On to Frankfurt - Our Last Port on the River Empress

I don't know what was more interesting -- Frankfurt or cruising to Frankfurt. The distance from Mainz to Frankfurt is only about 20 miles but in order to get there, we traversed at least three locks. We were told that the River Empress has an appointed time at which to enter these locks and if the boat misses its appointment, it could be waiting a long time until there is a break in the traffic. And one thing I did notice while cruising up the Rhine and Main rivers is that there is a lot of traffic -- both passenger ships and vessels carrying freight. It's not a good thing if a river cruise ship captain is late for his or her appointment at the lock because passengers wouldn't be happy if their time in port was curtailed because they were cooling their heels waiting to get through a lock.

Our included shore excursion was a bus tour of Frankfurt but quite frankly, the traffic was so heavy in the city that all we managed to do in the bus was to circle the same blocks a few times. I was relieved when we were finally released from the bus to do some walking on our own. Although it was raining most of the day, I had an umbrella (every stateroom on the River Empress comes with an umbrella that is large enough for two) and enjoyed people watching and window shopping.

It was especially fun to see the beer bike go by; forget the bus tour, the next time I'm taking a city tour on the beer bike! The beer bike has an official "driver" who doesn't drink and steers the bike. The "passengers" are free to drink but they all must pedal if they want to get anywhere. I think this is great because it would allow me to drink while working it off. Fantastic idea! I wonder if it would fly in Seattle.

Unfortunately, the next day marked the end of our river cruise and we had to fly home. I don't look forward to disembarkation because it can be an absolute mad house with people flopped over their luggage in all the ship's public areas while waiting to disembark. But disembarkation was remarkably easy on the River Empress. We didn't even have to put our luggage outside our stateroom the night before; we were given a designated time in the morning to put our luggage outside our stateroom and it was immediately picked up and delivered to our motorcoach. Now if I could just beam myself back to Seattle rather than sitting in an aluminum tube for 10+ hours.....

More pictures of Frankfurt