Station Cat goes to Bosnia, Croatia and Germany and does something other than look at trains

[The Stationmaster]

ever further off topic, but for anyone with connections out of Eurostar in Brussels, look up the special connections corridor "South Corridor" at Brussels from Eurostar to other platforms - see "Changing trains in Brussels..." on this page for example http://www.seat61.com/Europe-train-travel.htm

And cross your fingers that it is actually manned (things might be different nowadays but it could be very unreliable at one time).

[bbishop]

And cross your fingers that it is actually manned (things might be different nowadays but it could be very unreliable at one time).

Mike,

 

Doesn't need to be. All the customs are done at St P. But is it the up travellator from the Eurostar waiting area in reverse, so gates need to be adjusted? Which is a manual intervention. However, I haven't had problems in the last few years.

 

Just my luck next week that we are 15 minutes late into Brussels and the short cut is blocked off. And I'm in the last coach.

 

Bill

[steve1]

SC,

 

Many thanks for your travelogue, it was a most enjoyable read.

 

Your train journey from Sarajevo to Zagreb reminds me of railtour I did round Ukraine and Moldova in early 1990s. Although we were on a dedicated train with East German built sleepers, your comments about the scenery and the 'service' were spot on. We had a Ukrainian steward whose main occupation seemed to be having noisy sex with every female member of staff on the train. This wouldn't have been so bad if his cabin hadn't been next door to ours. I also managed to lose half a stone in a weight due to the less than careful food preparation. Still, believe it not, I did enjoy the experience.

 

steve

[station cat]

Did you see a steam loco plinthed on the main platform at Zagreb?

 

(There's also a railway museum, of sorts, on the opposite side of the tracks - it's opening hours vary, but generally it appears to be closed when there are visitors).

I did. I have pictures of it and the one at Sisak. No pictures of the one at Sarajevo, I was hiding behind it in order to circumvent the photography ban.

[bbishop]

Guys, I've posted in Wheeltappers, requesting information before my trip to Germany. Cat, I hope that I'm not hijacking your thread.

 

Bill

[station cat]

You're more than welcome Bill.

Glad you are enjoying it Steve, you must have a had a trip to remember.

 

Nuremberg

My solo travelling days were over for now. It was time to join the Flyertalk crew for beer, wine, food and a bit of sightseeing. But that wasn’t until the evening and I needed some lunch. Having been out of Britain for nearly a week what I really wanted was a curry. I’d have settled for Chinese. But I certainly wasn’t about to eat any of that funny foreign food. Luckily I soon found a café with chicken tikka masala on the menu. It wasn’t quite the real stuff but it hit the spot.

 

Fortified I set off to renew acquaintances with Nuremberg. I was last here 18 months ago for Nuremberg Do 3 which focussed on the city’s famous Christmas market. I’d formed the impression that Nuremberg was a winter kind of place and was surprised to realise that it is very much a summer place. Snug restaurants spill out onto the pavements to bask in the sun. Gluhwein is forgotten as everywhere serves up ice cream. There’s even a beach.

 

Fruit and veg

Truffles

Some of the locals are a bit scary

Perhaps because they have to share a post box with everyone else in town?

 

One of my favourite places in Nuremberg is the Lorenz Kirche, currently celebrating the anniversary of Martin Luther by displaying itself in historic state – without pews

They have an interesting display about the church in the Second World War

 

Since I had plenty of time I decided to go out for a look at the Nazi Party rally grounds which are 15 minutes or so by tram from the city centre. Nuremberg is a city that doesn’t so much wear its history as labour beneath its crushing weight. Its history as a medieval centre of arts and culture, vibrant market place, and pioneering railway town is altogether over-shadowed by its place in the Third Reich. The Nazi Party rally grounds were to have been the central theatre of the Third Reich, the place where its citizens came together to celebrate their physical, cultural and martial dominance. In addition to the Congress Hall there was to have been a massive parade ground and a 400,000 seater stadium. The Second World War halted construction but the Congress Hall was finished and today contains a museum documenting the Third Reich.

I arrived to find that the documentation centre was full of tour parties from river cruises and that the rally grounds were hosting a rock festival. Apparently their being used in this was is controversial, and I suppose it does distract from the solemnity of the place and what it stands for. However preserving the rally grounds must cost a great deal of money and that has to be raised somehow. Besides which, a rock festival sounds like something that the Nazis would definitely not have approved of. I contented myself with a walk around the outside of the Congress Hall; it is built on a massive scale which nicely encapsulates the Nazi regime’s complete disregard for individual humans.

