On their Way

Well, 4 of our guys are on their way. They left Calgary this afternoon and have already made it to Toronto. After grabbing a bite to eat and a quick whiff of fresh air they are just now boarding their flight to Frankfurt overnight.

They'll arrive in Frankfurt midday tomorrow and they've got a day to tour around before catching their next connection to Johannesburg.

This is the information I prepared for them for their time in Frankfurt, mined from the internet:

To Mainz's Old Town from the Frankfurt Airport:

Locally, Frankfurt is called Frankfurt am Main (on the Main River). The airport’s name is Flughafen. So, on the transit maps the airport stop is Ffm Flughafen Regionalbahnhof (Frankfurt on Main Flughafen Regional Station). You will want to take the S8 line on the S-Bahn. You’ll need to find a VGF machine to buy your tickets, unless you go to the desk. The ticket you’ll want is a Gruppentageskarte 5 personen, a group-day-card for up to 5 people. This will even double as a bus ticket if you wanted. The columns denote the area that you want the card for. You want to choose from column number 4 (green) because you are going just outside of Frankfurt. The price will likely be 13.70 Euros. The individual costs were just over 8 each so the group price will save you money. The train passes every 15 minutes for the first part of the day. The end stop for the train you want is Wiesbaden.

You’ll want to get off at the Mainz Hauptbahnhaf, Mainz main Station. As far as I can tell it is 9 stops from the airport, just after Mainz Nord Romisches Theater and may take +/- 30 minutes. It will take you to Mainz’s Old Town. You won’t need to buy another ticket for the return to the Ffm Flughafen Regionalbahnhof. Don’t push it on the return because the trains may pass every half hour by then.

I don’t know what it will look like where the train deposits you but I’ll describe what I’ve read about the Old Town. First off, look for the Maizer Dom, St. Martin’s Cathedral (named after Martin Luther), to orient yourself. Some say this is the largest and best-known building in Mainz and it’s found where Old Town and Marketplace begin and is near the banks of the Rhein River.

One guy wrote:

One of my favorite restaurants in Germany was Maredo, an Argentinian steak house... the Mainz Maredo is right by the Mainzer Dom, by the big statue of Gutenberg and the McDonalds.

The main street is South of there and is compared by some as being like 5th Avenue or the Champs Elysée (but not as wide). This had been the city’s main business street. It’s called Augustinerstrasse, Augustine’s Street (after St. Augustine). It has small businesses and boutiques, cafés, pubs, restaurants, taverns and weinstuben (traditional wine bars).

About Augustinerstrasse, I found this:

Surrounded by all this seething activity and embedded within the row of house-fronts is the magnificent Baroque façade of the towering Augustiner Church. Built to accommodate the needs of the former Augustinian hermit s monastery between 1768 and 1776, it is now a seminary church. Also of impressive beauty is its interior. The ceiling frescoes provide insights into the life of St Augustine as well as the history of the mendicant order which had its home in the Augustinerstrasse since the 13th Century. In contrast to many other Mainz churches, the Augstinerkirche had the great good fortune to survive WWII undamaged.

Also, Kirschgarten is recommended for its interesting half-timbered buildings.

The city of Mainz is 2 thousand years old and was once an outpost of the Roman Empire in the 1^st century. Also, since the Roman times it has been known for its wine. So drink up. It did get very damaged by the war, just not as much as Frankfurt. Wiesbaden just a bit further down is known for receiving the least damage.

To Frankfurt from the Airport:

If by chance you do want to go into Frankfurt instead, you’ll still want a Gruppentageskarte 5 personen, a group-day-card for up to 5 people, but then you can just get a ticket from the orange column number 3 for a bit cheaper. Then the stop you want is the Hauptwache which is found on the S8 line (the opposite direction from Mainz). The Hauptwache is an underground stop. Once you go up to street level there are plenty of restaurants and shops right there. The vertical mall, the Zeilgalerie is there with a restaurant up there that has a public viewing platform on the roof of the building that offers a nice 360-degree panoramic view of downtown. The Hauptwache stop is just a couple of blocks away from the famous Romerplatz, area which has some of the few old buildings left in the city and is near the city cathedral. There is also a Maredo Restaurant right near the Hauptwache stop, if that suggestion sounded tasty.