Pleasant small city to overnight in when travelling from Paris towards Hamburg and the Echte Norden. Very quiet in the night, was nice to hear the birds sing when falling asleep. Relatively inexpensive Ibis Styles hotel (although I don’t see what the “styles” refers to in this case) (not in pic).
Sigh. A parent and two kids, maybe 4 and 6 years, sit across the aisle. At first I thought they were very pleasant children. But now each is watching a separate programme on their tablet. Without headphones.
Today has been a very TGV-dominated travel day. Bordeaux–Paris and Paris–Offenburg. Expensive reservations but 300 km/h for hundreds of kilometres. #Interrail
This is probably no news to people used to travelling through Paris, but the walk from Montparnasse station to Metro line 4 (to get to Paris Est) was very long. But well signposted so not a problem. Metro was crowded but not ridiculously so (between 16 and 17).
Good evening San Sebastián. Checked in to our one-star hotel which I really can’t find anything wrong with. Not sure how star ratings are defined. 90€ for a night, room with balcony, capsule coffee maker, very clean. Good value for money. Hotel Zaragoza Plaza. #Interrail
@tml hotel star ratings are so useless. it’s just a checklist for amenities (even hair dryer and ironing board). says nothing about quality, vibes, or unique stuff…
Happiness. I can now reveal that I was stupid and left my iPad in the bus from Toledo to Madrid two weeks ago (on a Saturday). I followed it in Find My and saw that it returned to Toledo and stayed there. I went there the following day, but of course the ticket office wasn’t open on Sundays and even if I saw it was some metres away I couldn’t get it... I eventually got a reply from #Alsa that they do have it there and I can fetch it on a weekday so here I am now and yes I got it back. Whew.
The good thing is I did not have to pay anything. In Finland bus companies probably hand items found in buses to some commercial third party lost item handler that charges an exorbitant fee for their services.
If #iOS was really clever, it would notice that you are in bus/train/etc and ping your nearby devices/#AirTag items frequently once you stop, to be able to tell you right away “dude, you left your iPad/hat/bag in the bus, go back now and fetch it”.
It did tell me now that I left the iPad, but too late. We were already hundreds of metres away, in the metro station, and it took like five minutes to go back and by that time the bus had already left.
I dislike Elon Musk and I understand the problems caused to astronomy by a large number of low earth orbit satellites. But still, please people, before you share this story about “Starlink precipitation” that is doing the rounds, be a bit critical. I am not at all sure that such a term is actually used in the astronomical community. My guess is that it’s just this one guy that came up with it for lols in a post.
Is it so that if you tap “cash and balance” on an #Euronet ATM they will charge you extra for the balance inquiry? I am very distrusting about that company and always choose “other” and then just “cash withdrawal”.
The public transport ticket machines in #Lisbon have a better UX than the ones in #Porto.
In Porto they asked whether you have a Portuguese tax number or not, and they used the weird word “title” instead of the simple to understand word “ticket”. Also, here you can with one payment buy several travel cards with the same tickets loaded onto each card.
But sure, ideal is London-style contactless payment system with daily fee capping . Instead of a separate travel card for each city you visit.
There is a train connection from Lisbon to Badajoz (border station in Spain) that arrives at 17:26. Guess when the train to Madrid leaves Badajoz? Four minutes earlier of course. Because reasons. Would be reasonable to expect state owned railway companies in neighbouring countries to coordinate their timetables, right? #CrossBorderRail#Renfe#CP
Sure, there are similar issues even between saner countries like France and Germany. But in those cases trains tend to run more frequently. This 17:22 train from Badajoz to Madrid is the last of the day.
I love that some of Spain’s main railway stations have been given names honouring Spanish female authors, journalists, philosophers etc. Madrid-Puerta de Atocha-Almudena Gardens, Madrid-Chamartin-Clara Campoamor, Málaga-Maria Zambrano. Are there more? Better than mythical figures (saints).
But still. From a usability POV such complex names are horrible. Parts of the name can be left out or abbreviated. Could easily confuse an unaware traveler, especially a foreigner.
The feeling when you are already completely full in a tapas bar and can’t recall whether you ordered anything more and are afraid they will bring you one more dish.
I am used to Finnish tapas bars where three tapas per person is the norm. Here two is definitely enough.