 

The Do began with a meeting at the bar in the Meridein Hotel. This started early, hardly surprising as a lot of people were looking forwards to renewing acquaintance with old friends. From here we moved on to Barfusser a combined brewery and restaurant which specialises in Franconian food – in other words large chunks of pig. The do-goers were split across two adjoining tables. One table decided to order several main courses to share. We decided to take on the challenge of Barfusser platters, several kilos of pig, chicken, duck and various forms of potato. Somebody had slipped a couple of lettuce leaves in there too. Despite our best efforts we could not finish The Food.

 

The following day was reserved for exploring Nuremberg, guided tours were on offer but I decided to strike out on my own. A couple of serial do-attenders headed off to Regensburg.  I don’t really do guided tours, too much time looking at stuff other people are interested in and not enough time for things I’m interested in. I see huge groups wandering around like sheep and wonder how much they are really taking in. I also wonder what happens to anyone who loses touch with their group, it sounds like an excellent way to get Very Lost Indeed. So after a vegetarian breakfast I gathered up my map, Lonely Planet (yeah I know I’m just a sheep that can read) and camera, and headed for the Deutsche Bahn Museum. My route took me past the German National Museum and the way of human rights. Each of the columns on this route has one of the universal human rights inscribed on it in German and the language of a people who have had that right violated.

 

My route also took me past the Opera House U-Bahn station which is partly open to view. Nuremberg’s U-Bahn stations are highly individualistic; for instance Lorenzkirche reflects the ecclesiastical architecture above.

 

I also walked through a gate in the city wall which is largely intact although I suspect that, like much of Nuremberg, it required heavy restoration after the Second World War.

 

The Deutsche Bahn Museum was excellent. Highly recommended for anyone interested in railways, and for children of all ages. It begins with a audio-visual presentation about DB’s history which is very nicely done. Thereafter you progress through galleries discussing German railway history in chronological history. The railways came to Germany in 1835 when a line was built from Nuremberg to Furth. Displays discuss the development of the railways and their role in developing Germany. A large section is devoted to the railways at the time of the Third Reich. The story of the railways between 1945 and 1989 is told in galleries that are split – East Germany down one side and West Germany down the other. The final gallery discusses DB’s post-unification development. There is also a gallery devoted to model railways which contains everything from tiny Z gauge models to large engineering models.

Gate that formerly separated East and West Berlin at the Zoo U-bahn station

Modern gallery

 

The stars of the exhibition are the trains themselves. A number of vintage carriages are on display including one Ludwig II had built to journey between his castles such as Neuschwanstein. Locomotives on display include Nordgau, Germany’s oldest preserved locomotive, Bavarian S 2/6, Germany’s fastest locomotive before World War One, 05001, classmate of 05002 the world’s second fastest ever steam locomotive and the Flying Hamburger – a diesel train which provided the world’s fastest scheduled rail service between Hamburg and Berlin in the 1930s. There is also an engineering prototype of the ICx, which will be the next generation of DB’s ICE high speed passenger trains. The museum is also home to a replica of Adler the locomotive bought from Britain to haul Germany’s first trains.

Wagon from the Stockton-Darlington Railway, one of the oldest preserved railway vehicles in the world

S 2/6

Nordgau

The first and the fastest – Adler and ICE 3 replicas stand next to each other

Part of the train exhibition area is outdoors

A current S-bahn train passes a preserved example

You can go in the old signal box

And watch trains

 

Having satisfied my inner geek I made my way back to the hotel, via the railway station where I picked up some noodles for lunch. I am worryingly fond of those station noodle stands. Once back at the hotel I washed my hair and got it fairly dry before going out again to see some more of Nuremberg and finish drying it. My first stop was the Rathaus (town hall) and the former prison underneath it. Most of the prisoners lived in total darkness, many were tortured to extract confessions, and a large number were ultimately executed.

 

From there I wandered up to the castle. Last time I came this way there was snow on the ground and it was very cold indeed. Today the sun was shining and it was really too warm for comfort. I wandered around some streets near the castle which I’d missed before and also explored the garden and found a way onto the city wall. A beer festival was taking place in the moat but I gave it a miss- I don’t like beer.

