An Odyssey Through Audi-land

Another day, another day trip. We originally planned to go to Regensburg, about an hour by train. The city has a lot to recommend it, again, according to people online. However, since I can't leave well enough alone, I did more research. I found this place called Weltenburg Abbey, the oldest monastery brewery in Europe. They also had a beer garden, and a chapel you could visit. To make this destination even more enticing, you could take a boat through the Danube Gorge, a narrow passage of the Danube River also called the Weltenburg Narrows.

This was too good to pass up. Now the experts online don't recommend to do this by public transit, but I didn't listen. I found a way. Two trains, one bus. We could do it. Herr Hai was all for it. With his recently discovered love of German beer and overdone Baroque churches, how could we go wrong? Plus, we could stop for a couple hours in Regensburg on the way back, because that's where we had to switch trains.

So this was our plan. We left Nuremberg kind of early. It was drizzling, but we'd hope for the best. Our train to Regensburg left a little late. Then, it stopped on the tracks. We waited. And waited. We were terribly late getting into Regensburg and had missed our connection. This is the Deutsche Bahn Germans complain about online.

Not only had we missed the connection, but the little train (and it was physically a tiny little train) ran very infrequently. So we waited. Got on when it came, and as we headed out to the little town of Saal an der Donau, we saw big, long freight trains of Audis. Not surprising, as this is the land of Audi, with headquarters in Ingolstadt and plants scattered around the countryside.

We got to the little town. The station was empty. Looked closed down. The bus stop was around the front, but we had missed the bus and had a while to wait for the next one. The streets were deserted. Like post apocalyptic movie deserted. Everything closed. We walked around, Herr Hai's idea, and as he's the expert on those sorts of movies, along with zombie stuff, I assumed he decided it was better we move around so we weren't eaten.

It looked like a nice enough place. We took some pictures, went back to the bus stop. It would have been nice if something was open so we could have gotten something to eat. As it was, we had some smooshed granola bars we brought all the way from home, and were stuck with them.

We got on the bus. The ride was through "real Germany" as opposed to the more "tourist Germany" we had seen. Just people's houses, businesses, schools. When we talked to each other, the few people on the bus looked at us like we were either crazy or lost. Both, we were both.

We got off in a parking lot in the town of Kelheim. It was by a river though, so we figured it was the right place. The boat didn't leave for a while, but there was no boat in evidence. As the time got closer, people showed up. We bought our tickets, and about ten minutes before time, a boat came up (or down, not sure which way we were going) the Danube.

It wasn't long until we were aboard and on our way.

Sometimes, the journey is the adventure. This one, definitely. It would have been better with more snacks.Read more