternoon/evening for the Christmas market, returning to Frankfurt mid evening."

I don't see a big problem with your plan. I checked the DB schedule at http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en , inserting Mainz and Boppard (further north along the Rhine, near Koblenz) as sample "via" towns with a 2-hr. layover in each town. You'd leave Frankfurt a little before 8:00 and arrive a little after 5 pm in Speyer. A couple of hours there, then back to Frankfurt in a couple of hours' time.

The Rheinland-Pfalz Single ticket (daypass for one) is just 20 Euros; it's good for Bonn south to Karlsruhe (south of Speyer) along the Rhine (west bank only south of Mainz.) Use it any hour on weekends (from Mainz onward, of course) and after 9 am on weekdays.

It's a sound idea to use it even if you're going only to Speyer. Round trip between Frankfurt and Speyer is roughly 40 Euros; but route yourself through Mainz, which will cost you an extra 15-20 minutes or so on most itineraries, and you'll do Frankfurt-Speyer-Frankfurt for about 34 Euros instead (including the ticket from Frankfurt to Mainz and back.)

A long, scenic train ride on a warm train at this time of year isn't such a bad idea, IMO. I would do the Middle Rhine towns and Speyer on the same day. I in fact did so a couple of years back, though I began on the Rhine rather than in Frankfurt.

I would probably do this trip on your final day in the area and drop your bags at a Mainz hotel near the station on the morning of this trip (or maybe check in the night before) to avoid the extra time back to Frankfurt Ostbahnhof on your last night. Maybe the Königshof? Also, if this is your last night and you're flying out of Frankfurt, Mainz will be closer to FRA for you than your hotel in Frankfurt. From the Ostbahnhof alone, it's 35-40 minutes to FRA, only 25 or so from Mainz.

I often stay in Frankfurt and would suggest that you reconsider your hotel location.  Instead of staying in the isolated area near the Ostbahnhof, I would recommend staying closer to downtown especially in the colder months when you want to be closer to the better parts of Frankfurt, it's worth paying a couple extra euros for being closer to the action around Christmas time. A few hotels of similar budget to consider:

Hotel Scala (Best Western) on Schaefergasse is a newly renovated 3 star hotel just a block north of the Zeil shopping mile with direct S bahn access from the airport (Konstablerwache or Hauptwache stations). The single rate is 37 eur for your dates.  I have not stayed at the hotel itself but have stayed a few times at the nearby NH City Frankfurt hotel just a block east.  I like the area for easy access to the nice cafes and shops. You can walk to a great rooftop cafeteria restaurant on top of the Kaufhof dept store which serves delicious German traditional fares for 7-8 eur and the city view from the terrace is an added bonus.  Lots of nice cafes dotting the Hauptwache area. There is a couple good Italian restaurants in the vicinity that I also enjoy going, one less formal and cheaper.  Anyway based on location alone I would pick Hotel Scala within your price range.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev...urt_Hesse.html

Hotel Imperial in the Palmengarten (another Best Western 39 euro single) is a nice older 4 star hotel in a good residential neighborhood close to two U bahn stations(leipzigerstrasse and Bockenheimer stations).  http://bestwestern.worldexecutive.co...furt/4171.html
The  U bahn gives you easy access to anywhere but if you just want to stroll into a nice cafe nearby to get the local community feel, you'll find that Bockenheim has a nice quaint town center (around the Leipzigerstrasse) where many university students and locals meet at the small cafes.  You may feel more at home there than at the Ostbahnhof area.  You can also walk to Goetheplatz or the Alte Oper area where the food street Fressgasse  and the Zeil shopping street . Again I've never stayed at the Imperial but have stayed at the nearby Marriott from where I've explored the Bockenheim and Palmengarten area. The Imperial gets an 8.1 rating at   http://www.booking.com/hotel/de/best...garten.en.html

Another hotel you may want to consider if you are more of a creature of comfort is the 5 star Moevenpick flagship hotel which offers low rate of 44 euro for your dates. The room is perfectly sound proofed and new with excellent staff and service. I have actually stayed in this hotel once and cannot find any faults with the room or the entire hotel itself, though the location is a bit boring as it is next to the convention hall.  You have to walk through a rather long boring block to get to the U bahn station and the hotel faces an empty lot so there's a lack of life/community.  It's still a great value if you want to stay in a 5 star close to Bockenheim and the train station.  This would be comparable to staying at the Golden Leaf but you get a 5 star and within walking distance to the main train station Hauptbahnhof. For the same price you can also consider the Corner Hotel closer to the Goethe University.

