Traveling in the Time of COVID: Europe 2021

Germany Part II:

With the Netherlands and Denmark declining to accept American tourists, we decided to go with – plan “M” – maybe plan “N”? I forget how many redirects and revisions we’ve made to our travel plans, so we are sticking with rule #1: be flexible. 

So back to Germany. We decided to head to Cologne, which was just shy of a two- hour train ride from Brussels. When arriving at the train station (the Hauptbanhoff – abbreviated Hbf) – you need to keep in mind that what we spell “Cologne” – the Germans spell “Koln” (with the two little dots over the “o” called an umlaut)– which is what it says on the signs at the station. The reason for the many different name spellings likely goes back to the different possession of cities by various other countries (and some are completely different names for the same place – like Istanbul and Constantinople) – but I digress. 

Cologne is a city of cathedrals – three large ones, with their associated bells, were located within a few blocks of our A&O Hostel Hotel, including “The Dom” – The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter. Its construction started in 1248 to house the remains of the Three Wise Men. The main work stopped with a crane on top of the south belfry in 1473 (many paintings and sketches exist showing the crane), some construction on the nave continued until the mid 1500’s, but then also ceased. The partially constructed immense cathedral sat for the next 300 or more years until someone rediscovered the original plans around 1815. The work recommenced in 1842 after the Protestant Prussian court stated it could – and put up 1/3 of the cost of the project, the remaining 2/3 from private donations. It was completed on August 14, 1880 as the largest façade and tallest twin-spired church in the world, and a symbol of German pride and nationalism. Although Cologne was completely devastated in WWII, most of the cathedral remained intact for visitors today. 

When we have one full day to explore a large city, I love to do the “Hop-On-Hop-Off” busses. They are generally inexpensive, relatively convenient during the day, and take you to places it would be difficult reach by walking. The one in Cologne runs every 30 minutes from 10AM until 6PM, with the first stop by The Dom and cost 18E per person (you can also add a 1-hour Rhine cruise for an additional 6E pp).

We hopped off twice, the first time to walk along the opposite side of the Rhine, and to go up to a tower viewing in a high modern building. The viewing tower was closed, but I did get some nice photos, 

and we hopped back onto the next bus 30 minutes later. I was not going to force John to get off at the Botanical Gardens – after all, I’ve dragged him along to ones in Darwin, London, and many other cities, but this one was free, and right across from the bus stop.It was beautiful, allowing a walk-through of paths through gardens redolent with flowers and foliage at the peak of the year. 

We rode the rest of the journey, and considered going to the chocolate museum, but it was close to lunchtime. Cologne is a city of over 1 million inhabitants in the city proper, so in addition to houses serving kolsches and “pub grub” there is almost any other cuisine you could want. In walking around the night before, we had passed a Thai restaurant next door to our hotel with wonderful smells emanating, so that’s where we went. I had a green curry with squid and requested it “very spicy” – it was good, but medium heat at best. John had a crispy duck with vegetables. The Thai tea was different – instead of being sweetened with condensed milk, it had pineapple juice and lime – still cost 3.5E, which I thought was a bit pricey, but overall the meal ran 28E. 

After lunch, John went in search of a massage, and I worked on my blog for Belgium and got it posted. John did find a 90-minute massage for 65E, and said it was good. For the evening, we walked along the Rhein, keeping an eye out for any specials. The night before, after doing laundry, we sat at the Goffel Am Dom across from the train station – a large kolsch brauhaus, with ample outdoor seating. When we sat, the waitress in her blue apron said something in German, then in English “You have beer?” I’m pretty sure there was a question inflection in her voice, though it sounded a bit more of a command. And we did. The kolsh comes in small straight glasses with 200ml per serving (about 6.5oz), and they continue to bring it in round dispensers that carry 8-10 glasses at a time, changing over your glass as soon as you are empty until you cover the glass with your coaster. They mark your coaster with how many you have had to keep track, since there is often more than one waiter circulating. Monday night I had the best cherry compote I think I have ever had, warm and delicious, not too sweet, accompanied by vanilla ice cream. John’s “kinderplatte” had a large sausage and French fries.

After our walk along the Rhein, we broke our normal habit of going to different places and ended up back at the Goffel Am Dom – this time I had a plate with fried potato fritters – like a large hash brown patty, stewed apples, and a heavy brown bread with butter. The potato patty was made with plenty of butter, and I traded one with John for one of his eggs – he had ordered fried eggs with a cream spinach. Neither of us liked the black/brown bread, though I am sure it qualified as “whole grain”, and of course – more kolsch. 

