After Diomedea was loaded, we promptly booked an airfare and flew out to Europe via Singapore(!) the same day. It was something of a shock to land in cool and damp Germany but we no longer complain about cold after Thailand. Onto the autobahn for a bit of speed mania and hey presto we arrived in Andrea's old hometown of Sinzig to visit her family. A day trip was had to the city of Mainz to see the Gutenberg museum. We have both read the excellent historical novel "Gutenberg's Apprentice" which is mainly about the real life Peter Schoffer and we commend it to you. Anyway, the museum was poorly set out and in fact somewhat disappointing, given the enormity of its significance. However, we did inspect original Gutenberg bibles and many other interesting exhibits as well as watching a replica press at work. We met up with Andrea's sister and her younger brother.
Interestingly, Germany excels at cars and optical things but is hopeless when it comes to internet and mobile phone matters. It is always a battle to get connected in Germany typically taking hours or days of effort. We purchased Aldi sim cards (yes, from the supermarket chain).
Our stay was interrupted by a call from our son Angus who had suffered a workplace injury and so we took an unscheduled trip to the beautiful island of Mallorca to see him for a few days. It is our second trip to Angus' home and we have yet to see anything outside the town of Palma which itself is quite attractive. We dined well at night although way too early by Spanish standards naturally, and had afternoon tea at the Royal Palma Yacht Club (noice - got in by virtue of being a member of RSYS.) I used an Orange sim card and found it very expensive. Not recommended. We stayed at the Hesperia de Ciutat Palma hotel - excellent value but well up a hill. Signs are in three languages generally: Catalan, Spanish, English. The superyacht industry remains vast beyond comprehension in the port. We are planning to visit in our
non-superyacht Diomedea in due course. We flew back to Germany directly over the stunning Mont Blanc massif. Angus is recovering well now.
It was brunch and then cakes and coffee for afternoon tea on Mother's day before we left Sinzig for Frankfurt to meet Andrea's brother. Our flight out of the Eurozone and back into Islamic lands followed - more than half a dozen different airports in as many days. Yikes.
PIX HERE