 http://www.moevenpick-hotels.com/en/...y/overview.cfm

http://www.booking.com/hotel/de/the-corner.en.html

Thanks for the other suggestions Mainhattengirl, I wasn't even aware of the RMV site, so will check it out. I know, I had previously read about those Frankfurt bells, and am very very disappointed indeed that I will miss it by just three hours. It would have been an amazing experience. Do you happen to know of any church around the Romer square that will hold an early evening Christmas Day evening service, which will include Christmas carols etc? I really love listening to Silent Night for example in German :)

Thanks Russ, I am going to aim for that all in day, will play it by ear and see what the weather is like etc, but it will have to be on the 27th if I do it, since the Speyer market opens then and I will be leaving Frankfurt area on the 28th to go elsewhere - Bamberg I think. At least I imagine the 27th is back to a normal business day with normal train service etc. I don't mind getting up really early to do this if I have to - Have done worse - four years ago I did a day trip to the Cinque Terre from Florence - sounds crazy, but it was certainly doable and turned out to be one of the best days of my life.

Dax, thanks, I appreciate your efforts here, but I have already booked and paid the hotel. Even though it may not be in the most convenient location, I've decided that a little inconvenience is worth it, not just because of the really low price I got it for (and its very low), but it also has a great advantage of having a kitchenette in all rooms - I like the idea of this, to be able to make a coffee/tea whenever I like, or heat up something in the microwave. I checked out the reviews and it all seems good. My main worry is not being able to find the hotel the first time, but once I know, then it will be fine, and I don't mind walking a little further. Originally I was going to stay in a hotel very close to the Hauptbahnhof, and I pondered this for many weeks - I previously considered the Scala too, it looks lovely on the Internet. Anyway, the Golden Leaf appears to be about a 30 minute walk to the Romer - a little further than the Hauptbahnhof to the Romer? Thanks for your suggestions on restaurants too - I will print this out and take it with me, not sure what or what will not be open when I am there, but at least I know where to look !! :)

Having also stayed at the Moevenpick, I'd be hesitant to rate it 5*.
It's an alright place, clean, efficient and often excellent value - but it's rather 3.5* in my book. Apart from that I agree that there are many worse lodging options in town - including some hotels which on paper are of equal or better quality (don't even get me started on the Maritim close to the Moevenpick - or the Palmenhof on Bockenheimer Landstr.).

Your hotel is only a 10 min. ride from the Hauptbahnhof on the #11 tram, perhaps a 5 min. ride then to the Römer. It is a really straight shot and not hard to find, especially because the tram stops right in front of the hotel. It might be a little early to check church services for Christmas day and the 26th, but will post them soon. There will be for sure services on the evening of the 24th.

St. Leonhards will probably have English services as this is the Catholic church for English speakers in Frankfurt. The Kaiserdom is well worth going to services because you get to hear the magnificent organ. Alte Nikolai is cosy and very Gothic and also has a wonderful organ.

For anyone else wanting to hear the Pealing of the Bells, this also happens on 27 Nov. at 16:30, as well as the day before Easter and the day before Pentocaust in May.

Hsv: just for my own future visits, which newer hotel in Frankfurt would you consider a true 5 star? I really like that particular Moevenpick except for it's location which is why I haven't return to stay there even though they upgraded my stay. Only the Steigenberger Europaischer Hof has better service but older facilities. Haven't tried the old Westin yet, but to me Frankfurt seems like a desert when it comes to good hotels.

The Hilton gets pretty good reviews and it certainly has the best location of all. Roomers might fit your taste if you like that kind of style. The Frankfurter Hof might be good, or the Lindner. I guess it depends on if you really want new or is old world charm the best. Some people like the Mariott by the Messe, others the Intecontinental, or the Westin, but that can be a luck of the draw kind of thing. I am not really sure which ones are 5 and which ones are 4, but I would rather stay in a 3 or 4 star with some charm, than a big 5 star chain hotel.

The Jumirah, is supposed to open up sometime this spring, but we will see. Pictures look fabulous.

If you would be interested in some smaller, boutique type places with great service as well as charm, let me know. There are quite a few here. Especially over in the Westend.

Dax, I hope the OP forgives the slightly off-topic: I agree that Frankfurt isn't easy on really good hotels. Rocco Forte's Villa Kennedy is very nice - but a bit out of the way, unfortunately (and most often mind-numbingly expensive). I haven't yet stayed at Roomers, but it's on my list. The problem is it hasn't been exactly cheap in the past.
http://www.villakennedy.com/
http://www.roomers.eu/

The Marriott is o.k. - its halls are quite bare bone, the rooms not big, but the Revive beds are their valuable asset. Not a 5*, though and in comparison the Moevenpick is newer and may in most cases be the better value choice. The Hilton's location is central, its lobby light and the rooms big, but their room decor is a bit early 90-ies for my taste (some wicker furniture, if I recall correctly for which I really did not care) and it's generally on the expensive side.

