Europe 2022

To Istanbul into the winter

A gloomy afternoon in the first week of March in the second year of the Spahn-Söder mask dictatorship [Spahn and Söder are two ministers, proponents of a strict lock-down policy]. “I have to get out of here!” Almost all European countries1 had already had their “Freedom Day,” or at least for those who had been vaccinated, it was about to happen. Even the conservative broadsheet Neue Zürcher Zeitung had titled on January 19: Arbitrarily strict: Germany’s Corona policy is yesterday’s news.2

The bad thing about totalitarianism (Theoretical background. Nolte, Ernst; Die historisch-genetische Version der Totalitarismustheorie: Ärgernis oder Einsicht?; Zeitschrift für Politik, N.F. Vol. 43 (1996), № 2, S. 111-122.) is not that evil people intend evil, but that good intentions are expanded immeasurably until they finally swallow everything else in society. The totally good person is also so dangerous because the totally good believe until the very last moment that they are on the right side. They are completely blind to the insight that one must allow oneself to be limited–especially in one’s best intentions.

So, on Tuesday, off to Goethestrasse, where a Turkish travel agency had advertised buses to Istanbul for € 90. Departure was Friday, March 11, at 2:30 p.m. from the central bus station. The bus and I arrived three-quarters of an hour early. I was standing there with my luggage when my phone rang. Where was I? One of the men standing around was also the driver. He gave me his card under the Alpar network, so I could book directly with him in the future.3 He drives the route every week. Nothing exciting happened during the trip.

Then, just before we arrived, the weather report came in – a snowstorm in Istanbul, the first in March in over thirty years. Everything was closed except for a few main roads. The final stop was a few hundred meters from the bus station („Otogar“). I trudged through a foot of fresh snow to get there; it was just before midnight. Both of the hotels belonging to the bus station were, of course, fully booked. A friendly snow shoveller showed me the way to the mosque and told me to sleep there. Not my thing; I found a spot on the floor in one of the waiting rooms. I put in my earplugs, rolled out my yoga mat and lay down in my sleeping bag – why else am I lugging all this stuff around? Peace and quiet until I was woken up by security guards at 6:30 a.m. The storm had passed.

I took the subway, still using my Istanbulkart with credit from last time, to the Aksaray district, near the international bus station. I quickly found a reasonably affordable hotel, Hotel „Kosova 2“ for 250 TL. Unfortunately, after my first nap, I discovered that the bedding was infested with bugs –welcome to the Orient.

Istanbul impressions 

Steam engine manufactured 1874 by Kraus &Cie, in Munich № 380 (TCCD 2251), outside Sirkeci station. 

I’ll stay one day to trudge through the melting snow and mud until the bus to Batumi leaves in the afternoon on day two. At least time to visit the Hagia Sophia, which has been desecrated once more and turned into a mosque. The last time I visited in February 1994, large sections of the dome were covered in scaffolding for renovations. Today, large korpus in the corners spoil the interior. One advantage, however: back then you had to pay to enter the “museum,” but today you don’t have to pay to enter the mosque. The forecourt is cordoned off by security forces. Their frequent presence, as well as the repeated ID checks during night-time bus journeys, is one of the reasons whilst I keep telling myself I really should travel extensively in Turkey, every time I get there I don’t like it and quickly move on. Islam ist the second big piss-off: Turkish Vice President Bülent Arınç said already in 2011 that women should please refrain from laughing in public: It is supposedly just as incompatible with the values of Islamistic virtue as the display of feminine charms. (If you want no one to laugh in public, perhaps you shouldn’t have a joke for a premier. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, exklusiv und live im ZDF:
Given the dreadful weather and cold, there was really little reason for staying. I had already experienced the general weakness of Istanbul’s heating systems when I passed through from India in February 1994.

A little further along the waterfront, you’ll reach the disused former main train station, Sirkeci, (Türk.: Marmaray Sirkeci İstasyonu.) where only one remaining ticket counter would have sold tickets for the sleeper train to Sofia had the service not been suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic. [Trains have been running again since April 25.] The small railway museum (one hall) was also closed. A little further on are the Bosphorus ferry terminals and the Grand Bazaar (Kapalı Çarşı). There’s nothing to buy, which I’d want to add to my backpack on an outward journey.

