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Never trust an Engineer Read more Baar, Switzerland
  • InterRail 2022
    Day 66

    Predjama & Postojna

    September 4, 2022 in Slovenia ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    Castle and Cave day trip.

    - Predjama Castel
    A mere few kilometres from Postojna Cave, the Karst world offers an unforgettable experience in the fairytale world of knights. The impregnable medieval marvel has been perched in the middle of a 123-metre-high cliff for more than 800 years. Behind the largest cave castle in the world, there is a network of secret tunnels, from where the knight Erazem of Predjama would set out on his plundering expeditions. The Cave under Predjama Castle is the home of a colony of bats.

    Natural elements seamlessly interwoven with manmade ones, the result of man's work and nature's creativity has created a pearl of medieval resourcefulness. The world's largest cave castle, listed as one of the Guinness World Records, tells a picturesque story about the times when comfort had to give way to safety, and when the clatter of weapons would often drown out troubadours' songs. It is so special and unique, it ranks among the ten most fascinating castles in the world, and so romantic that many couples choose it for their wedding vows.

    - Postojna Cave
    The world's most captivating cave with magnificent cave formations and diverse fauna. Take an unforgettable ride on Postojna Cave's underground train and experience a fascinating subterranean paradise shaped by tiny droplets over millions of years.

    Postojna Cave is the only place where you can see the most precious brilliant in the form of a cave formation and also meet the baby dragons. Just like the world above the surface, Postojna Cave boasts towering mountains, murmuring rivers and vast subterranean halls. It is a real challenge for explorers and the cradle of speleobiology.

    I was responsible to take care of a green skirt, Aminah brought with her. On the underground cave train journey I lost it on one of the seats. Which turned the day in a two hour waiting for the skirt situation. 😇    Read more

  • InterRail 2022
    Day 65

    Lake Bled

    September 3, 2022 in Slovenia ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    Day trip to the second most famous tourist attraction of Slovenia.

    September days in Slovenia are not too different to the swiss ones. In the morning you need a jacket and in the afternoon the temperature climbs up to 27°C and you carry your warm clothes with you for the rest of the day.Read more

  • InterRail 2022
    1
    Day 64

    Ljubljana

    September 2, 2022 in Slovenia ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    Overnight train - floor experience.

    Our journey from Zurich to Ljubljana was quite unique. It all started with Aminah’s trip from Tenero to Baar, where she missed the first connection. Fortunately every 30 minutes was a train departing from Tenero towards Arth-Goldau, Zug or even until Zürich. Unfortunate was only the crazy delay the train accumulated in the end. This particular train wehere Aminah was traveling with did not stop in Zug due to the delay and so she found herself in Zürich where she called me and asked me desperately if I can pack all her clothes for our two week interRail adventure.

    When I arrived in Zürich we went straight to the EuroNight train and asked if it is possible to enter the train without reservation. We presented our InterRail passes and the conductor let us pass.

    Once inside the train we couldn’t find any free seats. There was only one wagon with seats 💺 dedicated for the Zagreb route. Three wagons were couchettes. The rest of the train constellation was operated by the Austrians aka. the NightJet wagons.

    We could place our bottoms for about two hours into some seats until the wagon was occupied. In the end we were forced to sit on the floor for about 8 hours.

    Funnily enough we weren’t too tired when we arrived in Ljubljana even though we didn’t shut an eye on the entire trip. Nevertheless we walked from the cute little old town to a park where we took a little nap on the almost dry lawn.    Read more

  • InterRail 2022
    Day 58

    Munich

    August 27, 2022 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    It rained cats and dogs during the night from Friday to Saturday. It was a chilly morning when we decided to visit the big Bavarian neighbor of Augsburg. The train journey took only 31 minutes. We arrived before 10 in the morning in Munich where I had one of my super silly ideas to dare Aminah that she wouldn’t be brave enough to run through a fountain near the train station.
    Well, I was wrong and so I had to borrow her my jumper so she stoped freezing at this rather cloudy and chilly day.

