First Class Lunch in ICE

Tuesday September 6th
In Which we Enjoy a First Class Lunch with ICE

Our Bruges to Amsterdam Cycle Adventure was always intended to be the prologue (warm up) to our main event - following the Danube from Donaueschingen to Budapest. It turned out to serve this function perfectly. We could not have wished for better weather or a more memorable guide to usher us along our way.

The first leg of our adventure finished in Amsterdam, the city of higgledy piggledy houses, bicycles, canals and legal drugs. While we were there it was also home to untold thousands of partying uni students, celebrating the start of the University year. Although I do love the unique character of this city, I was getting keen to leave the crowds behind and resume our ride through the quiet paths and back roads of Europe.

In order to get from Amsterdam to Donaueschingen we needed to take three train journeys.

But before we could do that we needed to all get to Amsterdam Central Station. I asked the staff at the Wiechmann Hotel to organise three large taxis for us. We then piled all our suitcases outside the front door to wait for our transport.
Right on time the first Mercedes Benz taxi van arrived and five of our team and a veritable mountain of luggage was jammed in the back. A couple of minutes later a similar van pulled up and the driver smiled and asked us to climb inside. As the first were climbing in, the man from the hotel came out and warned us that this was NOT our taxi. It was just a driver who could smell a good fare. We thanked our hotel man for keeping his eye out for us.

The second taxi arrived a few minutes later (the correct one this time) and we started to climb inside. The driver insisted that we would not need the third taxi because it was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. Although I doubted how we could possibly all (about 7 of us)get in the one taxi, somehow we managed and we were on our way.

One of the hazards of driving in Amsterdam is that the streets are not only always crammed with cyclists, but they are also only about 3 metres wide.

Any delivery van that stops to drop or collect goods immediately blocks that street completely. We discovered that most deliveries must take place at 9 am as we were forced to make one diversion after another. Fortunately we still arrived at the station with a little time to spare. This was a pity as Maggie and Gael immediately saw an opportunity to go shopping. They disappeared out of sight and left Gerry and I stranded with their luggage.

The last time we were at this station Maggie got lost looking for the toilet, and it soon began to look like this time she had got lost looking for a handbag to buy. All the rest of the team went to the platform to board our train. Gerry and I looked at the clock. No sign of the women. Panic started to rise as the minute hand of the large clock raced around towards departure time. Eventually Maggie appeared out of the crowd with a smile on her face and a large new handbag under her arm. I wondered where she was going to pack that for the rest of our adventure.

Since the price between second class and first class on the ICE trains was not very much I had persuaded the group to let me buy first class tickets for the long journey. "It will be great, lots of room for our luggage and free food", I promised them. I remembered back to the great first class service we had had on previous Thalys trips and I assumed that the high speed ICE train would give just the same level of service.

It doesn't.

Although the seats were spacious, there was basically no storage space for luggage apart from the racks high over your head. I wondered how elderly people (a bit like us) would manage to lift heavy luggage without assistance. Somehow we all managed to cram our bags in aisles, racks, doorways, in fact everywhere but the driver's cockpit and settled down to a hot lunch on the train. We were wasting our time - there was no service. Well that is not quite true we did each get handed a tiny packet about 3 cm square containing 5 sour lollies. That was lunch ! I wondered what those in second class got.

Although I thought we could enjoy the Internet on the train, apparently that wasn't working either. On top of our disappointment an announcement came over the speakers that the train was already running 10 minutes late after the first hour. Since we only had a 20 minutes gap between trains at Frankfurt, I was starting to worry that we could be in trouble.

The driver finally found the throttle and managed to get the speed up to near 300 kph and we did make up a little of the lost time. We saw little of Frankfurt as we dashed from train to train, although we were by now so hungry that I would have enjoyed a frankfurt.

The second ICE train was not much better than the first. The afternoon tea (or was it dinner) was the same sour lollies. No coffee, not even water. No storage space. But at least it did take us to Offenburg on time. By now we had been in transit for nearly all day and were all getting near the end of our stamina. We still had one train trip to go to take us the final leg to Donaueschingen. This turned out to be the real highlight of the day.

We watched as the train climbed steadily into the Black Forest, passing through a number of long tunnels and crossing a ridge at near 1000 metres above sea level. It was a welcome contrast to the flatness of Holland and Belgium. The rolling high meadows were spotted with grazing cows and steep roofed homes. I thought it looked very Swiss in appearance and could almost imagine Julie Andrews dancing over the mountains singing "The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music". It was that type of countryside.

We finally rolled into the small station at Donaueschingen around 6 pm and formed a peloton of luggage pullers to find our way to the Hotel Zum Hirschen. We soon crossed the beautiful Brigach River, one of the two rivers that combine here to form the Danube ("The Donau"). It really felt like our true adventure was about to start.

First impressions of the town were very positive. It was quiet, clean and neat Numerous signs reminded us that most things are "verboten", the rest are "absoluten verboten". This was another contrast to the easy going nature of the Netherlands, where just about everything is completely legal.

We found our hotel, checked into our rooms and then looked for a place to eat. Due to some confusion over time zones we somehow ended up going to two different restaurants, but that was OK as everyone was very pleased with their meals.

After a very long day we all headed to bed early. Tomorrow we can explore the town and get to meet the bikes that will carry us to Passau.Read more