Welcome To Heidelberg
Up till now, I’d had extremely good weather on my trip.
But I was welcomed in Heidelberg, by one of the heaviest rain storms, I’d seen in a long time. I walked dripping wet into the Tourist Office and we had a big laugh about it.
So I immediately took a taxi to the hotel and instead of exploring Heidelberg in the evening, as I’d intended, I stayed in the hotel and had supper. But sadly the television didn’t even have CNN, as it seemed the rain had got into their satellite feed.
In fact, since I left Poland, I had been unable to find any BBC channels or France 24 on the television.
Would I Go Back To Berlin?
Yes! But I’d certainly find a better and cheaper way to come home.
In DB Style From Berlin To Heidelberg
I’d always wanted to go to Heidelberg, as it was probably the first German town, of which I knew the name. This was because I spent so much time from the age of about six watching one or other of my father’s Original Heidelberg printing machines. One is shown in this post. My simple job, was to call him, if the machines dropped any paper, which is a letterpress printer’s worst nightmare, as then other shets follow and paper goes everywhere, often damaging the intricately set type.
There is no museum in the town, but I just had to go.
So I bought an extremely expensive ticket at €215 for the journey, expecting a bit of DB TLC in First.
All I got was one cup of coffee which I had to pay €2.50 for.
My €2.50 Cup Of Coffee
But I suppose the seat was comfortable and I had most of the carriage to myself.
At least on my journey from Berlin to Warsaw, which is about the same distance, I paid only €79 and got a free cup of coffee and some biscuits that weren’t gluten-free.
As Berlin to Heidelberg is virtually the same distance as London to Edinburgh, I looked up the fares on the Scottish route. Today it would be £208, but tomorrow it would be £120. On the other hand for the German trip for say next Thursday, it will still be €215.
There is also one big difference in the UK, in that anybody, even Germans, over 60 can purchase for £30 a Senior Railcard, which reduces the prices I’ve shown by a third. And you can buy that at a ticket office, when you take your first journey. I did try to see if I could buy a DB Card, but the lady at the ticket office didn’t want to sell me one and didn’t have good English.
But the biggest difference between East Coast or Virgin and DB, is that on many long distance journeys you get snacks and endless tea and coffee thrown in with the ticket.
I have had customer service problems with Deutsche Barn in the past, most notably at Osnabruck.
No wonder the train was empty for most of the way!
Maps And Information In Berlin
This is a subject that I find important and feel that if a town or city wants to be a Grade One tourist destination, then they must have good maps and information.
London has always had a street map at each Underground station and this policy has been extended to most of the proper bus shelters. It’s a policy that Londoners and tourists must like, as more and more maps and information is appearing, with yellow topped liths popping up everywhere.
Warsaw it seems has started to add liths and maps for tourists, with quite a few finger posts too.
But I only one map on the street in Berlin.
A Solitary Map
There are maps at stations, but they are not up to the detailed level, you get in other cities, including some German ones.
Art On The U-Bahn
The U-Bahn is Berlin’s underground railway and just like some of the older lines on the London Underground, it has some appropriate artwork.
The one thing that I didn’t like was the stick on decoration of some of the trains, which meant you had difficulty seeing out to read the station names.
Exploring The S-Bahn In Berlin
The Berlin S-Bahn is the ideal way to travel around the city centre getting a good view of everything. All these pictures were taken on the S-Bahn.
Note that some were taken from the mainline train I took to leave Berlin
The Anonymous Widower 