a.k.a. Travelling in Germany
If you can't handle posts
without pictures, skip this one. Hopefully for the rest of you, my
lively writing style can pull you through.
A series of unfortunate
events
We have found it's
considerably cheaper so far, especially without a Eurail pass, to
take buses around Europe instead of trains. Consequently, we were
delighted to discover we could buy two bus tickets in person for 29
euros each for the journey from Ljubljana to Munich, a deal that
wasn't available online. We didn't realise that the day we were
travelling, however, 31 August, was apparently the last day of school
holidays in Germany.
We got up at the sprightly
hour of 6.15 in order to drive the hour's length from Bled down to
Ljubljana, in good time for our 9.20am bus.
An omen of things to come
was when our bus hadn't arrived by its scheduled departure time. John
enquired and found out that it was just delayed; 50 minutes later it
rolled up and we boarded. The road out of Slovenia was fine; then
came an hour's wait at the Slovenia-Austria border, before a long
tunnel. Perhaps the delay was due to something big coming through the
tunnel? I had given up my hopes of arriving in Fussen early enough to
visit some castles that day, but we still presumed our rental car
pick-up in Munich would be fine. Our bus had been scheduled to arrive
at 2.15pm, and the rental car office shut at 5pm.
Long periods of being
immobile or travelling very slowly on the motorway ensued. While we
travelled, John tried in vain to transfer the downloaded map of
Germany onto the GPS. [Technical reason: internal memory not
sufficient for map size, microSD card not formatted in a way that the
GPS could see, and no way of formatting it properly.] By the time we
arrived in Munich at 6.30pm, a 5-hour journey having transformed into an 8 and
a half hour one, we had cancelled our rental car booking, devised and
discarded a plan B, and now determined to head to the airport, where
rental car offices should still be open. We had no car and no map of
Germany on the GPS – our prognosis wasn't good.
Again, it seemed our plan
would be thwarted when the stupidest ticket machine in the history of
mankind greeted us (of course, any manned offices were closed); it
took only coins and certain debit cards; no credit cards, and no
notes, even though there was a slot for them. This made it difficult
to pay the hefty 20.80 euros for John and me to get to the airport.
Upstairs we went, to the only place that was open, where we had
grabbed some takeaway tea before; the very nice girl at the counter
kindly changed a 20 euro bill into coins for us without complaint.
Arriving at the airport,
now around 8.30, we investigated the various car companies, and
realised that the cheapest option here was going to be 100 euros more
than the deal we had booked. Never mind; it's only money, right?
Money that we were trying to save by booking the bus in the first
place... We asked if they rented out GPSes, as well, and he said he'd
include that for the same price! Yay! (Turns out it was built into
the car.) We located our car, walking past an absolute fleet of
rental cars to get there, eventually figured out the German-speaking
GPS, and John drove the 2 hours to Fussen, to our place of
accommodation. We were so thankful we had booked one of the random
places where you just get sent a key code to let yourself in, so you
don't actually see anyone and it makes no difference what time you
arrive. We arrived shortly after midnight, and decided to go straight
to bed. Our 18-hour day had been rather tiring.
The best of times
Over the next couple of
days, we discovered how German motorways were supposed to
work. We had inadvertently hired a relatively powerful diesel car – much more grunt than our first (cheapest) choice would have been – and we made good
use of it. Fantastic roads, permanent two (or three) lanes and open
speed limits saw us trucking along at an average of 140kph. Slow
vehicles were a non-issue; slow vehicles passing slightly slower
vehicles was the problem (slow = 120kph or less). Three lanes were
the best. The fastest speed we got up to was 200kph, briefly!
Driver's perspective: I
can see why some cars come with a sixth gear. The inbuilt GPS was in
German (obviously) so we got to listen to a robot lady telling us
things we didn't understand. At least arrows are universal, and we
got an audio warning when we were meant to do something. I'm not sure
if that speedo was accurate, but it was beginning to feel unsafe
travelling at 200kph, so we didn't do that for long. It's strange
when travelling 140kph becomes the norm and anything less feels like
dawdling.
Another unfortunate
event
Then it was back to sedate
bus-travel from Munich up to Berlin. We had initially considered booking a
9-hour trip, 11am-8pm, but when we looked again the next day a
shorter trip, 11.30am-6.30pm, was available for the same price! Done!
This trip was with a
different bus company, so I was sure it would be better. As soon as
we boarded, I was convinced I was right; this was a double-decker –
instantly cooler! We sat on the top level, of course. Furthermore, we
had a power socket for the laptop and even internet, at least to
start with. We were sorted.
There were a few minor
traffic delays, mainly due to roadworks, where we were going truly
slowly, not just 100km-slowly. Then, at about 6pm, the bus got a flat
tyre. At various points throughout the trip the bus driver updated
the passengers on what was happening, and evidently he was a funny
guy, 'cos there were always chuckles from the passengers when he
spoke, but we had absolutely no idea what was going on. The helpful
texts in German we received from the bus company didn't really help
either. The flat tyre, however – that was something we could work
out ourselves.
After a two-hour wait by
the side of the road, we were off again! A wee while later, the bus
driver said something again, and everybody clapped at the end, so we
presumed that was a good sign. We finally arrived in Berlin at
9.30pm. And so, again, a 7-hour trip became a 10-hour one. We are
considering booking trains more frequently in future. [Update: the
bus company this time, Meinfernbus, sent us a code for two free bus
tickets from them in the future, which was nice! So we may yet board
another bus!]
Our final transport
challenge that day came once we arrived in Berlin and got on the
underground train. It travelled to two stations, then stopped and we
heard an announcement that due to construction works, the train
stopped here. We almost couldn’t believe our fortune. We worked out
that there were signs pointing to where a (very crowded) bus waited
to transport us overground to the missing stops, before dropping us
off at a subway station further on, where we got back on the
underground. This experience wasn’t too dramatic, but the
combination of everything made me wonder if coming to Germany would
prove to be worth it!
For an account of what we
actually did and saw in Germany, come back next time!
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