SUMMARY Great breakfast buffet at hotel. I also make sandwiches for lunch on the bus. Although we didn’t plan it this way we have a much needed “down day” with a 7-hour bus ride to Hannover. Our feet and legs thank us!) On arrival there we check in to our hotel, throw our bags in our room and grab a much-needed cocktail from the lobby bar. Dinner in the beer garden at an excellent Bavarian restaurant. (Roast chicken almost as good as what they serve in Munich at Oktoberfest, aka The World’s Best!) - Karen
DETAIL Well, heck, we don’t know what to expect today. We’re up early, pack, ingest lots of coffee, enjoy another amazing Danish breakfast. Try to be very discreet as we make lunch sandwiches from breakfast offerings. So far we’re still on our ‘take the bus’ plan. The bus company requires that we have tags on all our ‘checked’ luggage. The information is the usual, name, rank, serial number, plus destination and date of travel. Thankfully they offer what they call “Free luggage tags”. Yay! It’s a PDF that you print yourself and then fill in with a pen (that you provide yourself).
We’re told that they do sell train tickets to Germany at the 7-11, but when I ask (checking out with a banana, two cookies, and a cup of coffee) the man behind the counter’s eyes get wide and says “Noooo”. Denmark yes, but to Germany, noooo. On the street I interrupt a young man listening to his headphones and ask if he’s going to Germany. Yes. By Train? Yes. Hm. I tried to buy tickets online but no joy. Oh no… he bought his online but they do sell them in the 7-11. (Been there, done that… not going for another round).
It’s not overly clear where we’re supposed to wait for the bus. The address is like 10-14 [something]strasa. We’re at 12 and we can see 10 over there. Karen’s convinced we should be down the street around the corner. With my superior male ability to navigate I’m sure we’re in exactly the right place… until I’m not. Karen’s right. The bus is coming soon. Oh, shit!
We hustle our buns, and bags, down the street and around the corner. There we find a huge bus departure complex, complete with waiting passengers with luggage. Maybe Karen was right. I make smalltalk with Mein Herren and Mein Dammen beside us, are they going to Deutschland, perchance? Yes they are. On FlixBus? Yes they are. We discuss our inability to get train tickets and Mr and Mrs explain that they’re taking the bus, even though it takes longer, because it’s less expensive. Oh, and also, they’re working on the tracks. There aren’t any trains today. Ah, that explains a whole f’ing lot!
Karen, this not being her first rodeo, works on whether we should sit on the right or left side of the bus for seven hours. Her goal is to not get blinded or baked by the sun. The driver helps us put our bags in the compartment under the bus. He pauses and asks “Who’s going on to Hannover??” We raise our hands and we get shuttled to the other side of the bus to stow our bags.
Boarding the bus the driver reminds us that we must sit on the right side of the bus since we’re going to Hannover. Sigh. Thankfully the sun is pretty much overhead so it doesn’t matter which side of the bus we’re on, yay! Five minutes later the sun comes out from behind a big cloud and we learn that a cool feature of this bus is that it has big skylights. We’re being baked. Karen changes seats.
The bus, at least for now, is maybe one-third full. It’s fairly empty towards the back where we’re sitting. The guy in front of Karen unwraps and takes a couple of bites of his long sandwich. Our guess? It’s a garlic sandwich with extra garlic.
It is fun comparing and contrasting this way of travel (by bus versus by train). Certainly good views. We stop briefly at a few big towns along the way to drop people off or let people on. In Hamburg we do a 30 minute stop which allows us to empty our whimpering bladders. It’s 1 euro per person, which we’re happy to pay. It takes me a fair amount of time to figure out the G.D. machine that takes your 1 euro coin (or credit card) and lets you into the toilet. Karen and I go in at the same time so I have lots of time, after I come out, to see that pretty much no one can figure out the G.D. machine (without many minutes of frustration).
In Hannover we’re very anxious to be off the bus. Karen’s in such a hurry to be off that she leaves a valued folder on the bus. As far as we know, it’s still there. At the DoubleTree by Hilton, a couple of blocks from the station, the lady behind the counter is very nice but has none of the chocolate chip cookies we were promised. “Come back in an hour, the kitchen is working on them”.
After seven hours on a bus we feel entitled to drinks in the hotel bar and we make good on that entitlement. Karen has an Aperol Spritz and I have a Negroni. No small dish of pretzels were offered (and they call this Germany, HA!).
We walk to dinner and learn that in Germany, the land of Audis, BMWs, VWs, Mercedes, etc. etc. cars are king and pedestrians patiently wait. We’re headed to a place called “The Bavarium”. The inside, where almost no one is sitting, looks like a Bavarian Beer Hall. The back yard, huge and filled with boisterous drinking Germans, looks like the bier garten we’re looking for.
Karen gets a pink wine and I order a whit beer, 50 cl. “Do I want a liter?” asks our ever-helpful waiter. Oh, goodness gracious no, I couldn’t drink that much. Soon I’m ordering a second 50 cl glass of beer. Karen gets a salad with goat cheese and I get half a roasted chicken, spicy, with fries. We share both entrees and at the end of the evening I’m not sure if CSI Hannover could have gotten a DNA sample off that bird. It was really good.
We sit in the afterglow of a delicious meal and are amused by an angry looking cat that lives there. We fend off dessert options and pay our bill. On the way home Karen finds where she thinks we should have lunch tomorrow. Another day, more calories.
Photos
Waiting for our bus (in the wrong place) we see two bike-loads full of toddlers being transported from point A to point B and back. Everyone was dutifully wearing their helmet.
On the bus we decide that this is an OK way to get from Kolding to Hannover. A bit long, but comfortable.
We didn't use the facilities on the bus but were most thankful for the 30 minute stop in Hamburg. The 1 euro vending machine for admittance was most perplexing, especially when one needs to pee so badly.
We've never been to Hamburg but got a bus tour (at a fairly high rate of speed)
In Hannover at last we rewarded ourselves with cocktails from the hotel bar. No plastic or paper straws for these guys, these were glass. Wow. Mind blown!
Some cool building we passed walking to dinner.
The de facto beer garden where we ate. "Eins, Zwei, G'suffa!" (for those of you who have chanted along at Octoberfest)
Karen's salad with goat cheese and my spicy roasted chicken mit fries. So good.
Some of the dessert options we turned down.
Grumpy Gus, the resident mouser at our dinner place. Not sure that's his name, but it seems to fit.
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