Day 290: Westwards to Kassel

Travelling day today, and not much fun sadly! Packed up early and got ready to leave, only to discover that yesterday Schnitzel had chewed through the zipper on his carry-bag, so now it didn't zip up properly. We managed to get him inside and get it zipped up and off we went.

Bus ride to the station wasn't much fun either, as the bus was very crowded and I just felt constantly in the way with my enormous backpack. And Schnitzel wouldn't settle down, barking at nothing every now and then.

He wasn't much better on the train either, more little intermittent yaps. Crowded train as well, ended up having to share a 4-seater with someone else which is a bit of a rarity!

Arrived in Kassel around 1pm, knowing that we couldn't check into our hotel until 3pm. So we wasted a bit of time having lunch at the station McDonalds, then eventually headed over to the hotel. As we left the station Schnitzel's bag fell to pieces, as he scrambled around to bark like a lunatic at a suitcase, the zipper teeth separated and he fell (not too far) onto the floor. Sigh, will have to find a replacement for it in Cologne in a few days.

At the hotel, our room was "30 minutes away" from being ready, so we sat downstairs to wait. 30 minutes later we checked, and they told us check-in time was 3pm and we'd just have to wait another hour. Great.

So we sat there for another hour. Doesn't help that this chain of hotels, their free internet operates at essentially dial-up speeds unless you fork out extra which neither of us were inclined to do. It worked I guess, as long as you were patient and only loaded one thing at once.

Once our room was ready we just headed upstairs and relaxed. Although we're right next to the station, it's a 20 minute walk from the main part of town and neither of us felt so inclined. Ended up going to the restaurant downstairs for dinner where we had fairly good but expensive food - I had a burger while Shandos had a chicken breast with ratatouille.Read more