The next morning, I strolled around the area until checkout. Shortly before noon, I passed a restaurant serving “roast quail.” A must-try! After this thoroughly enjoyable meal, I collected my backpack and walked the nearly two kilometers to the bus station. An uneventful overnight drive east followed.

For the first time, I had used the option to enter Turkey with my ID card. You are given an A5-sized sheet of paper on which the stamps are affixed. The funny thing was that after she and two colleagues had spent five minutes ranting about the taped-up access number (CAN), until a superior with good English clarified the matter, the Georgian border guard said that the Turkish slip with their stamp would be sufficient as proof of entry into Georgia. Spoiler: Upon exiting her colleague saw things a bit differently, but was eventually persuaded. It was clear that the otherwise very relaxed Georgian border guards had obviously received instructions to be more strict once the special military operation had been going on in Ukraine for the past three weeks.4 Some Russians in the queue were also held back to the back to supply some additional (financial?) documentation.
While waiting for the bus to clear customs, I exchanged some money with the vultures at the border and were bought a khachapuri [pastry filled with white cheese], which was probably two days old and tasted cold as cardboard, for 3.50 lari. The usual street vendors with local, clear liquids either hadn’t gotten up yet or weren’t in the mood in this awful weather.

Batumi

March 20-25^th: I like Batumi, I always have since my first arrival. However, I still haven’t found a truly good place to stay. It should be noted that all hostels in the country had to close due to the coronavirus pandemic. Since there was no government aid, this probably means that there will be fewer affordable accommodations in the 20 Lari range in the future.5 I’d previously stayed at the Toka+ Hotel for a week. The charming manager, about whom the saying Let me have men about me that are fat was created, even though we don’t speak a common language, wasn’t snoring at the reception this time, but some young fellow did the Check-in. He was having trouble calculating 5 × 40. Eventually, he figured it out. During my four stays in the hotel, I was never sure whether the ladies who sometimes worked at the reception desk in the evenings weren’t retired “ladies of the night” – there are plenty of those in Batumi along the main street opposite the archaeological museum – booking in “short-time“ visitors. I never had the impression that other guests stayed longer than one night. On the other hand, only once did things get really loud in the room next door for about 2½ hours.

For days I hoped for better weather and a bit of spring – a few years before, I had been able to lie on the beach in mid-February and little H. even swam in the sea here on March 1st. But it didn’t work out this time. TV weather report that evening: thick clouds over the entire Black Sea – but there only. On my second day, a sprinkling of fresh snow, otherwise rain with short intermissions. Only bearable with clear liquid from a market woman. After five days, I’d had enough. Plan: via Akhaltsikhe to Kars in the far reaches of Turkey.

Achalziche und Batumi 

Akhaltsikhe

There are two ways to drive from Batumi. The direct 163-kilometer road via Khulo is poorly developed and mountainous. So poorly developed that not even marshrutkis run in winter. So the only option is the 320-kilometer route, first north on the E70 up the coast, then inland on the E60 to Khashuri (ხაშური) and then back down. But at least there you can see the speed with which the Chinese plow the 51 kilometers of highway through the Rikoti Pass. The disadvantage of this route is that almost six hours in a marshrutka is no fun for one’s buttocks. We left at 8:00 a.m. and arrived at 2:30 p.m.

Achalziche (ახალციხე) is located on the Kars–Akhalkalaki–Tbilisi–Baku railway, which has been in operation for freight since February 2021. The announced start of passenger service has been postponed several times and is not expected any time soon, simply because Georgia has used the coronavirus crisis as a reason to virtually completely cease passenger services. Not for reasons of public, but simply because they don’t want to spend money on new carriages. Southwest of the city is the Posof-Vale border crossing with Turkey; with the Turkish-Armenian border closed, the shortest route from Western Armenia to Kars runs through Akhaltsikhe. Kars was where I wanted to get to.