 

 

 

Our evening’s entertainment was a trip to the medieval banquet in the Alte Kuechn. It turned out to be about as Medieval as the Superbowl but it was great fun, at least for the German speakers amongst the party. I couldn’t keep up with a lot of it but I certainly learnt some interesting new German phrases, jokes, and songs. In keeping with the medieval theme we ate from wooden plates which were not changed between courses. Doughnut and sauerkraut anyone? Some of the FT crew had been to the beer festival and the restaurant was happy to keep the dark stuff flowing.

 

Just after I got back to my hotel I got a panicky phone call from my Mum who was wondering where I was and why I hadn’t been on the train I said I’d be on? Umm. .. Because I’m still Germany and will be for several days more. Don’t you ever check your email? Oh well, it was nice to hear from her.

 

Saturday was devoted to a trip to Wurzburg which will be the subject of my next post. But I think it is right to discuss the journey back to Nuremberg here. Somebody had the bright idea of buying a crate of beer (luckily for me they also got some schnapps filled chocolates). In a less tolerant country the subsequent party train would have become ‘that Do where we all got thrown off a train for drinking beer and singing’. As it was we were joined by a group of ladies selling small bottles of schnapps to fund their evening out. Did we ever establish whether or not they were a hen party? Happy to share the joy we gave our last chocolate to a woman sitting near us. She didn’t appreciate the alcoholic content, in fact she got off the train very quickly. Sorry!

 

The Do ended with dinner, beer and wine at the Marientorzwinger a restaurant/beer garden housed in the city wall. I said bye to all my FT buddies and wondered when I’d see them next. I made extra sure to thank F0zzyNUE for all his hard work in hosting this wonderful Do. I can’t wait for the next one!

[eastwestdivide]

Great stuff - I was with you all the way, up to "I don't like beer".

[Purley Oaks]

Some wonderful pics there, thanks for posting. I love Germany...

Mal

[bbishop]

Cat, you have until 10pm on Sunday to get to Ulm!  I'm off on my trip Monday morning.

 

Bill

[station cat]

Should get to Ulm tomorrow Bill. If not I will drop you a PM.

Mal - Thanks and, yes, Germany is very loveable.

Thanks eastwestdivide - and less beer for me means more for you.

 

Just a short update this time and nothing railway realted. But if you like wine...

 

A daytrip to Wurzburg

 

It was the morning after the night before but the Flyertalk crew was all present for our train to Wurzburg. To say we were all present and correct would have been pushing it, as one or two of our number were certainly feeling the effects. Being nice people we kept our laughter down to a low volume to minimise its impact on aching heads. On arrival in Wurzburg we met the first of our three guides who was going to lead a city tour. A couple of us opted out of this tour, in my case because I’d rather explore on my own. Apparently it was quite a good tour, casual racism aside (said casual racism being aimed at people who weren’t actually the nationality they were assumed to be).

 

My first stop was the area around the Marien Kirche which is a market place and houses many restaurants which were busily promoting local wine and produce (Wurzburg offers an erdbeerzeit (strawberry time) to go with the aforementioned spargelzeit. Unusually, some of the shops in this area are built onto the walls of the church. From the market I walked to the Rathaus, a relatively plain example but housing the near ubiquitous restaurant – is there some kind of law requiring German towns to convert their town hall basement into a restaurant?

 

From here I walked on to the old Rhine Bridge which is decorated with statues and very beautiful indeed. It offers splendid views, including of the Marienburg Festung (fortress) on the far side of the river. The fortress housed the city’s ruling prince bishops from 1201 to 1719 when they decided it was safe to move into town and build a blingy new palace (of which more later). Many of the city’s vineyards can be seen from the bridge, including the one situated on the slopes below the fortress.

 

 

Back in the Rathaus square, a fruit and veg market was taking place. I bought some raspberries and scoffed them down. Very nice indeed. I also took this picture of St Killian’s Cathedral

 

The Rathaus Platz also houses a small museum devoted to Wurzburg’s experiences before, during, and after the Second World War. Un-touched for most of the war, Wurzburg was the unfortunate victim of a near ‘perfect’ raid by the RAF on 16 March 1945 which destroyed 80% of the buildings and killed 5000 people. The damage was so bad that it was suggested the city should be abandoned as a testament and memorial to the horrors of war. The museum has a model of the ruined city which demonstrates the depth of the destruction and prompts admiration of the skill and effort which subsequently went into reconstruction.

 

With another German meal coming up for dinner I opted for a Chinese buffet lunch which was of acceptable quality and fair price. After lunch I made my lazy way to the Residenz where I would be meeting the rest of the group. My route took me past the old university, still in use as a place of learning, and through the gardens of the Residenz. It was a blazing hot day by now and so it was nice to stroll through the gardens and rest under the trees. The formal gardens are beautifully laid out and maintained but the less formal wooded area was far more suited to my needs on this day.

