Day 21: Bonn
I just had to say it, didn't I? After yesterday's adventuring my feet were crying for a steady day. Yesterday was supposed to be a rest day but when I made the bookings and itinerary I had completely forgotten about Wuppertal. Kinda has me wishing for one less day in Stuttgart and one more day here. After breakfast in the hotel I made my way to the station to head to Bonn. I'd wanted to check it out as part of the trip as it was the capital of West Germany until the reunification in 1990 when...
Day 20: Wuppertal Schwebebahn and Dusseldorf
A number of years ago I heard of a train in Germany that hung from the rail. Today I got to see it, and ride it. The day started off with a city bus tour around Dusseldorf. I had booked for this the day before but there was only one bus left for the day and I didn't want to rush myself to get to the bus stop to start the tour as it was a bit of a walk from the info centre. So I waited until today. Clearly they were setting up for an event this weekend as there are stalls and food trucks going...
Day 19: Hamburg to Dusseldorf
Going to be a short one today as it was mostly uneventful travel. Today was all about farewelling Hamburg and travelling to Dusseldorf. I'm not really sure what to expect in Dusseldorf itself, I'm mainly using it as a base to see things in Wuppertal and Bonn but will happily see what I can find on the tour bus tomorrow. Old town is supposed to be quite pleasant (but what old town hasn't on this trip?) so that could be a good shout. I have to mention that if you are coming to Germany be...
Day 18: Hamburg Streets and Maritimes Museum
Sometimes the plans just don't work out as you expected. A bit of a quieter one today. I had a ticket from Sunday to do a city bus tour and planned this afternoon to visit the city observation tower. The bus tour was a bit of a bust as I was sitting on the right side of the bus and most of the highlights were on the left. I'd probably say 80/20 left/right. So if you come to Hamburg (and I hope you do because Miniature Wonderland alone is reason enough to me) and do the Route C tour bus; sit on...
Day 17: Miniature Wonderland
So this day is basically the entire reason I had Germany on my list, everything else has just been to make it a worthwhile passage through the country. Miniature Wonderland (Miniatur Wunderland in German) is the largest model railway in the world. It's in the Guinness World Records, the American's try to say they have the biggest, but they don't. Funny comment about that later. Anyway there's currently 14 different scenes including iconic European locations such as France, Switzerland and...
Day 16: Journey to Hamburg
There wasn't a whole lot that happened today. A lot of train travel as I made the trek north from Stuttgart to Hamburg. Probably the only interesting thing that happened during the train ride was needing to leg it between transfers. I later found out that I didn't need to transfer but Deutsche Bahn decided to do it because transferring to the second train was faster by around 50 minutes. Anyway the problem with the transfer was that I was in carriage 2 of the second train and when I reached...
Day 15: Stuttgart
A strong case of things I would do differently next time. A shorter one today as events meant it was a bit of a nothing day in the end. I remember when I was planning this trip that I had a choice between stopping in Stuttgart or Frankfurt on my way to Hamburg. As the journey directly from Zurich (or really, Luzern) to Hamburg would have been over 10 hours. Given Stuttgart's proximity to Switzerland I opted for that over Frankfurt as it would have been another couple of hours with a transfer...
Day 14: Stuttgart
Right off the bat I can be honest and tell you the difference between Switzerland and Germany is already showing. The ankle was feeling much better today so I headed out after breakfast to get started on my sightseeing tour of Stuttgart. Decided today I'd walk to the S-bahn stop to see how I'd go getting there with the suitcase. Pretty fair to say I think I'll be getting the U-bahn back to Stuttgart Main Station to head to Hamburg on Sunday. The path is quite narrow, somewhat overgrown and...
Day 13: Farewell Switzerland, Hello Germany
And just like that, Switzerland is over and done. It's almost a shame to be heading out already but I've really enjoyed the time here. As I mentioned in my observations post yesterday, yeah it's a little more expensive than home but things have been kinda going up there anyway so it wasn't an overly noticeable difference. Today it was all about getting from Luzern to Stuttgart. I had a train ticket booked for just after 11 that would take me back to Zurich before boarding a Deutsche Bahn (DB)...
Switzerland Observations and Additional Photos
As the Switzerland leg of the adventure comes to a close this post is just a few more photos that I've taken along the way and some general observations from my time here. The transport system is amazing. Without a doubt one of the best aspects of Switzerland is that you can get just about everywhere in the country using the public transit system. And it is incredibly supportive of riding the rails with bikes if you are so inclined to bring a bike along with you to get to those extra little...