Today was a big day, with us traveling all the way to Denmark, for a total of 423 miles in one day. Our first train left Maarssen/Utrecht at 6:31am this morning (in California that’s 9:31pm the night before).
The plan involved making our way from the Netherlands, across Germany, and then into Denmark via 6 train connections…arriving at our final destination for the day at 16:14.
Would you believe that of all the trains we’ve ridden in Europe so far, only the first German train we took to Hamburg was late? It was running 15 minutes behind schedule, so using the eurail timetables, we had a revised course in mind when we arrived at the station.
Imagine our consternation when we looked at the monitors and couldn’t find any of the departure times/train lines we were looking for.
There was one train listed on the monitors that included our destination, but we couldn’t find that departure time in the eurail timetable. After asking at the information desk, it was confirmed it was the train we should take…scheduled departure at the station was 10 minutes earlier than what showed in the timetable for what we thought was the same route.
Then as we traveled through Germany, NONE of the few stations the train stopped at were on the line we thought we’d boarded. And yet we did somehow end up at the right place – I still can’t decide if we unofficially entered a new time zone and/or the Twilight Zone!
Here are photos of Germany, taken from the train:
Finally we arrived in Ribe, Denmark around 17:00 and started looking for (a) dinner and (b) a ride to our Airbnb, located in the outskirts of Ribe (random thought – can an area with an overall population of ~200 have outskirts?).
Most shops in downtime Ribe were closing up at 17:00, and most restaurants either didn’t open for dinner until 18:00 or were booked solid with reservations. We were lucky to eventually find a little cafe where we scored delicious burgers and fries.
Now on to the next puzzle…how to get to our place for the evening? It was 5 miles away and we had all our gear, so hoofing it wasn’t very appealing.
The buses apparently operate on a ‘regular’ schedule except when the schools are on holiday, which happens to be this week. You can find a schedule for their normal operating times, but none appears to exist for the holiday schedule. We saw no buses operating while we were walking around downtown and eating dinner.
Uber? Nope, not operating in the area.
Taxi? Well, there is one taxi cab that operates out of the town of Esbjerg, but that’s 26 miles away. Marc tried calling; with the language barrier, he was sure they didn’t understand where we were, meaning they weren’t coming. We waited a while, then decided we needed a better plan.
When I’d communicated with our Airbnb hostess, I’d asked about how we might get from downtown Ribe to her place. She suggested that maybe her husband could pick us up if needed. I didn’t want to put them out, but it seemed our last option, so I made the call. He answered the phone and immediately agreed to come pick us up. He was very welcoming, and even brought us to see where we needed to go the next day for our ‘bus’ ride to Mando. We are so grateful for their hospitality!!
Here are a few photos of downtown Ribe:
And with that, I’m turning in early tonight. It’s almost 22:00 and everyone else has been sound asleep for about an hour – travel can sure be tiring. ‘Til tomorrow!
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