 

 

I met the rest of the FT crew by the Franconian fountain in the Residenz courtyard. The Residenz was built in the 18^th century as a statement to the power, wealth and security of the city’s ruling prince-bishops. Nowadays it is open to the public but only by way of guided tours. You have to leave your bags in a cloakroom area and are not supposed to take photos or touch anything except the modern furniture.  The highlight is the world’s largest fresco, painted by Tiepolo and sons and covering a 667 square meter ceiling over the grand staircase. It is genuinely extremely impressive but our guide spent 40 minutes explaining it which was really far too long. I think she was under the mistaken impression that she was dealing with a bunch of art and architecture buffs.

 

Having lost interest, some of us amused ourselves by sneaking up on naughty flyertalkers who were leaning on walls or balustrades and poking them. A certain person set a very bad example by sneakily taking a series of selfies. Eventually our guided moved onto the other rooms in the Residenz where the pressure of following groups thankfully restricted her to three minutes talking about each room. Actually many of these rooms were extremely beautiful and interesting and a couple of extra minutes in them wouldn’t have been a bad thing.

Franconian Fountain

 

Released back out into the sunshine we all found ourselves in need of restorative water/beer/ice cream or some combination there off.  We wandered off in various directions and met with varying success. Some of the group went to the Residenz’s customer café where the service was appalling. I found myself in a small group at an eis café (ice cream café) where the service was excellent. Well I would say that being as our server neglected to charge me anything, despite the fact that I was sitting with money in my hand looking at her expectantly.

 

Our final stop was a tour of the wine cellar located under the Residenz. Nowadays these historic cellars are not used for wine production but they are still at the centre of wine-making operations, being used for tastings, parties and anything that requires a sense of tradition. They are also blissfully cool and very interesting. In this case our guide had judged her audience correctly and stirred feelings of envy by telling us how the city officials used to be partly paid in wine.

She also told us the story behind the city’s flat round wine bottles (which would be more or less unique if Mateus Rose hadn’t copied them). The boring version of this story is that the shape was copied from the skin bottles used to hold wine before the development of glass.

 

 The more exciting version is that the vineyards were started by the Abbott of a local monastery who made a deal with the devil – if the vineyards became established and worked perfectly for twenty years the devil could then have the Abbott’s soul. The devil provided twenty years of perfect weather, suitable insects and ideal soil. When he came for the Abbott’s soul the Abbott persuaded him to try some of the perfect wine they had made together. The Abbott then got the devil so drunk that he fell down in a stupor. The Abbott then cut the devil’s testicles off, filled them with wine for sustenance, and ran away never to be seen again. Prost!

 

We made our way back to the station and the party train home, but not before stopping at a local hostelry to air our newly acquired wine knowledge and sample some more local wines. Thoroughly recommended.

[station cat]

Ulm - in Ulm, um Ulm, und um Ulm herum

 

So why start my post with a tongue-twister? Suffice to say I appear to have developed a habit of visiting places I can’t pronounce. This is more of an achievement than it sounds, because I can get my tongue around Hercnegovenia and Republika Srpska but not around Zirl or Ulm. How can a three letter word be so impossible to pronounce? I suppose spelling it Uhlm would give a better example of the linguistic pitfalls awaiting the unwary traveller but it still wouldn’t convey the sheer impossibility of pulling that U sound out of some place which doesn’t exist in English throats.

 

The next question about the-place-whose-name-cannot-be-spoken is why anyone would bother going there in the first place. Well at any rate it certainly had one of my fellow Flyertalkers confused. From my point of view the main attractions were the aforementioned book by Patrick Leigh Fermor, and the proximity to Friedrichshafen combined with the relative ease of getting back to London. However Ulm came onto my literary radar when, as a teenager, I read numerous books written by British prisoners of war who’d escaped from camps in Germany and headed for Switzerland. Many of them had been caught in or near Ulm and the place has since held a certain malevolent fascination for me. My last reason for going was that the description in my Lonely Planet was very favourable.

 

There are no direct trains from Nuremberg to Ulm so I took an Intercity train to Aalen and then a Regional Express to Ulm. Intercity trains are long distance trains which are slower than ICEs and make more stops. Some of them take this to extremes, last year I caught IC118 which makes 44 stops and takes 13.5 hours to travel from Salzburg to Munster. My train today was the comparatively pathetic IC2160 which takes a mere 3 hours and 14 minutes to cover 10 stops between Nuremberg and Karlsruhe. IC coaches aren’t very impressive looking but they’re comfy with loads of legroom.

