Travel Diary 24

After a few hours of washing and clothes and hanging them up on our makeshift clothes line strung around trees and the campervan, we spent our last day in Prague. Well half a day really and we hoped it did not rain as we had no idea if what to do with the equivalent of a suitcase full of clothes if it did and we returned to wet clothes!

We had packed our clothes before we left in Australia, not giving any thought to how we would wash and dry things on the road. Silly thing to miss! Instead, the focus had been on packing warm clothes as we knew it would be the end of autumn when we first arrived and my research had shown, it can still get very cold in April and May even though it is technically spring. And how right that turned out to be in April!

So, mostly woollen clothes were packed and little if anything can go in driers as wool loves shrinking!

This has been a constant bug bear even though we have been lucky so far by managing to find the odd day with enough wind and sunshine to dry things in a few hours. The other problem with it is security. Do you put up a makeshift clothes line and just walk away hoping the clothes will still be there when you get back at 7.00pm and if they are, that the dew hasn’t settled on them? Or do sit around waiting and checking and turning shirts and pants and undies and knickers and socks over and over to get them to dry as quickly as possible?

Initially we stayed and guarded them. Turning them over and getting them as dry as possible before going out. On occasions we have had to scatter things around inside the van at night just to finish them off. Fortunately, we have been lucky and this exercise hasn’t caused too much inconvenience. But it is something to remember for future reference.

The next morning, we packed up and paid the site fee, which was very cheap, and gave Simon the good news about getting us to Berlin. He must have been in a good mood as he took us there without too much trouble and we arrived about 3.00pm after having driven the 300 odd kms comfortably. The last section is through the outskirts of Berlin on motorways doing the typical stop start and averaging about 10kph due to traffic.

The man at the reception was a shortish fellow with grey, thinning hair, ear rings, thin body structure and as camp as a row of tents. Very much over the top! He speaks English apparently, although I never heard it. I did hear barrages of German sounding stuff with the odd English word chucked in for good measure. But Kerrie informs me that she could understand him. So she dealt with him and we moved into the last site available.

This camp site is 20kms from Berlin central in a suburb called Tegel. Trains, trams and busses available at all hours approx. 600 meters away. There is also a supermarket on the corner just down the road with a lady who works there who insists that all Visa Cards in Germany are Credit Cards. Which is not accurate, ours have Visa on them but they are Debit Cards and they are in Germany and work fine in other establishments. She did not like being told that either!  

But, what would I know just being an ignorant Englishman! She did however, have no trouble with accepting Cash!! I wonder if the German Inland Revenue every do an audit on her!!

We needed to sort out the WiFi situation again as we are now in a different country and of course there HAVE to be shoe shops here. After nearly three months in 7 different countries, I never knew that so many shoe shops could successfully compete for business and survive! Amazing!! But I knew I needed to do something about sorting out shoes for me feet and as that involved visiting shoe shops, Kerrie was more than willing to help me!!

For years I thought her middle name was “Gae”. Maybe I’ve been wrong. Maybe it’s “Amelda”!

So, after setting up, we went downtown and found out where the Metro was, which line to get, how to pay for it and so on. We bought a three-day travel pass each – which is simply discounted pre-paid public transport. Then walked into a shopping centre and searched for a Vodaphone store, where this fantastically helpful guy sold us a SIM Card that works “all over Europe”. It’s pre-paid and we could get 3 Gigs of data no worries! So we paid another 65 Euro on WiFi and left happy.

Shoe shops started to appear out of nowhere but none had anything that fits my large feet. So I sat at McDonald’s using their Free WiFi while Kerrie went shopping herself. Which is what girls like to do! They don’t always buy anything, but I guess it’s a bit like a guy watching a good footy game. It fills in the time doing something you enjoy and is perfectly harmless so long as you leave your purse and Cards at home!!  

The real difference of course, is that guys don’t have to go out to watch footy and purses always go with girls when they go out. Potentially a recipe for disaster! Never mind, I do digress!

Having downloaded, answered, deleted or ignored a whole bunch of emails, I uploaded one of these Travel Diaries and some photos and quietly thanked McDonald’s generosity. They had good coffee and the largest mugs I think I have ever seen. So along with one of those and a Blueberry muffin I had a couple of hours doing … “stuff” until Kerrie came back to sadly inform me that none of the shoes fitted her either. I duly commiserated with her and asked if she had seen anything that might fit my wide feet. She hadn’t ….  Ahh well, not good though! Must get this sorted quickly or I won’t be walking much at all anywhere!

It had just started to rain or rather drizzle, so we headed back to the camper to rescue the clothes. By the time we got back it had stopped and things were not too bad. The sun struggled through and the wind got up and after another hour or so, we bought in the clothes and left the still damp things hanging under the awning till the morning which, as it turned out, worked quite well.

