Tuesday, 22 August. Right after breakfast we started driving north. We turned off the autobahn for a short visit to Worms, primarily to see the 13th century Cathedral. We took a look in the city museum, too, which is devoted primarily to proving the antiquity of the city through artifacts of ancient peoples. A large stretch of the medieval town wall still stands, as well as the huge gatehouse to the old bridge into the city.
Our next stop was Darmstadt, supposedly the original home of my maternal grandmother. (She was from the state of Darmstadt-Hesse, not from the city of Darmstadt, but I didn't know the difference at the time.) Most of the city was destroyed by an RAF bombing in 1944 and little of historical interest is left. Probably the most interesting thing we found was the Russian church, a gift from the last czar of Russia to his wife, Princess Alexandra of Darmstadt-Hesse. It was made in Russia, then assembled in Darmstadt, complete with icons and mosaics. We finally reached Frankfurt about 13:00 and had great difficulty finding the US Army post in and around the I.G. Farben Building. When we finally did find it, we couldn't get a room in the hotel. We also discovered that the plane bringing Sharon would be a day late. After wasting all afternoon looking for a hotel on the south side of the city, toward the airport, we finally got rooms at the Zeppelin Hotel, on the main road leading to the I.G. Farben Building. We ate at the hotel's restaurant and went right to bed. Wednesday, 23 August. We slept late, then went to the Officers' Club behind V Corps Headquarters for breakfast. We drove to the center of town and browsed around in the stores. We also did some shopping at the PX. After lunch we lay down to rest, having our fill of sightseeing for the time being.
On arriving at the airport at 17:10, we found Sharon's plane had already landed. However, it was another half an hour before she cleared customs. We were very happy to see her safe and sound, but she had changed so much in the two years since we had last seen her. We drove to the hotel to clean up. Even though we’d taken a separate room for Sharon, I got a sly wink from the desk clerk upon leading the two women upstairs. Then we drove downtown to eat. We had intended to go to the Rathskeller, but it was closed. We found another place around the corner from the Roemer (used as the City Hall since 1405). I had my first taste of apfelwein there. Ugh! Then we went back to the hotel.
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