20 Years On - Part 6 of Account of Travelling by Train Around West Germany and Austria

One of the problems of travelling around on one's own is filling in the gaps in the day. There seems to be constant periods of waiting for places to open or to be able to eat and you become adept at sleeping in as long as you can after breakfast until the cleaners come and stretching out time sitting in cafes or in parks waiting. I also went to the cinema a lot and felt like an escaped prisoner-of-war as that was a tactic they used in order to find somewhere to sleep. To keep my rucksack light, I had not packed any fiction books, just my European youth hostel and the Michelin guide to West Germany which I must have read cover-to-cover by the time I had finished the trip. I learnt from this mistake and was grateful on future trips for having packed good books despite the weight. I never make friends easily and find it difficult to strike up conversations. I do find that as shown here in Heidelberg, that I run into British people I have met before, earlier on the trip. They are always couples and sort of take me under their wing, something I know Victoria Wood has parodied in some of her stand-up comedy. It is always odd being the third of such a group. It happened again in Venice in 2003 but by then I was more skilled at getting away from them. I have no ideas why couples feel obliged to do this and Mark & Helen even referred to me as the 'bad penny' as if they felt I was a pain. Perhaps they thought I was following them. However, with inter-railing as with any tourism, there were almost set stops along the way so it was quite likely, especially if youth hostels were to be your accommodation (and not every town has one) that you would meet again. As I did short hops each day, only 1-2 hours on the train, I would also run into people cycling between the towns especially down the Rhine Valley, when they arrived in the evening.

I remember the waiter, who looked like the actor Julian Sands, in the restaurant that I had lunch in, being so concerned about looking very formal, despite it being a cheap place and keeping his gaze aloft when not serving that it was very hard to attract his attention to ask for anything. The 'Comic Strip Presents ...' was a Channel 4 series of odd comic stories performed by leading alternative comedians of the time. I think 'The Supergrass' was the only movie they made. Fortunately, it was being shown in a tiny cinema which was like someone's living room and unlike most foreign movies shown in West Germany was subtitled rather than dubbed so I could just listen to the English.

I also remember Heidelberg being the place where I realised that my university's travel agents had badly misinformed me. I had asked them whether it was worthwhile getting an international student identity card and they said only if I wanted to take flights, so as I was going by train there seemed to be no point. However, Mark & Helen each had one and I witnessed it allowing them to get into all the museums and kind of places I wanted to visit at a discount rate, so poor advice made my holiday more expensive.

Saturday 27th August 1988

Today I woke early and walked to the station where I changed some money and then caught the train. I again met Mark and his girlfriend Helen. He stayed in my room in Koblenz. We arrived in Heidelberg about 10.30. It was pouring with rain but we caught the bus to the youth hostel and although it did not open until 13.00 we were able to leave our things and return to town. I looked around the Jesuit museum, the old library and the student museum. By this time the rain had stopped and after lunch I went to the Palatine-Electorate museum (Kur-Pfalz), then walked up to the castle where I looked at the Great Vat and also the pharmaceutical museum. I returned to the town where I went to the cinema and saw 'The Supergrass', a Comic Strip Presents ... film. By the time it finished it was sunny and so I walked to the youth hostel which, despite the listing in the guide, has no [clothes] washing facilities, so I will have to wait until Freiburg on Monday to do my washing. I have decided to stay here tomorrow, walk around, write my postcards and see a couple of films.

Another thing I have noticed about Germans is they like museums and long guided tours. The art galleries, as in Köln, have tours spending ages on each painting, so each member of the party takes fold-up chairs. Oh yes, my room overlooks the Zoo and the bird cage area has so much noise. Mark has ended up in the same room as me again!

Weather: Heavy rain at first, sunny later.