Over the next couple of days, Vodafone’s’ Wi Fi worked well at the camp site which is a massive improvement on its performance in Italy where we just never got our last Gig delivered!

In addition, we wandered around bits of Berlin and had a look at as much as possible. Once again, there is so much here and one could spend a month visiting stuff every day and still not see it all. And all picking the eyes out of things does, is make one a bit disappointed and hungry for more.

We did spend a bit of time at one section of the Berlin wall which has been tastefully left in place. Although, there a few places where some parts of the wall are still in situ. We saw three of them and one is really an outdoor kind of museum with explanations of the hows and whys and where things happened. Very interesting.

For example, I did not realise that the Wall itself or parts of the Wall was rebuilt on three separate occasions. On each occasion, improvements were made either to the Wall or the surrounding areas, making it easier for the East Germans to patrol. There were also stories of the escapes as well as those who died trying to escape. On one section, there is a memorial with photographs of everyone who died at part of the wall. All very sobering.

The other thing I learnt is that the Wall was built not so much for political reasons i.e. East vs West, but rather as an effort to prop up East Germany economically. So many people from the Soviet section of Berlin and Germany had left to go to the Western side, that that part of the country started to really suffer. Particularly as the bulk of people who left were the educated, the professionals, engineers, scientists, doctors, dentists and so on. That would have a devastating effect on any country in political, social and cultural ways and the Soviets were determined to stop it. It did not fit in with their propaganda and certainly not with the idea of Communism being attractive and effective.

We also learnt a bit more of how the underground Metro worked by visiting places all over the city. There are any number of large squares (all cobblestoned of course) and the buildings are fairly modern by comparison to other large cities in Europe as Berlin was just a pile of rubble after the Allies and Soviets finished with it at the end of WWII. Everything had to be rebuilt. So there is not what is known as a typical European “Old Quarter”. Some buildings did survive from the 1930’s and these are large, imposing edifices sitting imperiously amongst modern high rises and 1950’s style architecture.

Berlin does have a large number of Museums dedicated to a range of things. Art, engineering, history and so on. But not so many statues, or stolen Egyptian obelisks or monuments celebrating some historical event. In many ways, it is the most modern of all cities we have seen. Not like a Sydney or Perth so much, but simply when one considers cities that were hardly touched by the bombing campaigns and tank attacks endured during WWII.

After a couple of days of this, we began to plan in detail the last three days of our campervanning holiday. This involved finding out where we could camp half way between Berlin and Frankfurt, where we would return the van. Packing up items we would no longer need and leaving them somewhere for a friend to collect. Ensuring that we could overnight at McRent’s base as we had been told we could and so on. This occupied a few hours over a day or two and not a few emails, but eventually it all got sorted and we were able to drive off heading South.

We stopped overnight at a campsite near Erfurt – halfway to Frankfurt and the next day turned up at McRent’s just after midday. There was only a care taker there we had been told and we couldn’t get cleaning equipment until Monday morning 8.00am at the earliest. We were not the only ones there as we found out.

There was another couple. An elderly German couple who were not very happy with McRent. They had just bought a van off them and set off on a 10-day tour. On the second day, the water pumped packed up and although they couldn’t pump water to their shower and so on, it managed to leak!

Their English was less than our German, but we managed to point and write things down and “talk” taking three times as long to communicate as one would normally. But they were nice people and under the circumstances, they deserved a Kiwi just to cheer them up! Once again, we found people quite astounded at this little gift and somewhat amazed that we would do such a thing. In the end, we gave them or left over food and clothes line and a couple of other things we no longer needed bringing smiles to her face anyway! He didn’t think they needed anything, but she did and as Kerrie commented, women always can see a use for things that blokes can’t.

Yeah, there’s a bit of truth in that! But I suspect it depends upon what the “things’ are!!

The night was stinking hot and there were no showers and only a tap to cool off under. Good use was made of “wet ones” and the tap and we got a few hours’ sleep before being wakened to the sounds of traffic and people going to work at some ungodly hour! We got up and had coffee and packed up our suitcases and tackled the cleaning. All the while, McRent’s staff were arriving, looking at us and then just carrying on with whatever staff at McRent have to do.

Other people arrived to return vans and we noticed that no one bothered with cleaning them and we wondered what was going on. So in the end I went and spoke to the Head Cleaning honcho and asked him. He said not to worry about anything, give the inside a bit of a clean, wipe down and leave things tidy and that would do. He’d organise the rest.

Bit of a difference to what we were told when we picked the van up! But welcome news.

Eventually, by early afternoon it was our turn to be inspected, ticked off, charged whatever and finalise the account. Interestingly enough, McRent has a policy that says they do not do repairs for any damage to the van. They just replace things. So, the damage we did when in Italy, although minimal, involved scratches over three panels. It could have been sanded down and repainted as no dents or filling required and would probably cost about $A300 in any self-respecting panel beaters.