I have recently used The Pure, a nice 4* boutique on Niddastr., close to the red lights and the banks. It's very white, welcoming, well designed and can sometimes be quite reasonably priced.
http://www.the-pure.de/

Alternatively, on the same street there is the slightly funky 25 hours Hotel designed by Levi's. If you want to save some money, that is a great place. It often goes for as little as EUR 75 - 100 per night, offers a different decade's design on each floor, has nice beds with good linen and generally all the in-room conveniences you'd also find at the Moevenick-Marriotts of this world. It's very young and it's refreshingly investment-banker- and lawyer-free (apart from certain unnamed internet supporters).
http://www.25hours-hotels.com/frankf...ex.php?lang=en

Before Hyatt opens a planned Grand Hyatt in Frankfurt, I reckon the Mainz Hyatt may actually one of the best upscale "Frankfurt" hotels.

Just to clarify my last post: the 25 hours Levi's is by no means a 5* either. A 2.5* - 3* probably, but they do a lot of things just right - if you can accept the very casual style (and reception) of the place.

And in the Westend there is Hotel Liebig, a very private small hotel with a really nice location on (guess what) Liebigstr., close to a couple of nice restaurants (I like the small restaurant Knoblauch a few blocks down the street) and in a generally upscale residential neighbourhood. They offer well modernized slightly smallish rooms that, if anything, are a bit feminine for my taste, but perfectly bearable. Overall in the 3* - 4* category.
http://www.hotelliebig.de/
http://www.restaurantknoblauchfrankfurt.de/

Thanks for the good hotel suggestions, I'll keep them handy for my next overnight transit, hopefully the Jumeirah will have a good location. IMHO, the Frankfurt Marriott, Hilton and the Interconti are becoming tired old hotels with boring convention hotel atmosphere. I agree the Grand Hyatt is the nicest hotel (and restaurant!) in Mainz, but that is NOT Frankfurt.
My apologies for riding on nz100's thread, but it seems that all his/her questions have been answered. Have a merry christmas in Frankfurt!

Thanks everyone, will let you know how I get on !!!

An hour in Mainz does not seem like enough. It takes 20 minutes or so to walk from bahnhof just to Dom area so if one wanted to check out the Dom, walk along the Rhine or see the marketplace and the Guggenheim museum or the area around it, a hour would not do it. St. Stephen with the Chagall windows is another jaunt but easy to find with the walking map.--or Cherry street with the half timbered houses.

nz101 I see you are considering going to Bamberg on the 28th. I just spent the better part of a day there and enjoyed it - let me know if you want any recommendations!

Hi Susan i've just seen this post by chance. I have a slight change in plans and will most likely be in Bamberg for New year's Eve. I'm wondering whether one night there will be enough or should I try for two nights? I'm mainly interested in just walking around, taking photos, looking in the churches. Thanks for any help you can give me.

I ended up in Bamberg by accident (couldn't get a room in Nuremberg) and while reading about it on the train decided it sounded nice. Thus decided not to take the early morning train to Nurenmberg as orginally planned but spend some time exploring Bamberg. Rushed through 5 hours of sights but a full day would have been better.

I went to the Dom + 2 other churches (other churches are approx 5-10 min to left if you are facing front facade of Dom ) + St Michael's church at the monastary. The brewery ther was closed I think for winter (I didn't have time anyway) Toured the Neue Residence (guided tours only - takes a little over an hour). You can buy your ticket, see when the next tour is and then visit the Dom in same square. The Rathaus is very cool to see - if you go to the next bridge you can get some great views - it has a small museum of German porcelain which I really enjoyed.

I didn't really have time to walk around the city - just saw whatever streets I needed to get to the sites. If you check out the thread "where to overnight between Berlin and Munich not Weimar" you will see some more discussion of Bamberg plus someone posted a photo (or Rathaus). I may have some more info at home - will post if I do. When do you leave?

Hi Susan, thanks so much for that. I would be interested in walking around the town, checking out all the hidden lanes, and visiting some churches, but not so much the Neue Residence, or breweries. Just really want to have a good wander around, call into a couple of nice cafes and people watch. Leaving NZ on the 23rd, planning to arrive in Bamberg on the 31st and think I have pretty much decided to stay there for two nights, then if I feel like a quick trip to Nuremberg, it should be easily done. WHat do you think?