            Most of our train rides have been fairly uneventful – generally run on time or very close, and we haven’t had a lot of interaction with locals. Until our trip from Cologne to Stuttgart. First of all- we’d paid for reserved seats at a table. We get on the train – correct “wagon” – #7, but in the section where our seats were supposed to be – there are bike racks. We go to the next wagon, which has seats in our number, but others with reserved seats are sitting there. I find a conductor, who clucks and mutters, shakes her head and says “well that was not nice”, and instructs us to explain the situation at the DB office to get credit, and to find an open seat. We remain in the cabin, since there was plenty of room for the luggage, sitting in the back row where we can keep an eye on it. The boisterous school group got off the train about 2 stops in, opening up the two sets of seats with tables, John and I jump up, as does another gentleman, and we get the tables opposite each other. Another half an hour in at another stop, the conductor comes and on and sounds distressed. Others look up, but don’t move. Another few minutes go by and she comes on again, sounding upset. I comment to John “well, whatever’s going on, she’s very worried.” The gentleman across the aisle speaks up. “She’s asking if there’s a doctor onboard.” I reply “I’m a doctor.” The gentleman in the next aisle – also named John, jumps up and leads me off the train, onto the platform and I jog to where I’m pointed. Luckily another doctor – who is German- has arrived and there is no serious issue requiring more than one of us, so across-the-aisle John and I return to our seats. Which leads to a pleasant conversation until he got off near Heidelburg. Our visit was extended by the 90-minute delay created by the lady who slipped getting onto the train (who was standing when I saw her). Most of the wait turned out to be bureaucratic – it took an hour for the train company’s incident investigator to arrive and another 30 minutes to get the all clear to get underway. This caused delays in any number of subsequent trains for that day. 

            After we arrived in Stuttgart (finally) and checked into our little hotel near the train station, we grabbed a quick linner at a fast-food noodle shop – we both picked one with fried shrimp. Unlike the typical Texas/ Southeast fried shrimp, these are coated with a thicker dough prior to frying, which wasn’t bad, but the mouth appeal was different. The noodles were good with a mildly spicy sauce. The area immediately around the hotel included block after block of shopping (with many chain-stores you would recognize – Swarovski, Benetton, Starbucks) and many European chains I’ve seen along the trip. I also saw a book store where many of the topics were in English- ‘Best Sellers’ – even when the title remained in English they were printed in German. I turned to ‘Fantasy’ – and one after another, the same held true – until I found King of Scars – I opened to a middle page and out of recent habit started to close it until I realized it was in English! I wanted to yell “SCORE!” I think I just emitted a high-pitched happy squeak and took it to the counter. I had finished my last book on the way to Cologne, so was in need of new reading material. We found an outdoor café near the Rathaus (unlike what it sounds like – these are town halls and early government buildings) where I had a not-so-great wheat beer, but the evening was comfortable. I soon discovered Stuttgart was more of a wine town than a beer town.

Most of our time in Stuttgart was marred by rain. Our hotel was only a couple of blocks away from the train station, and had “sound proof rooms” – and they were, until you opened the window to get some air, and all of the city sounds poured in along with the raindrops. We tried walking some in the morning, waiting for the tourist information booth to open, but the steadily increasing rain drove me to return to the hotel via the well laid out tram/subway while John continued on his quest to find the “Eurostore” – a store where everything was 1.1E. In my subway wanderings, I discovered that the steps that connect the underground walkway to the subway had stairs that literally led to the front of our hotel. When John rejoined me – complete with chocolate mints, some tea, and garlic flavored potato chips, he was fairly damp. He set up the hair dryer to dry his jacket, and once “good enough” we journeyed out and I showed him the underground walkway that took us from the hotel the 3 blocks to the tourist information office (which opened at 10AM). Definitely a hop-on-hop-off bus day, we stayed on and did the complete tour without getting off – and we did see where the Mercedes-Benz museum was located, which we could go back out to later. 

            Stuttgart is about cars and wine. The vineyards can be found throughout the city – and could see some from our hotel window. I did not see a lot of local wines on the menus, and a fellow traveler stated it tended to be expensive and not very good. The cars include Mercedes-Benz and Porches. For that matter, Stuttgart is the only city with museums by two major automakers. Unfortunately, they don’t let you drive the cars. We took the bus back out to the Mercedes-Benz one, they charge 10E per person, but it’s a beautifully designed museum detailing not just the history of the car, but of culture.

