Clean German efficiency in bold red, white, and gray may not inspire the most lyrical of
poetry or cure what ails you, but it makes getting around and getting out of airports
absolutely healthy. Landing in Munich, we counted on it to cure jetlag and airport
congestion. Minutes after we retrieved our luggage, we were on the train platform
grateful for our German rail pass. There were no tickets to buy, no currency to fumble
with--just hand the man the pass to date ("validate") and get on the escalator down.
The S-Bahn or "suburban" line serving all major airports in Germany was covered
by our pass, so "no charge." Red and gray subway decor with glass doors even seemed
appealing on this commuter train. We couldn’t ride the U-Bahn, though, or
"urban" line without deciphering ticket machines with instructions only in German. To
avoid this hassle, we rolled our luggage from the main station to the hotel in Munich--big
mistake! It was at least 6 blocks. The first day of April, sunny and warm, we should
have stashed our bags in a locker and got our train to Salzburg, since that was where we
were touring that first day of our pass. If we had to go to the hotel to freshen up,
then the U-Bahn to Schwanthalerstrasse would have been worth the
trouble to get us several blocks closer. Always trust the train!
S-Bahn, U-Bahn, RB, IC--how to keep from getting confused? I must admit I
spent a week on the internet unraveling all the tangled threads, but then I was
"good-to-go," from Tyrolean Alps to Baltic Sea. Our IC train Munich-to-Salzburg was
our only ride all week that wasn’t ICE, Deutschebahn’s premier trains. No
matter, for we got there in the same time, 1.5 hours, and the scenery was just as good. In
April, gardens waiting to be plowed were flanked by snow-encrusted mountains in the
distance, and hamlets were quaint with white chalets and rustic wood balconies with
Bavarian views. The nose of our train pointed up the entire way and slowed only for
stops that could be called "timeless," except for the intrusion of our steel marvel. Our
eyes fixed on the window, we photographed pristine lakes with an alpine attitude, a lone
clump of pines shielding a barn, a black Germanic steeple set against a white backdrop
gleaming in the sun. "What a contrast to Berlin," I mused, and I would see it, too, before
the week was out. No "faceless modern man" haunted these hills that were "alive . . .
."
This trip, we stayed in a different city almost every night with reservations at hotels that
described their locations as "close to central train station." This way, we were able to
skip, like a pebble on water, our way from Salzburg to Berlin and visit attractions also in
Munich, Weimar, Leipzig, and Lutherstadt. Our "saver" passes (for 2 people traveling
together) were only $169.50 each for six days, and the last day, we spent $8 each for the
S-Bahn back to the airport from Munich Hauptbahnhof. For this ticket,
we had to use a machine, which was confusing. We had used one in Berlin for the
U-Bahn to Potsdamer Platz and had trouble reading German to know
which options to select, but the man at the desk at Munich Four Points Central was used
to people with subway questions and wrote down for us a magic
word--einfachfahrkart or "one-way ticket"--which was $8 each less than the word
I had thought meant one-way ticket.
Now that I think about it with the urgency gone, I know I could have found the words
from the machine on my electronic translator. The lesson here is that a translator is a
handy gadget for foreign train travelers. Mine without audio was only $20 at an office
suppply store. I am reminded of Thomas Wolfe, most lyrical of American novelists, who
loved to ride trains in Germany. Perhaps that is what inspired this thought-provoking
sentence: "Remembering speechlessly, we seek the great forgotten language, the lost
lane-end into Heaven." His "a stone, a leaf, a door" should be remembered as "a train, a
pass, a translator."
We checked DieBahn for schedules. Fill in
departure and arrival cities and click "suchen" on the front page to go to the next, where
you can change the language to English or others in the upper right corner. As a courtesy,
Deutschebahn keeps schedules for most European countries, but they don’t list
pricing for others, just for Germany. Included on the German pass are Salzburg, Austria;
Strasbourg, France; and Basel, Switzerland.