Euro Velo - Donau - T minus 2 days

 Do you ever get that nagging feeling that you need to do something today? It can't be just me.

I planned my summer cycle tour down to the day and hotels giving myself plenty of time to go where I need to in the day. On the 16th of August I will go to Passau and the next day start cycling along the Donau towards Vienna. 

A week later a fellow touring cyclist told me that the Isar cycle route is also nice so I thought I would extend the trip by two days and cycle Munich to Passau and get the full Munich to Vienna cycle under my belt.

I hadn't organised those two days but they were stuck in my head to the point where I conflated the two start days.

Stupid me, I went to Passau two days early.

Lucky me, two days extra holiday!

Passau is lovely, even in the rain.

Today's Office (Bern, CH)

It has been a while since I shared with you guys some of the cool places I go to work, largely because I have been stuck in the office for months! Well, my first Field Test trip abroad in a while happened to be to a city I had never been before, Bern!

Bern is the capital city of Switzerland, although only the fourth most populist city. It was here that I learned why the international country code of Switzerland is "CH". It stands for Confoederatio Helvetica, which is Latin for Swiss Confederation. There you go!

My visit to Bern was to go and work with the engineers at Swisscom on on of our Sony products, which turned out to be more problematic than I anticipated and even had to stay an extra night to ensure the work could be completed. O woe is me!

Actually I only had time to see the city centre once because the working was pretty intense, so I visited the Bern old town and had a walk around in the dark and went to a specialty Rösti restaurant. Rösti is, I guess, where we got our inspiration for hash browns... Grated and deep fried potato. But I have to say they do it better. The best hash brown I've ever had is not even in the same league as what I had at this restaurant:

The boiled pear was an interesting touch however, but it meant I did not have to order a desert.

Something I really wanted to see was the "Bear Pit", but I don't think that would be worth it unless there is someone with me that would understand the inevitable Anchorman quotes :-). The main reason I didn't go was that I was informed that the Bears would most likely be hiding inside the cave,so I thought I would save that for my next trip :)

Viel Spaß homies!

Prague Part 1 - Holland Declares War against the Czech Republic!

Once again my wanderlust took control of me, and with the aid of some friends of mime who share this particular character trait we decided that Prague would be the next city we visit! My companions for the trip would be my friends Birgit and Magdalena in the above picture.

After some research into the travel choices I realised that it was not only cheaper to take the bus, but also faster than the train! No brainer really. What can go wrong? Well, as it turns out a lot (it wouldn't be one of my blogs if everything went right ;) ). The ticket said we would travel from Hauptbahnhof Arnulfstraße (main station on the street Arnulfstraße). I assumed this meant Munich's main bus station, which is on that street. Lesson 1, don't assume anything!

So when I got to the main bus station Magda was already there, and told me we go from platform 4. Great, I thought. Time for a drink then! Then Birgit joined the party, looking like she was going to war! Unfortunately I can't show you a picture yet, I guess she deleted them...

After poking some fun at her for her bag and attire we went down to where the buses depart, about 25 minutes before departure. Platform 4 had a train to Istanbul, probably not stopping in Prague then! I saw that there was one going to Poland via the Czech Republic departing the same time as ours. So I assumed that was the correct one. Remember lesson 1?

We waited and waited but the bus did not come, then 20 minutes after scheduled departure the sign changed to a different departure. Now we were at panic stations, and very angry with the Deutsche Bahn (with whom I booked the tickets). I asked Magda if she could talk on the phone to the DB service line to find out what happened. They said we had no idea (all 5 people and the machine!) and said we had to talk to someone at the DB service point in the main train station.

So we queued up, but that did not mean we had to stop partying! We had already started drinking some of the hot glüwein that Birgit brought. That was probably the most fun I've had in a queue. Well we eventually made it to the front and Magda talked to the guy (because my German is not good and hers is perfect). We discovered (as you might have guessed) that the bus didn't actually go from the main bus station but from a drop-off/taxi point. He did agree however that the ticket was misleading and did us the great favour (which he did not have to do) and signed and stamped the reverse of our tickets saying that we can take a train.

Excellent! We even got to travel with in the comfort of a train compartment. WIN! Until the ticket collector came and said that it wasn't valid. Well, actually she said it was like buying chips at McDonald's and claiming them at Burger King. Bugger, we had to pay, but the ticket girl said we could get the Deutsche Bahn to pay it back. That reminds me, I need to go and sort that out...

Well, as it happened it wasn't expensive ( less than 25 € pp ) and we got to travel in comfort, and we actually made it to Prague that night. We were all to knackered to party that night because we arrived after 12 and the girls had already slept on the train. Thankfully, we did have enough energy between us for a night cap at the hotel bar. Lovely Jonny Walker Black Label, and the same price as the Red :)

That makes day 1 of the trip, and a natural end to part 1 of this already lengthy blog. I promise more pictures for the next one!

Viel Spaß homies!