Well hello to my small and select audience. Apologies for the long pause between posts but if you don’t go anywhere or you go somewhere you’ve been several times before, it feels difficult to come up with scintillating publishing. I am writing this on the morning of Monday 4th September, on a train. In southern Germany. I am supposed to be having a genteel breakfast in a hotel in central Germany with a lot of other music lovers, prior to spending a week listening to lots and lots of lovely Bach. However…….

Having booked the holiday months ago, I turned down the group flight and booked myself on various trains. Saving emissions, it’s only Germany, what could go wrong?

The noise you hear is off stage hollow laughter.

Firstly, having booked a train to London on Saturday at 10.30 am, I had to book a coach for 8 because of the train strike. This meant getting a taxi to the bus stop and the dog going off on her holidays on Friday night. Ooh – the guilt!

The hotel I had booked in London required another taxi but they did agree to store my stuff. I then had a lovely lunch and cocktails and early dinner with friends.

After staying the night on the Premier Inn – surprisingly quiet – I toddled off to the Eurostar. Although everything takes a while, it seems to be simply because there are so many people. Incidentally, I met a group of people from the U3A (University of the Third Age – this will be of no interest to those under 60). I presumed they were going to study something but no, they were just off on holiday. Apparently they do cruises as well.

Although the Eurostar journey was uneventful, this is where life started to go pear shaped. I am supposed to be in a town called Muhlhausen in Thuringia. When I booked the tickets on Rail Europe, there were two Muhlhausens on the drop down menu. Somehow I must have presumed that the first one was the important one. But no. In my defence, this was months ago and I don’t actually remember. From Paris (first mistake, should have gone to Brussels) I took the TGV to Strasbourg.

From Strasbourg to Offenburg – Sunday afternoon so trains getting smaller and more crowded. Had a nice conversation with some drunken young men in Offenburg (they’d been to a wine festival) and then got on a little local train that poodled through the Black Forest. Very scenic although so crowded I don’t have photos.

https://www.blackforestgermany.com

Changed trains and got off in Mühlhausen. Unfortunately, this is the other Muhlhausen- tiny village with interesting looking castle ruins on top of a hill. Found a lady in her garden who didn’t speak English but made it very clear I must be in the wrong place. Back at the station I met a nice young man who had a little English from school and with the help of that and Apple Translate we got to where we needed to be. I would go to Konstanz (40 minutes away in the wrong direction but the best place to find a hotel), ring the company organising the holiday, go back to the station in the morning and pray. Nice young man gave me his local train ticket – anywhere in the area all day for €25. Luckily we were in Germany so there were trains running at 8pm on a Sunday from tiny villages. The staff at Martin Randall couldn’t be more helpful.

I will leave it there for the moment but so be aware that the chapter of disasters has not improved.