Tuesday & Wednesday, 22 & 23 May 2012

Nice

Frankfurt

213.6

Raining in Nice, dry and warm in Paris and Frankfurt

City Hotel Frankfurt

Lots of food, both healthy and junk.

Stomach......binge eating!

I caught an early train from nice to Marseilles, then changed to a TGV for Paris, where a two-hour wait turned into a four-hour wait when my train to Frankfurt was cancelled.  Compensation was getting a seat in the front carriage of the German VFT which is designed to allow passengers to look out the train driver's window.  The train reached speeds of 320kph.

Got to the hotel in Frankfurt at midnight and spent the next morning researching my changed itinerary on the web using the hotel wi-fi.  I eventually decided to follow the European Long Distance Trail E1, picking it up at Pforzheim, considered the northern gateway to the Black Forest and following it to where it crosses the Via Alpina at Altdorf in Switzerland.  The E1 actually follows several well-known national trails and I will be following the Westweg through the Black Forest to Titisee where I will turn east on the Querweg until its end in Konstanz on the Swiss border and then I will follow Jacob's Way, an old pilgrim trail south across Switzerland to near Altdorf.

After deciding my route and timing I walked to a Post Office and mailed back my snowshoes, ice-axe and crampons plus unnecessary maps to Australia and then found the best bookshop in Frankfurt and acquired the maps I will need for the first two weeks.  It was a very warm sunny day in Frankfurt and the place was buzzing.

I later looked up train times and figured that if I left early, I could be in Pforzheim by 9:30am and get in a full day's hiking tomorrow.