    After around 6 hours of sightseeing in Munich we jumped onto a train back to Augsburg. We took a long nap and prepared ourselves for a traditional dinner at the Ratskeller in Augsburg.    Read more

  • InterRail 2022
    Day 57

    Augsburg

    August 26, 2022 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    Aminah and I decided to use our InterRail pass to practice our German skills.
    Our journey started on Friday morning where we took the train towards Germany. We were quite wasted because of the night before. My friends asked me if I’d like to join a little street food festival on Zug. Aminah and I joined the scenery and we soon realized that this night won’t end anymore.
    We had quite some luck on Friday morning when we entered the train in Zurich direction Munich it was barely a seat taken. We used the journey to rest and recover from the night before.

    Once we arrived in Augsburg, we checked into our hotel and went sightseeing. The day was quite relaxed but we laughed a lot and enjoyed the time together.    Read more

  • InterRail 2022
    Day 45

    Gent & Brugge

    August 14, 2022 in Belgium ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    Sunday in Bruges

    Before I went to Brugge I made a little pit stop in Gent where I was thrown back by this massive towers and churches in the center of the town. I unquestionably had to go up one of this 90 meter high towers to see everything from another perspectives.

    Later I continued my trip to Brugge where I checked into a fancy hostel with a cool bar downstairs. I had to take my 5pm nap before I went out to see Bruges jewels. After the nap I finally made it to a chocolate shop where I tried some delicious pralines. I walked around the old town and places myself in one of the more famous mussel restaurants in town. Belgium’s traditional dish no. 1 is Mussels and Fries. I certainly overdone by ordering the biggest menu they had to offer. I stared with a runds carpaccio followed my
    Mossel natuur ending in Dame Blanche.
    Not only the beef carpaccio also the mussels and the dessert was totally worth the money.    Read more

  • InterRail 2022
    Day 44

    Bruxelles

    August 13, 2022 in Belgium ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    Lö dösiem schuur

    Brussel must be a shelter station for all those lost French souls. When I walked through the streets the majority was speaking in French followed by Spanish and Italian tourists and occasionally you could hear some Dutch, English and German.

    The second day was dedicated to visit the Atomium which is located in the northern outskirts of BXN. After seeing this monument I went to the mini Europe park which was just nearby. Even though it was a wonderful experience and I learned a lot of the different architectural styles from the past 3000 years, I had to shell out a pole of money for it. 😜

    I went back to my hostel at midday where I was told that the rooms will be locked from 11 till 3pm for the cleaning crew. With 30% of battery I continued my sightseeing trip by going to the Brussel-Noord train station, where I hopped on a train towards Leuven. In the Mini Europe theme park I saw this mini town hall of Leuven and it looked quite impressive. After I arrived in Leuven and after a stroll through the historical center I went back to Brussels to get ready for dinner, night photography and some live music bars.

    Dinner was nice although the Stoemp wasn’t as good as they described it in the internet. Sunset photography worked out well too, that’s why I went to a bunch of bars wehere I tried my well deserved Belgium beers. The entire day was quite relaxed although I did quite some stuff eich the little drawback in the end they I couldn’t find a bar with some groovy jazz bands neither any kind of live music.    Read more

  • InterRail 2022
    Day 43

    Brussel

    August 12, 2022 in Belgium ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    I’ve chosen a horrible train company.

    On my way to Brussels I had a train from Zurich to Cologne and then Cologne, Brussels. The company which brought me to Cologne was the worst I’ve ever chosen. It was a night train plus it operate from Zurich to Amsterdam. Long distance trains are usually a bit more comfortable than an S-Bahn. In the case of Zurich-Amsterdam, the train was uncomfortable and they didn’t turn off the light. From 23:23 until 5:53 the train was bright as day.

    When I arrived in Brussels at 8:45 I was a wreck. Without any sleep and with a little incident in the Thalys train, where I should have shown a reservation, which I didn’t have. I made on time to Brussels.

