Saarbrücken; Thursday, 15 October, 2020

I had a half day’s leave and as soon as the laptop was powered down I headed to the airport. Originally the flight had been late in the evening, and wasn’t originally due into Frankfurt until nearly 22:30, so rather than trying to get all the way through to Saarbrücken in one go I’d opted to break the trip in Mainz and overnight there as it was only 30 minutes on the train from Frankfurt airport.

Of course once I’d got all that booked BA cancelled the evening flight and moved me onto the 3pm flight, so I had to book a half days leave and dash across to the airport as soon as I finished work. It did also mean that I could have made it all the way through to Saarbrücken, but in the interim the hotel prices had changed, so it was cheaper to stick to the original plan.

I had a smooth journey through the airport and after an early push back from the gate and a short taxi we were on our way. In the same way that Heathrow is still very quiet, Frankfurt is the same so with a good tail wind and a favourable runway allocation we ended up landing about 35 minutes early and being on stand only a couple of minutes after that.

I had a quick journey through the airport and was soon on the train heading to Mainz, with the last light of day still in the sky as the train pulled into the Hauptbahnhof.

I’d forgotten, from when I’d visited Mainz back in 2011 quite how much of a hilly place the city was and I’d failed to take that into account when I booked my hotel, consequently it was a pretty hefty slog up the hill to the hotel to checkin and drop my stuff off.

A quick check on google maps revealed that there was actually a tram stop only about 500m away, that could have saved me the hike up the hill, so once I’d dropped my stuff off I headed over there and caught the tram down into town.

I headed back to the Hauptbahnhof and brought my ticket for the following day, buying me a few extra minutes for the morning, and then headed to one of the food stalls outside the station for a quick Bratwurst dinner.

I then caught the tram back up the hill to the hotel and turned in for the night.