Day 6: travelling to the Muttiland!

Oh dearie dearie me: I’m beginning to understand why Deutsche Bahn’s reputation is going downhill. I love all the marshalling yards outside even relatively small stations, the bookshops that sell real books, the decent coffee, the various accents along the way. But a 6 1/2 hour journey that got delayed and delayed even more as we travelled: no thanks. Were we caught behind a local chugaboom? Or were we the local chugaboom holding up everyone else? Even cyclometer caught the bug, not mapping at all where we were despite restarting the phone:

• 1st attempt to map: it caught a bit of Köln
• 2nd attempt disappeared
• 3rd attempt: it caught a tiny bit of Koblenz
• 4th attempt disappeared
• 5th attempt disappeared
• 6th attempt: caught Mainz to Bregenz

Ok, enough moaning. I loved the scenery along the Rhine, especially as the trainline hugged the gorge between Rheinland-Pfalz and Hesse. I loved all the fun place names. I loved that we were travelling to the Muttiland without flying. I loved that I managed over 6 hours without moaning about my depleted nicotine levels. And I loved that when the train finally stopped in Memmingen, our door was right next to a smoking area on the platform!

I did feel sorry for the guard: just as she was trying to signal the driver to close the doors and go at our penultimate stop, a family walked up to her and asked her something. Her reply was (as far as I could tell) ‘get on or don’t – we are going’. They then asked her if it was a DB train, and got on. She got on after them and cursed – she was not having a good day.

After refreshing nicotine and fluid levels in Memingen, we had a final hour of travel to Bregenz. Unfortunately, cellphone signal was really weak so I couldn’t screenshot exactly when we crossed the border.

Our hotel is in a building that is being made into hireable small offices. No lifts (and we’re on the 3rd floor) but a very friendly welcome by Rahel. After dumping our stuff, we wandered to Wirtshaus am See to eat (red lentil curry with a spring roll for me, Käsknöple for Elly