I also wanted to treat myself to a more luxurious room for once. The “Grand Palace Hotel,” right next to the bus stop, was closed. Through the underpass toward the castle, practically every building is a guesthouse. I went into the first one. It was brilliantly named “Minimo Hotel” and turned out to be perfect. A friendly hostess, a clean, large room and only 30 ₾ to boot.

I wandered a bit through the small town, bought some spices for a Georgian friend at home and my first bottle of Stalin wine for 25 ₾. It was also pleasing, as we were far enough away from the Black Sea weather cauldron, to enjoy sunshine for the first time in ten days. The following morning, I climbed to the somewhat kitschy renovated castle (from the 13th-14th centuries), which also houses a former mosque. The 2012 renovation, which included a golden roof, was controversial in Georgia not only due to concerns about conservation standards, but also due to the dubious funding, which came from the police budget. Overall, the renovation may not have been authentic, but it was a success. For people with walking problems, the many steep stairs are often impassable as they are without railings and paving. Absolutely unsuitable for wheelchairs and strollers. Part of the complex is free to visit; the larger, renovated part is the “Historical Museum of the Samtskhe-Javakheti Region,” where, in addition to the renovated buildings, you can also admire archaeological finds and historical Georgian manuscripts.

The Georgian government’s coronavirus website stated that all land borders had reopened. I should have become suspicious that there were no departure times for Turkey posted at the bus station. Looking at the pictures of the route map and the restroom, this is hardly surprising. The next morning, at the very un-Georgian hour of 8 a.m., I grabbed the only taxi driver at the stand right in front of the guesthouse and negotiated a much too expensive 30 ₾ for the fifteen kilometers to the border. The journey went through a truly remote part of the country. A short distance before reaching the border, a customs officer stopped us: "Freight in trucks only." I can’t say the taxi driver looked all that surprised. I went back with him. The double fare was already annoying. The World Heritage Site in Kars will have to wait even longer for me.

So after a three-hour wait, I took the next marshrut and drove six hours back to Batumi.
There was one advantage to this – I didn’t freeze to death. The weather forecast for the last few days had predicted temperatures of -6–8 °C for Kars, which I didn’t really have the clothes for.
After another night in the Toka Hotel, the next day I bought a ticket for the early bus to Trabzon (200 km). At least you could visit the Sumela Rock Monastery (Meryam Ana Manastırı) there.
Unfortunately, the weather forecast for this region got even worse, predicting temperatures of -16–18 °C for the altitude there. Fuck it – I've had enough, get out of this murky soup and take the connecting bus at 5 p.m. back to Istanbul. Erdogan’s police state is starting to get really annoying after the third ID check of the night; I've lost count after the fifth.

Journey home

Arrival in Istanbul early in the morning. The journey into Istanbul went “around and back” over the new, third Bosphorus Bridge (Yavuz Sultan Selim Köprüs), which equates to a detour of a good sixty kilometers, but certainly no loss of time given the amount traffic on the other routes. Whatever you think of Erdoğan’s policies, the immense construction activity and investment in transport infrastructure over the last fifteen years represent enormous progress. In brilliant sunshine, flocks of storks could be admired on their flight north from Africa. The good Sim Hotel, which I had stayed in the previous autumn and is located right next to the international bus station (Emniyet Otogar), was unfortunately full. So I crossed the street to the Hotel Best Ömer, which was not half as good but at 350 TL a lot more expensive. A ticket was quickly bought for the bus to Bulgaria (night trains were still not running until the end of April). Strangely enough, it said “Constanca” on it. You don’t need to ask too much at the booths at this bus station; they only accept euros and cash. Departure is at 5 p.m. Kicked out in Burgas shortly after midnight. Cold, windy, couldn’t find a safe place to roll out my sleeping bag. Off at the very first opportunity to get out of here, early in the morning. Luckily, one can buy a ticket from the machine in the train station hall at 5:30 a.m., but the entrance to the platforms for the 6:02 a.m. train remains closed. One has to exit through a side gate to the tracks. I barely figured that out until five minutes before departure. The compartment is freezing cold.

