Two German Train Trip Questions
 

I would appreciate some suggestions for the cheapest alternatives for two train trips we wish to take. There will be 4 adults traveling together.

1. Bullay (on the Mosele) to Heidelberg. It looks like it will be a good 3 to 4 hour trip but should we travel to a town close to Heidelberg but within the Rheinland-Pflaz region to use a Länder ticket then just buy point to point to Heidelberg? We will spend the remainder of that day walking around the old town area .

2. Regensburg to Prague. There is an ALX,R that leaves at 10.21 with no stops. The price per person is 37,80EUR is this the cheapest we can get or is there some other type of ticket that will make it cheaper? I thought I read that you can get a cheaper ticket to the border then just buy a point to point from there.

Many thanks.

> It looks like it will be a good 3 to 4 hour trip but should we travel to a town close to Heidelberg but within the Rheinland-Pflaz region to use a Länder ticket then just buy point to point to Heidelberg?

If "we" consist of more than one person, then yes. You can buy the RLP ticket, travel to Mannheim, then buy a minigroup VRN ticket for 3 zones whcih will suffice to Heidelberg (any point in Heidelberg as the ticket is valid on all forms of local transport). The VRN ticket machines are everywhere in Mannheim main station.

>2. Regensburg to Prague. There is an ALX,R that leaves at 10.21 with no stops. The price per person is 37,80EUR is this the cheapest we can get or is there some other type of ticket that will make it cheaper?
You can buy teh Bayern-Böhmen-Ticket that gets you as far as Plzen (I think something above 30 € for up to 5 persons). You can buy the ticket for the remainder of the trip from the conductor, but make sure that you have enough Czech Koruna for this and that you find the Czech conductor (after the border crossing) before s/he finds you.

altamiro, it all sounds like good news. Thanks for the VRN information, I didn't know about that.

As for the trip to Prague, the ticket you mentioned sounds like a bargain. I guess you can't get the ticket from Plzen to Prague by any other means? We will just have to be alert to find a conductor as soon as we hit the border.

As for train etiquette in Germany, is it okay to eat lunch or a snack? We traveled in Switzerland last year and enjoyed having something to eat and drink on our longer trips.

Again, thank you for taking the time to reply, I appreciate it.

It is completely okay to bring food and eat on trains. Everybody does. Etiquette requires no more than a) avoiding stains on the seats or your neighbour's clothes (your may stain your own clothes as much as you want, that's entirely your problem;-)) and b) avoiding too stinky cheese and similar - you get what I mean.

Having some tissues at hand can be useful and makes a good impression. The little paper towels from the train car's toilet do the trick perfectly well.

In case you want to share a bottle of bubbly to celebrate your trip, or beer or wine, that's completely acceptable, too, as long as you are still able to behave;-)

Well it gets better all the time! Sure beats driving and navigating.Thanks Quokka, I just wanted to make sure it was okay.
By the way, where I live there is an island off the coast that is well known for its colony of Quokka's, so your screen name is close to my heart.

So you're from Perth or Freo?

I've just been hopping round those parts of the bush this April.

In between Perth and Freo. About 15km east of Freo and about 10km south of Perth.
Where did you visit then?

>Thanks for the VRN information, I didn't know about that.

Most of Germany is covered by such integrated local transport systems (Verkehrsverbund) where you buy a zone to zone ticket valid on any local means of transportation. VRN (www.vrn.de) is one of them.

>As for the trip to Prague, the ticket you mentioned sounds like a bargain. I guess you can't get the ticket from Plzen to Prague by any other means?

Of course you can get off in Plzen and buy your ticket to Prague at the counter, or you can buy it in advance from any Czech station. It seems they have a "local" tarif which they limit by the place of purchase - it used to be limited to Czech citizens but such practice is prohibited by EU. So you can buy train tickets at "local" price as well, but only within CZ. Anywhere else you pay the more expensive "international" price.

>We will just have to be alert to find a conductor as soon as we hit the border.

Let´s say you have the time between the border and Plzen. Until then you are traveling with a valid ticket, so no hassle.

>As for train etiquette in Germany, is it okay to eat lunch or a snack?

Quokka said it all...

We stayed in central Perth for a couple of days, then did a loop of the South West (Kalgoorlie - Esperance - back to Perth along the coast via Albany - Denmark - Walpole - Augusta - Margaret River - Bunbury) by campervan. It was my second visit to this region. I adopted my nickname 3 years ago after a visit to Rottnest Island and falling in love with those fluffy mini roos.

I like your home country a lot, I hope you'll enjoy mine just as much!

altamiro, thank you for your explanation of the VRN, I will check out the website. Knowing that we have until Plzen to sort out our tickets is great, don't want to be caught without one - we like to do the right thing.

Well Quokka, you certainly had a great trip, we lived in Kal for a few years, my DH was teaching there and we came back to Perth with a lovely souvenir, our daughter! All those places are our favourites for holidays - especially the wine regions. If you ever get the chance to come our way again, aim for the wildflower season around September/October, they are truly amazing. Thanks for you kind wishes, I am sure we are going to love your country too, how could we not!
Best wishes to you.

Just wish to top this with another question that I thought of, we will be arriving in Frankfurt on Easter Monday morning and wish to train to possibly Mainz then onto Bullay. Can anyone tell me if we are likely to encounter a "holiday timetable" that day? And if so how can I find the timetable?

Thanks again.

Hi Maudie,

trains on Easter Monday will indeed run on Sunday/holiday schedule with some limitations. If you use http://www.bahn.de and enter the exact date, the website will give you only the trains that run on that very day.

Note that enquiring for Easter 2009 will not yet work NOW. The timetable changes every year in early December. The new timetable will be available online some time in October.

Just to see how many trains are generally running on Easter Mondays (many!) you can look up connections for 24.03.08 (Easter Monday 2008) - the system will tell you that this connection is in the past and you can't book tickets :-o, but it provides the information, I've just tried.
You'll get through to Bullay without problems if you arrive in the daytime. But check again for the new timetable.

Quokka, you are my hero! Thanks yet again for your invaluable advice, that's good news. I will give easter 2008 a go as you suggested just for my own peace of mind.

Where in Germany do you live?

Hi Maudie, seems I've sort of adopted you here...

I live in Karlsruhe, half an hour South of Heidelberg.

Well you seem to be the one with all the answers!

I shall give a G'day in your direction when we get to Heidelberg then. My maiden name is Uhe and I believe my dad's ancestors came from the Harz Mountain area. I remember looking up Karlsruhe once in an atlas and wondering if our name had something else on the front of it.

You've got me again because I spent the first two decades of my life in Braunschweig, and the Harz was our regular weekend and school trip destination.

This is getting more interesting by the minute. My brother has traced the family back to Lautenthal, they migrated to South Australia. We really do live in a small world.