My day started out relatively smoothly in Salzburg, enjoying a nice big breakfast at my hostel before walking to the train station. I get there around 8:45, knowing that there is no point in getting there much sooner, because on weekdays, the Bayern Ticket (unlimited regional train travel in Bavaria for a day) can only be used starting at 9:00.
My original plan for my Salzburg/Hallstatt/Füssen weekend was to take the train to Füssen on Saturday (the Bayern ticket starts at 0:00 on weekends) and then train it to Salzburg where I would spend most of my time with a day in Hallstatt. After learning about ANOTHER DB Bahn rail strike that weekend, lasting until Monday night, I knew that there was no chance of that happening.
Flip-flopping my weekend was my only option. It just meant a severely pricey bus ticket to Salzburg via Munich and a more difficult schedule to fit in the Salzburg Card (I ended up actually losing a bit money on this because I couldn’t fit another sight into my schedule…). Oh well, I managed, and this Tuesday morning, the train strikes were over and I was able to start my journey, albeit a little later than what I would have preferred.
I couldn’t find a DBahn ticket machine for the life of me (we are in Austria, after all), so I found myself a more expensive (by 2 euros) Bayern ticket from the DB Bahn ticket counter.
Shortly after 9, I am off on my first leg of the journey and make it to Munich in right around 2 hours. As I was riding that specific train, I noticed how much I liked it because there was this screen listing all of the stops that the train would make before getting to Munich as well as what time it was expected to leave each stop.
See, a lot of the time, trains and busses don’t announce which stop they are at, or if they do, it’s over a terrible intercom system and they mumble, so it’s like they didn’t say anything so you either have to be super vigilant in looking out for signs saying the stop’s name, or you have to ask someone who knows what’s up, or you have to look at your phone’s maps in order to see which city you are in if you have service…
Keep that in mind for later.
After getting to Munich, I have about 45 minutes before taking a train from there to Füssen. After getting on, I sit back and try to relax, as it’s another 2 hours to Füssen. (And I did try, but was rather unsuccessful because there were a hundred kids getting on and off at each stop!)
Finally! I make it to Füssen around 14:00. I get on a bus (Bayern ticket still valid) to the castles with all the other tourists. I plan to take the 17:05 train out, so I have a fair amount of time to walk around.
I wasn’t planning to go inside either castle, but I don’t think that would have been possible with my timeframe, either.
It’s a short stroll through town and then a 10 minute walk up to see Hohenschwangau Castle. I walk around the castle grounds and manage to get myself yelled at for being somewhere I shouldn’t have…In my defense, it wasn’t blocked off and I saw others going up there, too!
After walking down and crossing the road, I considered taking the bus up to see Neuschwanstein Castle for a euro or two, but no bus was around and no timetable was posted, so I skipped it and just hiked up myself.
The hike would have been nice had I not have had to carry my backpack up, which was starting to kill my back slowly. At least it was fairly short (40 minutes).
I knew for sure that I wanted to go to Mary’s Bridge (Marienbrücke) to get the best views of the castle, and I’m glad that I did! If I had more time, I would have continued on with the trail to get a potentially better view, but what I got was pretty fantastic!
After a while of taking in the views and listening to the waterfalls below us, I got myself a closer look at the castle before hiking back down (I literally JUST missed the bus back down, but it was an easy walk down).
After getting a bus back into Füssen, I had a bit of time to walk around before catching my train. Knowing that it’d be a long night (I was scheduled to get back around 9:30), I grabbed some food, considering that this is the biggest stop of the night.
I get to the platform.
Delayed.
Okay, well that settles it. I could have either gone a quicker way with more train changes but with change times in the range of 3-4 minutes (thus more stressful) or a different way with only 1 change of 15 minutes. Now I didn’t need to make that decision…
And there I thought, strikes AND delays. Whoever praised the efficiency of German trains, telling me I get a free ride if they are late lied to me!!
It comes 7 minutes late, so I hop on and get off at my first stopover.
So far, so good.
I even find myself a FREE bathroom before boarding my next train.
Looking at the departure board, I am immediately confused because it says that a train to 2 destinations is leaving at the same time from the same platform.
But the train door had a sign saying Lindau, so I shake it off and get on.
I’m now set for Lindau, where I will be in about 2 hours (20:08).
So, imagine my surprise when a train worker comes into my “room” at around 19:30, saying to “get out!”
Dialogue went as follows:
“Aussteigen”
“English?”
“Uhh…Get out!”
“What?”
“The train is finished”
“What about Lindau?”
“You’re on the wrong train… Get out and come back in 5 minutes. We need to clean”
I get out. The train leaves. I freak out. I find a DB Bahn machine to figure out how to get from where I was to where I need to be. I find out that I have ONE chance to get it right (and it requires short stopover times), otherwise I’ll be spending a night in a train station. I text my host mom saying that I’ll be back LATE before my phone then dies. I take out a pen and write down train numbers, every single stop and what time on my hands.
I can’t mess this up.
The train comes back and the same guy calls me.
“At Immenstadt, the train split. One way to Lindau. One way here. There was an announcement.”
Yeah…I didn’t get that.
But that still didn’t clear up my confusion at all, considering that I got in a door labeled LINDAU!!
Here’s where it would be nice to have monitors in all trains!! Information in English would have been great, too.
So I get back on and try it again.
At Immenstadt, I check the departure board a good 10 times, just to be sure that the train I need to get on isn’t also splitting.
Finally, I get on the train going to Lindau and get there around 22:30.
I have a bit of time to relax there before getting on the last train of the night to Friedrichshafen, with a 4-minute change time to get on the last train of the night back to Uhldingen-Mühlhofen after midnight.
With 8 trains and 12+ hours of train time, it really made me question whether seeing the castles was worth it (I still say yes) and whether I’ll ever trust myself with trains again (I’m back at them this weekend and one late at night with 3-4 minute connections, so wish me luck!! I really don’t want to spend a night in a random train station!!)
Into Uncertainty 