March 27-28^th: Arrived in Sofia in the morning. Quick walk approximately one-kilometer downhill to Lions Bridge, where the district with the cheap accommodations begins. At the roundabout, I entered the Edona Hotel, went up to the reception on the second floor, paid 47 leva (1 leva = 1 DM) for two nights. The card reader didn’t work, so I paid in cash. The room was supposed to be on the fourth floor. When I got inside, I was shocked. Ripped-out cables, filthy walls, etc. I've never seen anything like it in Europe. I was so shocked that I didn’t even take a picture. I immediately went back down to reception: “I’m not staying here.” After a weak attempt to talk me into another room, the girl (obviously a student assistant with good English) was persuaded to give me back the room rate. Lucky me. More experienced guesthouse owners say, “Sorry, no refunds.“
Across the street is another dive, the “Hotello.“ When I asked the fat gypsy woman at the “reception” using sign language if I could see the room first, all she got was a shake of the head. I wouldn’t have gotten a penny refunded from that one.
So I continued a hundred meters to the Kniaz Boris Hotel, “excellent” with a two star hotel board rating – and that was it. Aside from the wobbly banister, no complaints. You can tell that a housewife is in charge. Well cleaned, lots of flowers. I’d definitely go back.

The one train a day from Sofia to Craiova and then on to Bucharest in Romania leaves at 6 a.m., but takes nine hours according to schedule to cover the 300 km. 45 minutes of that are spent changing trains in the border town of Vidin (Видин). Bulgaria and Romania are neither yet part of the Schengen area [included 1. Jan. 2025] and two police officers conduct a very cursory check: one glance at your ID and you’re done. At the station, there’s a sign mentioning that the line improvements were funded by the EU. What’s not said is that the funding was only enough for the large Danube bridge and five kilometers of track in Romania. After that, they don’t even weld the rails together; it’s just “cachunk, cachunk, cachunk.” At times, the speed is 20 km/h. The remaining hundred kilometres to Craiova take 3¾ hours.

Almost nobody was on the Romanian train. The volunteers helping “refugees from Ukraine” forced a bag of food on me.

Craiova is an industrial city that makes a decent living from car manufacturing. (German unemployed, especially Opel workers in Bochum, should be reminded that your jobs have been globalized here.) The old town is nicely decorated and, on the first balmy evening of this trip, pleasant enough to sit in a side-walk café. There’s even a tobacco shop that sells cigars, something rare in Eastern Europe. The first hotel I found online was being renovated, so off I went in a taxi to my second choice, the “Green Hotel.” The name says it all; that colour is everywhere. The price was reasonable and I got a room with a bathtub, all together bigger than my apartment at home. My only mistake was letting myself be talked into breakfast. A very meager buffet for the price, while behind a thin plastic sheet in the dining room, two men jackhammering are busy generating a lot of dust and even more noise. Dear management: this is NOT “Service”. Tell those guys to at least work somewhere else until breakfast is over!
A day’s stay in town, shopping spree, new hiking boots.

The next morning, I took the train to Budapest, changing trains in Arad and arrived late in the evening. The next rain front was just beginning to unload its cargo. The first train to the border, heading for Bratislava, departed at 3:40 a.m. – but not from Keleti Central Station, but from Déli on the other bank of the Danube. My stay was too short for a room and I was too wet to sit in the park. Despite the drizzle, I decided to walk the 5½ kilometers. A whole row of homeless sat on benches under an arcade. One of them, an elderly man with a stubble, was still awake – I could look like that in five years, too. The 2,000 forints I spontaneously handed him hopefully made the following day easier. From the Danube Bridge, there was a good view of the castle until the floodlights were turned off. At the station shortly after 3:00 a.m., I got a ticket from the machine and I was incredibly thirsty. Unfortunately, the machine didn’t accept coins, only cards–the equivalent of 34 euro cents for the bottle and the bank got a 2.6 % foreign transaction fee! The idiocy of modern bcashless” traffic.