IC 2160 at Nuremberg

IC interior

Scenery

Aalen turned out to be a five platform station and evidently an important inter-change for regional services as well as the junction used by passengers travelling between Nuremberg and Ulm or Stuttgart. RE22525 was on time and so I arrived in Ulm three hours and five minutes after leaving Nuremberg.

Ulm-Stuttgart service at Aalen

REflected

Scenery

 

I dropped my bags at the hotel and set out to explore the city. As I was warned, Ulm is indeed a bit odd. It has some lovely old bits but they tends to be stranded in bland modernity. Typical of this is the Munster - the world’s tallest cathedral sits in a thoroughly modern, and thoroughly dull, Munsterplatz. The Munster itself is beautiful inside, and the outside is an intriguing mixture of brick and stone.

Munster Platz

Munster

 

 

The Rathaus, which sits next to the modernist glass city library, is also very nice. Because the cathedral is so big you can amuse yourself by including it in photos of pretty much every other building in the city. But I think this one is quite nice – Cathedral, Library and a medieval house by the city wall.

 

From the Rathaus Platz I walked down through the Metzgerturm and onto the bank of the Danube. Nothing weird or mismatched about this, it was beautiful. Many of the locals were spending their Sunday afternoon biking alongside the river or lying on the grass. A number of boats were doing a roaring trade carrying passengers up and down the river. In keeping with the theme of ‘slightly odd’ that seemed to be developing I opted to go for a ride on the solar powered boat. This turned out to be a great way to see the City and the parkland surrounding it. Ulm may be weird but it appears to be a nice place to live in.

 

 

 

 

Back on dry land I headed for the Fischerviertel – Fisherman’s quarter. This area turned out to be rather Kitsch but still quite enjoyable. Many buildings here are situated alongside the Blau River, or on islands within it. Noted buildings include the crooked house (Schiefes Haus) and the narrow house, which at 4.5m wide obviously wasn’t named by anyone anticipating modern urban property markets.

Crooked House

Narrow House

 

On the subject of building, Ulm is especially famous for its sparrows. It is said that the men building the cathedral couldn’t get the huge tree trunks they needed through the city gate – until they saw a sparrow flying along with a twig held at an angle. The builders thus had the bright idea of turning the tree trunks round lengthwise and were thereafter indebted to their feathered friend. If this story is true then German engineering excellence must be a modern development. True or not, Ulm has plenty of sparrow sculptures and the real-life birds can also be seen in large numbers.

 

Having eaten a rather large lunch I didn’t fancy a huge dinner. Since my hotel was close to the railway station I decided to walk back there to eat noodles (mmm addictive noodles), buy some drinks from the Spar supermarket, and look at trains. Germany’s larger railway stations are, incidentally, an excellent source of food provided you don’t want anything healthy. Ulm’s has the noodle place, a Burger King, A Nordsee selling fish based fast food, a place selling currywurst, rotisserie chicken etc, two bakeries and a bar. What a way to travel.

 

From the enthusiast point of view, the most notable thing about Ulm is the large number of diesels passing through, un-electrified routes being comparatively common in this part of Germany. It’s a busy station visited by a wide variety of passenger trains. Platforms 1 and 2 are mostly used by ICEs and freight trains routed through the station. Platforms 3 and 4 are used by Intercity and Inter-Regional services and the higher numbered platforms by local trains. Since large numbers of trains start or finish their journeys at Ulm, or change locomotives there, the yard is very busy with lots of shunting movements.

Class 66

218 Class hauling a cycling special

Yard pilot and shedmaster’s pet

Regional train

Austrian Taurus locomotive hauling a mixed freight train

[The Stationmaster]

Last time I went anywhere near Aalen was chasing BR78 tanks on Stuttgart - Aalen locals, quite a lot of years ago  

[bbishop]

Cat,  thanks, your description of Ulm pretty well tallies with my background reading.  I'm staying a couple of nights in Augsburg, so I may return to Ulm on Tuesday, then Wednesday in Augsburg before an afternoon train on to München.  If nothing else, I fancy climbing to the top of the spire.

 

Bill

[NGT6 1315]

This sure looks like you were having a delightful trip, Cat. Thanks for sharing!

[Astockfan101]

Very Informative this will help me if I'm in the areas.