    I spent the whole day sightseeing and tried the two most famous things Belgian is famous for. At 3pm. I was able to check in my hostel where I first took a shower and rested for a bit.

    In the evening was still too tired to do some night photography not to mention heading to a bar with life music. So I postponed this two events for the next day.

    Luckily on the way back home I won’t have a overnight train anymore. If I take a overnight train again should from now on avoid driving with SBB.    Read more

  • InterRail 2022
    Day 36

    Barcelona

    August 5, 2022 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    Vale, Barcelona does not count as an InterRail trip in the end. After I checked the trains to Barcelona I quickly realized that it might be too late for the reservation. Zurich - Paris was obviously a TGV route and even I tried to book it 3 days prior, I could not get a seat reservation anymore. Rerouting through Geneva - Lyon - Barcelona didn’t work out too. I therefore checked the flight tickets and luckily I found a 50 euro flight from ZRH to BCN. The way back was booked from BCN to Malpensa. Which implies that I did take use of my InterRail pass, even if only for the short distance from Milan back to Switzerland.

    Barcelona per se was hot and stinky. 😊 I enjoyed it a lot. My islander girl and I discovered different corners of the city center, jumped into the Balearic sea and ate yummy food. It was definitely valió la pena.    Read more

  • InterRail 2022
    Day 31

    Bordeaux

    July 31, 2022 in France ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    Sunday funday.

    Do you remember when I mentioned how crucial it is to do the TGV reservation days in advanced. Well on Sunday I stepped once again into the same trap. The train to Dijon was fully booked. The reservation of my hotel in Dijon was not refundable and there where literarily no more trains out of Bordeaux on this day as it appeared on the InterRail reservation platform.

    So in the morning we quickly went to the train station to see if I can buy a first class ticket to Dijon and behold, the machine showed me, that there is still tickets available so I entered birthdate, email, mobile number, full name and clicked through 7 layers of pre-settings until I was asked to pay. I held my phone on the contactless payment system witnessed how it failed.

    We sadly returned to the city center bought a souvenir, cheered ourselves up with an iced cream and maundered through the streets. An hour before the train departed we returned to the train station to buy the crazy overpriced first class ticket to Dijon but…
    No more tickets were available. I started looking for a train to Montpellier, but InterRail told me that there is no free slots anymore. Narbonne the same and the worst nightmare was Paris. There was not one available seat to Paris.

    In the end I decided to go to Nantes since the train towards Paris allowed me to book a seat from Bordeaux to St. Pierre de Corps and then a connection train to Nantes. I paid the overpriced ticket and booked an accommodation. I said goodbye to my amazing islander girl, since she had to catch a flight back to Menorca. I sat down in Bordeaux dirty and hot train station and waited the 1.5 hours until the train was supposed to arrive. It did not. First it showed a 30 minute delay which turned into a 1h 20 minute delay due to an accident on the railroad. Due to this delay I was not able to reach the connection train in St. Pierre de Corps so I just decided to stay in the train, inside the fist class voiture and I continued my journey to Paris. Luckily not one single ticket inspector appeared during the entire trip from Bordeaux to Paris.

    I arrived in Paris at 11.30pm where I had to find for a second hostel option, the one I found earlier in the train was not available anymore. With an eScooter I drove to the hostel and at the reception was a nice Chilean guy who let me check in even after the official check-in hours. I had a cold beer at the bar which was attached to the hostel and then I dropped my stuff in the dorm and took a eScooter to La Tour Eiffel. I booth two more tiny beers from a Indian street vendor and enjoyed the view. Around 1.30am I went back to the hostel and fell asleep in a undercooled dormitory.

    I got up around 8 in the morning, took a shower, checked out, had a croissant and a cappuccino, hopped into the metro towards Concorde, walked through the square and took a train to Disneyland where the TGV which started in Nantes was stopping. Since I already had the reservation from Nantes to Switzerland I thought it would be best to take this train and not loosing once more some money.

    La fin.    Read more

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