But, McRent said “No! Replace the panels”. So, the manager of the replace the panels department was called and a discussion in German that I could not participate in took place. After he left, I was duly informed that wold cost us nearly $A900. Ouch! Fortunately, if McRent eventually send me the itemised account I’ve asked for detailing what the charges represent, then I may have a chance of getting this covered by Insurance. I won’t hold my breath!

It was 2.30pm by the time we could leave and what with all the new shoes and clothes we could hardly pack everything. In fact, we couldn’t and as a consequence we changed our minds about training it into Frankfurt as it would have been too hard. We found out that McRent had a deal going with a local taxi company for only 75 Euros to Frankfurt. We accepted that and wished we had known about this when we first arrived back in April, instead of paying our own organised taxi 130 Euros!

After an hour or so of travelling between 10kph and 168kph on the freeway we arrived in Frankfurt at the Monopol Hotel. An old Hotel built in the days when the rich and famous were the only ones who stayed in hotels pre WWI. It still looks like it! In its day, it would have been very elegant and “The” place to stay I imagine. Today, it is clean and tidy, with some old school charm about it and no air-conditioning which makes the rooms unbelievably hot. They did supply a fan which just pushes hot air around and not achieving much! I got up a few times during the night to throw on some clothes and go downstairs to stand outside on the footpath just to cool off.

Actually that was quite interesting. I saw some very interesting sights on the street. Some refugees walking furtively along as if they had somewhere to go in an effort not to attract Police attention. Two girls trying to sleep with their back packs on a seat outside the railway station. Guys going home drunk, looking longingly at the girls asleep on the seat. Taxi drivers sleeping in their seats while waiting for a late night or early morning fare. Street cleaners driving noisy machines picking up the garbage that accumulates in the gutters and the odd police or security vehicle moving along slowly while the occupants checked things out.

The best part of this hotel’s location is that it is straight across the road from the train station where we leave in the morning on the fast train to Paris. So we do not have to cart our luggage far. We had bought an extra small suitcase not long after arrival and found out which platform the train leaves from, who we showed tickets to etc. and were completely organised at last. Including giving the shoes and new clothes a proper place to go. Wonderful!

Eventually, the morning proper arrived and I went downstairs to the lobby for some coffee and play on the laptop so Kerrie could get some more undisturbed sleep. This become a daily routine after the first couple of days in the van and I now make coffee in a flask and get everything ready the night before so I can dress, grab my gear and leave without making too much noise.

Much better doing this in a Hotel than a cold camping ground! Particularly one which supplies a never-ending cup of coffee! Magic stuff!!

I sat on one of the lounges, no one else around, and looked around me at the marble columns and papered walls with polished timber surrounds, edges and floors covered in carpet. I tried to imagine having to get up and put on a black tie suit just to go down for breakfast as was the custom for men around the time the hotel was built.

I imagined horse carriages pulling up outside allowing men in their top hats and walking canes, climbing down and walking inside, while eager porters scurried around bringing in their luggage. Ladies in long gowns standing bored, fanning themselves due to no air-conditioning and not least because they wore so much in heavy clothing back then. Black suited men behind the counter bobbing and smiling obsequiously to all the guests as management demanded with an undertone of “Ohh, you are so important, we thank you so much for staying with us!” in their manners. While anyone with half an eye would detect a note of sarcasm in their tone!

Personally, as much as I like dressing up to go out, black tie for breakfast is a bit over the top for me!

About two hours later, Kerrie came down to let me know she was up and about and I could safely return to the room to help pack and get ready. Once completed, we checked out and made our way over the road to the railway station dragging two suitcases each, a back pack each and a carry bag each! Good grief, where did all this stuff come from? I can only imagine what is going to happen when we rock up at the next airport. Excess luggage charges will probably cost a fortune and apparently freighting some of it back home is just not on, as it may get lost. But it would be cheaper than excess charges!

The train ride itself was pleasant and comfortable. The dining car consisted of a coffee shop with sandwiches in bags and around lunchtime, Kerrie discovered they sold wine as well. All’s well with the world! We also quietly finished off the partly drunk bottle we had bought with us for emergencies.

Just over four hours and some 500 odd kms later, we arrived in Paris. Our top speed had reached 317kph and a lot of the trip was at standard slow speeds due to cities, towns and built up areas where the fast train is not fast at all. But really, a relaxing way to travel if you just wish to go from Point A to Point B. And, importantly, no excess luggage charges!  

Having loaded up and sorted out the suitcases, we exited the train station to find the taxi driver we had ordered while on the train. He was holding up an iPad with our name in large letters displayed and off we went to the car. We had arrived in Paris!