Thursday, March 13, 2008

Saturday, March 1 (and Sunday too)

Yesterday: Ehingen/Donau



I didn't take many pictures today, as I had already visited Tettnang in December 2006. Today being a Saturday, Paris was able to come along this time and have some fun.



Most days, I come up with an itinerary in advance, so I've at least got an idea which trains and buses to take and when they run. Today, I knew the general direction from Konstanz to Tettnang, but I didn't prepare any plans. I asked the DB-Agentur for some connections, but he had us on a train that ran halfway around the Bodensee, and I knew I could do better.



Short version: Bus from Konstanz Bahnhof to Staad/Autofähre. Fähre to Meersburg. Bus to Friedrichshafen Stadt. Bus to Tettnang Bärenplatz.



We had a fine lunch at Brauerei & Gasthof zur Krone, along with their excellent Coronator Doppelbock. (It tasted much better this time than it did last time.)



The gift shop at Krone


The gift shop at Krone



It was raining pretty good. In between downpours we wandered around the Bärenplatz, looking in the antique shops and jewelry stores. During the downpours, we found several taverns serving tasty beers.



Around 3:00pm, it was time to head back to Konstanz to pick up our luggage and go to Zürich for the night. We went back almost exactly the way we came, except we stopped at Friedrichshafen Hafen with the idea that we might be able to take the Katamaran across the lake and save a ton of time. The KAT office was closed — which should have told me something right there — so we bought our tickets from the machine. There was an ominous, unintelligible sign illuminated near the boat. A local passerby translated it for me: it's too windy for the boat to sail. We ended up taking the BOB to Friedrichshafen Stadt and continuing our trek back to Konstanz.




Ruppaner Dunkelweizen on the Autofähre



We bought our train tickets to Zürich, walked across the street to the hotel to get our luggage, and waited for the train in the Bahnhof Gaststätte. (Because there's beer there.) We were at Zürich Flughafen by about 7:00pm, and at our hotel maybe a half-hour later. A few hotel-bar beers later, we hit the sack.



Rather than waste a post on the flight back on Sunday, I'll just note here that it was quite uneventful, albeit slow. Our alarm went off in Zürich at 6:00am, and we got home at 10:00pm, 23 hours after we woke up. But I can't wait to go back!




New Jersey, New York, and the Hudson River through the haze from 37,000 feet

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

uncle Ron called and said "before you do anymore galavanting around the world you need to get yer self to san jo next wek"

whot he said . . .

Richard Stueven said...

Yeah so, here's the thing. San Jose next week to see my Choo. Home for a week. Then Paris is off to Konstanz again, but I probably won't go. Then she's home for a week. We're in Green Bay the following weekend, home for a week, then she's off to Konstanz again for ten days. I may or may not be able to go on that trip.

But I'll absolutely definitely you-betcha be in San Jose on Wednesday around noon.

Anonymous said...

yay! bonus!
(i thought yins were gettin here thursday . . .)

send me yer i.t. again and i will add wednesday afternoon to my "do-not-work" (DNW) day list.

paris bein all social and stuff, i betta ask if ya have dindin plans yet? if not, ya do now.