I did rush us through the lower 2 levels trying to get back to the bus at the 1-hour point – and we made it at exactly 1 hour after we were dropped off, but we missed it by 5 minutes. The HOHO map was useful, it had listed nearby subway stops, so rather than wait an hour (there was no re-entry to the museum), we could walk a ½ mile to the subway. We just missed the first tram, but they came every 10 minutes, so it wasn’t long before the next one arrived. It did require a change of trains, but we made it back with little difficulty. 

            With the weather clearing up for the evening, we ventured forth for dinner. John had seen a place with a lamb burger the night before, but couldn’t remember exactly where. We retraced our steps and discovered “Flo Burger” – in addition to lamb, they had veggie burgers made from kidney beans and quinoa. John said it was the best lamb burger he’d ever had, and the bean burger was pretty good, too. 

            I had been continuing to keep an eye on changes for travel to the Czech Republic, which had essentially banned tourists from the US. But then there was a change that stated no matter the “color code” of the country you were coming from, if you were fully vaccinated and filled out the passenger identifier form, were asymptomatic with no known exposures, you could come without any need for quarantine or further testing. We’re going to Prague!!!!!

            We decided to change plans – so instead of 2-3 nights in Munich, we would only have one, so we took an early train. We had reserved seats (by the way – the exact same wagon number and seat numbers as before – but this time, we had seats). Our seatmate for the table was a freelance journalist who had stories printed in Der Spiegel and others. He was supposed to be on his way to Afghanistan but his photographer had become pregnant (even if not – a professional woman in Afghanistan would have had its own difficulties). He admitted that generally he wasn’t fond of Americans. He traveled in the US and found our prevailing general attitude is very US-centric and most ignore the rest of the world. (In general, you know how you feel when you go to a restaurant and the waiter constantly ignores you – sometimes seemingly deliberately? Europeans often feel like the customer and America is the waiter ignoring them). John and I tend to be aware of the world, and enjoy meeting people from all over, which generally makes us “good Americans” as we travel. 

We arrived in Munich without incident, dropped our bags (and my laptop in the secure area) at our A&O Hostel (4 blocks from the train station) and set out for the day. Our main snag – their hop-on-hop-off buses are not nearly as organized as the other cities. Their map indicated one thing – and reality was different. We had no problem getting on the orange loop – the shorter loop out to the Olympic Village and the BMW Museum, but instead of continuing on to the main city, we had to get off and find a different bus. We ate lunch and came back when they said – no green loop, only orange, twenty minutes later – another orange, another twenty minutes and another orange. I was getting peeved. Finally, an almost fully packed green loop bus arrived. At this point, it was getting late in the day so we dared not hop off, and it did give us a great overview of the city, though not worth the 24E pp it had cost.

            Afterwards, we walked in many places the bus had driven by, and I will say, Munich is very photogenic. 

In the evening, we found a pricey but interesting restaurant called the Bohne und Marrowe which specialized in local dishes (and not the German word for bone marrow – which is knochenmark). I forgot to take a picture of the food names – but we had spinach and cheese “dumplings” covered in snap peas and radishes followed by a dessert with a sweet pancake covered with an apple-butter like topping and cream, washed down by a lovely glass of grauburgunder white. We found a bottle of the style of wine in a grocery store in the underground near the subway for 4.29E. “Cheap and Cheerful” as our friends like to say. 

Tomorrow we head to Prague!

Some practical stuff:

All of the cities we visited in Germany had good subway/ tram systems, that once you get the hang of, are pretty easy to navigate. They sell day group passes for up to 4 people for as little as 11.5E (5.5E for an individual). You are supposed to write the names of the riders on the group pass. Some cities you need to time stamp your pass, others are just start from the printed time of purchase. There are no turnstiles or gates to slide the pass through, so its partly on the honor system, but if you are caught on the subway train without a valid pass, there is a fine (about 30-50E). With some planning and organization, you can get to almost all of the tourist sites using the subway, which is much cheaper than the HOHO tour buses. 

Train system: pretty reliable, comfort is OK, internet is questionable (I’m writing this on the train to Prague, which shows I have WiFi – 5 bars, but didn’t actually connect to the internet until we crossed into the Czech Republic over 3 hours into the journey). Right now, café cars are also hit and miss – some trains say they don’t have them “due to COVID” – but other trains, in the same company, have them. 

Here’s a link to our seatmates stories, you can put them through Google translate – they’ll lose the nuance of language and play on words, but are interesting: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://muckrack.com/philip-malzahn/articles&prev=search&pto=aue