Towards the Slovakian capital, to Petrzalka station, I use a small Hungarian train line, bypassing the faster route through Austrian with its horrendous train prices. (According to bahn.de Munich – Vienna – Bratislava full fare is € 112-121. For my part a travel for free to the Czech border, than hop aon local trains for the grand total of € 22 as far as Bratislava.) I actually intended to stay in Bratislava one more time, but the weather was so bad again that I immediately bought a ticket via Prague and Pilsen for € 18 at the main station and was able to slip through to Munich via Domažlice. Off I went. In Furth im Wald, where the Bavarian border police feel they have to harass travelers despite “free travel in a free Europe,” one of the local boneheads opens the compartment door: “Do you speak German?” - reply in the possibly roughest local dialect “I’ll have to think about that now.” His obviously North German apprentice then says “Bye” [in German „Tschüß“] - the kind of inappropriate casual greeting police officers may deem to be “insulting a police officer” when used towards them. Perhaps these civil servants [the German „Staatsdiener“ has more of a the meaning of “footman” or “minion”] should practice “serving“ aspet of their duty more, especially towards the people who pay their salaries. Which amounts to “coppers” anyway – if you excuse that pun!

Onwards!

The Channel Islands 

Brittany and especially the Channel Islands have long interested me. The problem is the short season there, which inevitably means high-season prices in both countries, which aren’t cheap to start with. May turned out to be bearable after all. I took the train on Saturday via Würzburg toward Frankfurt. Because the website of the “damned“ bus company [the “Flix” in the name correlates to the German word „verflixt“ – “damn it”] didn’t work on my phone, I booked a ticket from Brussels to Avranches in France for the following Thursday at an internet café near the Würzburg train station. That’s a town I’d never heard of, but it’s close to Mont Saint-Michel on the map.

While I wait for my connection, I subconsciously hum the Soviet anthem to myself on a bench in Würzburg’s pedestrian zone. This at a time when the media-driven hysteria of collective anti-Russian rhetoric is at its peak. An elderly gentleman two benches away smiles at me friendly, presumably a ethnic German repatriate from the former USSR. I’m just wondering what would happen if I dressed as “Zorro” next Carnival and left the appropriate marks with my rapier?

Sunday morning, May 15th, a stopover in Wilhelmsbad – another forgotten spa town where gambling was held in the 19th century. A stroll through the expansive park, the Philippsruhe Palace, built between 1700 and 1725, is only accessible with a pre-booked guided tour. It’s described as: Expansive English gardens with castle ruins, tree-lined paths and an 18th-century carousel. Next to the park, all that remains is the base of one of the grotesque Bismarck monuments by the architect Wilhelm Kreis, a „Götterdämmerung“ type tower that was fashionable around 1910.
On to Frankfurt, the underpass in front of the main train station leading to the red-light district is being completely renovated, so the good Chinese grocery store in the passage is unfortunately closed. To while away the Sunday, I continue to the Frankfurt-West subway station – its station restrooms are still as they were in the 1980s. There’s also a bicycle with luggage inside and in one compartment, the bum who owns it is loudly snoring in one of the cubicles. Then a junkie stands right next to me at the urinal – 😈 “trainspotting.”

The Senckenberg Botanical Garden, including the Palm House, is a park and recreational area rolled into one. The cashier said he’d have to tear open my disability card cover to read the percentage. Afterward, I was given the free admission I was entitled to anyway. In the park, you can use a “natural toilet” no water for flushing, but with sawdust – alas without any junkies. They used the coronavirus as an excuse to close the greenhouses. But there’s still enough time to kill until early afternoon.

Im Schmetterlingshaus 

From Frankfurt, there are two possible train routes to Luxembourg. I choose the southern route via Saarbrücken. I had already stopped here once on the way to Brittany eighteen years ago. Back then, I was having a snack in my Ford Transit (which wasn’t yet registered to me) when a police car pulled up behind me. I heard voices. He said: The MOT has expired, she said, but not for that long, and they buggered off.

