According to the Cambridge.org online dictionary, an Odyssey is ‘a long trip or period involving a lot of different and exciting activities, esp. while searching for something’.
The itinerary which had been devised had been created with the help of Google and the search results for “the top 10 places to visit in Germany”. The must do activity was to visit the Black Forest and eat Bratwurst from a street seller. So, with 15 days to play with the search was on for the ultimate German Sausage.
A traditional city hotel was booked for the first night in the city of Cologne/Köln in a street not far from the station. At a guess, the receptionist looked like her mother and possibly her grandmother before. She was slightly built with short curled brassy bleached hair with a dark regrowth line which was not intentional. She had a face which told of a hard life but had retained a smile which appeared genuinely happy. The room was clean, simple, everything worked and there were tea / coffee supplies for the morning.
Did I mention that I really was not looking forward to visiting Germany? The massive cathedral in Cologne was badly damaged in World War II and the city flattened by allied forces bombing. Though now completely rebuilt this massive structure with its Gothic style and blackened stonework stands imposing and ugly despite the delicate filigree carved into the tiered structure culminating in two towers which ironically signposted the bombers during air raids.
Read in a Google lady voice….. According to Wikipedia, “The completion of Germany’s largest cathedral was celebrated as a national event on 14 August 1880, 632 years after construction had begun”. According to this tourist it could do with a good Bath Abbey makeover and a thorough clean up …..but then again, it may lose its dark satanic gothic gloom and the lady below would also need a makeover too.
Continental breakfasts can be a challenge to some of us. No croissants on this trip but lots of cured meat, boiled egg, olives, tomatoes, cheese: soft, hard and blue, rye bread and fruit.
Train number 3 was to Mannheim on the main line south. At Mannheim a local stopping train operates between the industrial city and the cultural ancient city of Heidelberg.
AirBNB is like Eurostar, when it works, it works incredibly well. It is also not unlike ICE trains which take bizarre turns as we will read later. This is where the fun really started! The family who had occupied our AirBNB had a disaster and our Host asked if we would accept an alternative which was closer to the centre and larger. Why would we not help our fellow travellers? The only issue was that our Host was in Dortmund and the local person who normally held the keys was on holiday.
In order to access the apartment we were provided with three separate stages of instructions with the final key code being provided by text on the day. It was hot, we were tired and the instructions were not implicitly clear. To add to this, we had no WIFI, a device which would not open the instructions and one which was running out of juice. To add to this concoction, a little panic was added for good measure. It was a like the Crystal Maze.
There were two brown painted doors at the front of the building. One was locked and at the first three attempts the other seemed to be locked as well. However the instructions clearly indicated that this door is always open between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. for clients of the solicitors who operated their business on the ground and first floors.
Clients came out of the left door and seizing the opportunity we went in before it closed.
At the far end of the ground floor hallway was a door leading to a courtyard and further apartments. The instructions stated that one of us must stay and hold the door open because if it closed with us both in the courtyard, we would not be able to open it from the outside. Obeying this rule, one of us went to the first door of the apartments which were accessed via the courtyard. The “door is always unlocked”. This was true at this point and on the third floor was a key safe for which we now had the code. Bingo, the key was released but there was only one key and it did not fit the door to that apartment.
It was time to ‘phone a friend’ – in this case the Host.
No, no, no, nein! did you not read the instructions? Take the key and go back into the main building. Your apartment is on the third floor. And then in commanding English with a heaving, stentorian and impatient German accent ‘Call me when you are in!’
At this point it seemed unlikely that the German have a word for Buffoon.
Three floors later the final bag in the apartment a mobile call rang – ‘yes thank you, we are in our Heidelberg apartment’.
We didn’t find Bratwurst for our first supper in Heidelberg but we did find an excellent Italian restaurant.
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Next time ……. Evidence and Ghosts. …. coming to terms with the past
Claudia Bow 