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).
The trains seems to become quite full in 1st class later in the journey so I bought reservations after all, while still available.
Sorry, SNCF and Alstom, but travelling in 1st class in an ICE is so much more pleasant than in 1st class in a double-decker TGV. Much more space. Germans complaining about DB don’t know how much worse it could be.
When after joining ICE 206 in Offenburg I noticed that it will become quite crowded I quickly reserved seats and grabbed what seemed to be the last available seat pair, facing seats with table in coach 10 (same carriage as the restaurant, convenient).
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
@Moritz_Kleine Last time I took the train to Brig there, it left from the “trains to Italy” track, though. So not really accurate any longer and potentially misleading.
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.
By the time Alsa replied the iPad battery was of course dead so I couldn’t be sure in the meantime that it was still in Toledo (and not sent to Madrid). Otherwise I could have picked it up already the following Monday.
In general Alsa didn’t reply to any of my specific follow-up questions in English so not really good service from them.
Lesson learnt: Be careful, always check for belongings when you leave a bus or train…
Even though I put the iPad in Lost Mode, and it clearly said “This iPad is lost. Please call me” with my number, they didn’t bother. Oh well, can’t expect too much. Bloody tourists not speaking the glorious language of Cervantes leaving their stuff on our buses. (Sorry, I am being mean.)
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.
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”.
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.