Shots of Heidelberg Castle, August 1988

20 Years On - Part 5 of Account of Travelling by Train Around West Germany and Austria

Arriving in Mainz, I encountered a problem which I have subsequently run into in many places. For some reason in many German cities as well as in Prague, people seem to assume I am a local and ask me directions. When I was in Köln the year after this trip one young woman got angry with me because I could not tell her which bus to get on to travel to the Television Tower. In Prague people just started speaking to me in Czech, a language I found impossible. I wonder what makes people select a particular person to ask directions from. I would imagine, a tall young man wandering aimlessly, was not the prime person you would ask. In London and Oxford people were so frightened of my appearance that they would avoid sitting next to me on the underground or in the cinema, but clearly the impression I give to Central Europeans is very different from the one I give to the British. Anyway, this was the first of many occasions when I encountered this problem.

I had been in the city about three hours when a middle class, middle-aged woman pulled up in her car and asked me directions to 'Weisse Linie Strasse', i.e. White Line Street; I have wondered in subsequent years if she thought I was a drugs dealer. In three sentences I told her I did not know, that I was British and had only been in the city an hour. She hrumphed and threw up her hands as if it was all my fault. Ironically later in the town centre I met a German man also staying at the youth hostel who was with a local German woman who spoke no English. I asked them for directions to a burger restaurant (I was on a tight budget). The man said he could not tell me as he did not know, I asked him to ask the woman to tell me in German where it was (left, right, straight on, were things I had done in my class aged 13) but through him, she refused, saying there was no point saying anything to me in German as I would not understand it. Exasperated I stomped off and found a burger place in the next street busy with black American service personnel and their families. You have to remember that British, American and French forces were still stationed in West Germany at the time and Mainz was in the American zone. The black troops did not do the sunbathing holidays their white counterparts did and you would offer encounter them and their families on holiday in the historic German towns.

In Mainz I changed the film in my camera and forgot to check the ASA (nowadays known as ISO) setting which meant that many photographs came out badly exposed. From the fact that the pictures seemed over-exposed (i.e. too much light had been let on to them) I thought it was because the built-in exposure meter assumed I had a different, less sensitive (ASA100 rather than ASA200) kind of film in the camera. Reading these entries, I see in fact the opposite had happened and the camera was set to ASA1600 (a highly sensitive film, so less light is allowed in) rather than the ASA200 I was using, but perhaps the dial not put back properly had been pushed back and forth in my rucksack to different settings at different times. I only realised the problem when watching a movie in Heidelberg set in 1968 and one of the characters put in a new film and checked the ASA setting. It allowed me to correct the setting and so enable me to take decent photos of the rest of my trip, which is far better than what I did on holiday in 2004 which was to take 36 photographs without any film being in the camera at all. These days digital cameras eliminate such errors.

The other thing I noticed while travelling around is mentioned in this entry. Ice cream parlours and fountains seemed to be everywhere and what struck me as odd was that the fountains were turned on and people ate ice creams while it was pouring down with rain.

Friday 26th August 1988

Today I woke promptly, and after breakfast at which I talked with two English - Mark & Helen, then left the station. I walked down the front way [out of the castle] with the Brazilian who had stayed in our room. We met again at the station as he caught the same train. I was in Mainz by 10.30 and walked around the market and the Gutenberg Museum. I then walked to the youth hostel but it was closed until 17.15 so I went back into town, I was able to leave my things at the youth hostel. I looked around the Zitadelle Park and the cathedral. I also had lunch and sat reading a while. Then I was interviewed [in English] by two girls about problems of the young in Mainz. I went back and checked in at the youth hostel and sat around writing postcards, having earlier bought some stamps. I had to go out for my evening meal so did a lot of walking today. I was lucky in that the others in my room - two Germans and a Swiss - spoke only a little English so I was able to practice my German. One thing I have noticed is that Germans like ice creams and also fountains, you can find them everywhere.

Weather: Changeable, some sun, some rain.

Exiting Koblenz Youth Hostel, August 1988

Note Brazilian Traveller Passing through Gateway

Mainz Cathedral, August 1988

Fountain in Mainz, August 1988