Frankfurt and Luxembourg
Monday June 22, 2026
I made it to Rome Fiumicino Airport well on time, despite some heavy traffic in the city. As I was waiting for the gate information to appear, I saw two girls playing Heart and Soul on a public piano. I waited for them to finish, then played Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. I continued on to my gate when I saw a second piano, so I played To Zanarkand and a German couple applauded me when I finished. I later had to make small talk with them on the bus to the plane, but thankfully I wasn’t seated near them, or I may have just died from awkwardness.
Frankfurt is nice. I like the river aesthetic, it’s such a pleasant stroll especially in the cooler hours of the day. The city felt quite alive on a Friday evening, probably because of the local apple wine festival in full force. I was told that most of the restaurants serving local specialities were on the south side of the river, so I headed in that direction and found myself in the middle of a street festival at Schweizer Platz. After walking around and seeing what was available, I settled on a restaurant and tried some of the local apple wine, which was quite strong, and decided to walk home to sober up.
The next day, I took my bags to the new hotel; Andrew, a mate from New Zealand who’s now living in Amsterdam, would be driving in to meet me in Frankfurt and we booked a place together near the train station. It’s pretty dodgy there, a lot of homelessness and substance abuse in the area, but I left the people alone and they didn’t bother me. I continued on to the cathedral and Kleinmarkthalle, where I got my lunch. I was still desperate to find a place that did an authentic Black Forest cake, and after wandering around many bakeries, I finally ended up back at the cathedral where a popular coffee house in a beautiful building had my Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte. It was phenomenal, and well worth the walking. I had planned to come back after dinner to try the Frankfurt Kranz, another famous regional pastry, but they were sold out well before I had the chance, such is their popularity.
I went back to the hotel to wait for Andrew and after he arrived, we went for dinner and walked back along the river front. Frankfurt isn’t that big, and I was pretty much done with the major sites, so we headed back. The hotel had no air conditioning so we kept the windows open throughout the night, and I could hear bottles being smashed outside which made me nervous. The windows were connected to the fire escape gangway so at some point during the night I dreamt that someone was trying to sneak into our room, to which I yelled and woke both myself and Andrew up.
On Sunday, the coffee house with the Black Forest cake wouldn’t open until 11am and we didn’t want to wait around, so we just left. We ended up in Trier, Germany’s oldest town, right near the border to Luxembourg. We walked around the main square and admired the buildings, before heading up to the lookout over the city by the Mariensäule statue.
The drive to Luxembourg City took another hour. We parked in the city center and wandered around in the sweltering heat. The downtown area is built high up on a cliff looking over the Petrusse River, with remnants of the old Luxembourg castle still standing today. We had dinner near the train station - it was ludicrously expensive at €29 or nearly CAD$50 - and walked back to crash for the night.
Today we’re off to Brussels. I’m glad we didn’t stay in Luxembourg for longer. It’s pretty but it really does feel like there’s not much to do or see. In any case, I can happily mark off 35 countries on my Visited list, with Belgium being 36.
Posted by Jeremy at 7:51am on Monday June 22, 2026 :: 0 comments :: 