Scheduled train service on the branch line from Wächtersbach to Bad Orb was discontinued in 1995. Since then, if you want to go to Bad Orb by public transport, you have to get off the train at Wächtersbach and take a bus from there. The former railway station at Bad Read More …
The regional bicycle route R3 now leads across the Kinzig Valley Dam and then turns right to follow along the reservoir, which is just downstream from Steinau. The dam was built between 1976 and 1982 for three purposes: protection from flooding, serving as a source of water during droughts and Read More …
This is the main railway station in Oldenburg (Oldb) — not to be confused with Oldenburg (Holst), which is a smaller place in Holstein, on the way to Puttgarten, Rødbyhavn and Copenhagen. The reason for the “(Oldb)” in the name of this Oldenburg is that for centuries it was the Read More …
This is the bar car on the upper level of the French double-decker TGV train that runs once a day — except during coronavirus lockdowns — from Frankfurt am Main (Germany) to Marseille (France) by way of Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Strasbourg, Mulhouse, Belfort, Besançon, Chalon sur Saône, Lyon, Avignon and Aix-en-Provence. Read More …
Even now, after thirty years of German unification, it still feels eerie to ride in a train as it barrels through the town of Gerstungen without even slowing down. Gerstungen used to be the border stop between East and West Germany, and every train had at least a one-hour stop Read More …
In the winter of 2019/2020, I took four short city-and-opera trips (three days and two nights each time) by train from Frankfurt. This was something I used to do fairly often in December and January, because I typically had fewer teaching commitments in those months than in the months before Read More …
Right next to the south station in Mainz (where the InterCityExpress trains go through without stopping) there is an archaeological excavation site called Theatrum Mogontiacensium. With the help of numerous volunteers, including local school children and also some of the Americans who used to live in the area, archaeologists have Read More …
This is the main railway station in Saarbrücken, Germany, located about five km from the French border and eight km from Forbach, the first town on the French side. As of August 2020, there are three direct trains per day from Saarbrücken to Paris, two German ICEs and one French Read More …
Kaiserslautern is still nearly four hundred kilometers from Paris, just as it always was, but the travel time is now greatly reduced since 2007, when the French railway system opened a new high-speed stretch of tracks called TGV Est Europeen running more or less straight east from Paris. Most of Read More …
For those of us who arrive by train from central or southern Germany, this “grand” two-star hotel (grand being a French word for large) is conveniently located just half a block from the Gare de l’Est, i.e. the East Station. For a single room on the fifth floor I paid Read More …