From ye olden time, when things were built to last. A transformer set up in 1972/3. 

On Monday morning, it was time for a visit to the swimming pool. I like to swim, usually a kilometer twice a week and it’s always interesting to see what indoor pools in provincial German towns look like. I chose the Alsbachbad partly because of its reasonable opening hours. It’s a remote location in a socially disadvantaged neighborhood. From the bus stop, you walk about a kilometer steeply down the hill.
I was still half an hour early for the opening. It was the first day of the summer season, but the outdoor area remained closed. Little by little, the local retirees gather. People know each other and gossip. Season tickets are being topped up. In my mid-fifties, I was the youngest visitor. Accordingly, it’s busy; we’re offered a small pool with a rope as thick as an arm separating the non-swimmers' area. The effective swimmable distance is maybe fifteen meters. In the second pool, several of the older people spend three-quarters of an hour treading water in circles. Nice enough – seen that one too. Interestingly, on the way back to the station, next to an industrial area, is a large transformer from 1972/3 set up in a cage which seems like a message from a different time, quality engineering and all that, not penny-pinching cheapo crap.

Night of the 17th/18th, I treated myself to a bed in the Dreisbach Youth Hostel, which appered nearby on the map, for just under € 40. I had originally planned to walk the three kilometers from a junction with a bus stop. It quickly became apparent: a long, steep climb. Luckily, the last bus of the day – at 3:45 p.m., because good public transport in Germany is intended to encourage people to use their cars instead – was a bit late, so I took it up the hill. The youth hostel is located in the middle of the forest and the only bus going in the other direction leaves early in the morning at 7:30 a.m. – Google Maps can be deceiving. The youth hostel itself deserves nothing but praise. A super friendly reception, well-maintained and with two classes of fourth-graders from Saarbrücken on a school trip. The sports teacher is the class leader and has her bag of fleas well under control. My journey continues via Trier with a short stopover. I was here a few years ago. The town administration still required masks in the pedestrian zone.
I’d also like to add this photo, which I took in mid-May 2022, at the height of the anti-Russian rage. It was taken in Trier, the birthplace of the most important German-speaking Jewish philosopher..

In a fit of pro-Semitic political correctness by the city’s council, a main street is renamed after a little-known Jewish woman (which seem to be her only qualifications) because of Hindenburg’s negative role in the National Socialists’ seizure of power. Leaving aside the poor linguistic logic [of the German text] – one forgets why Hindenburg was in his position [as president required to appoint the chancellor] in the first place: in 1914, he was framed as the “victor of Tannenberg.” His brilliant battle tactics had kept the “devilish Ivan” (Winston Churchill at that time: (We must rally against) a poisoned Russia, an infected Russia of armed hordes not only smiting with bayonet and cannon, but accompanied and preceded by swarms of typhus-bearing vermin.) off our backs by winning that very battle shortly after the outbreak of World War I. And now in 2022, when we Germans, on the bidding of our American masters, march against Ivan again, this victory no longer is an achievement worthy of having a street named after him? Arise! ye starvelings, from your slumbers … ”

Luxemburg

Very realistic renditions of “money changers” in the Luxemburg National Museum 

Across the border to Luxembourg. I bought ten packets of tobacco and rolling papers at the first tobacconist’s after the border. The only Luxembourger who works there seems to be someone who doesn’t speak German [she wasn’t Hungarian either]. This also determines my route to Ireland: by ferry, because Brexit not only meant Great Britain withdrew from the community of civilized nations, but also reduced the duty-free allowance.

The rest of the day is spent in the capital, Luxembourg, partly in the National Museum, partly lying in the park in the spring sunshine. 6

All public transport in Luxembourg has been free since February. Luggage storage at the main train station has been moved to the former ticket office. International tickets are still available in the concourse. I booked mine for the second-to-last train of the day at 8:15 p.m. to Brussels – in this time and age of paperless offices, when buying a ticket only get two A4 pages plus an envelope. Because I was so busy scrambling to get the ticket and rush to the train, I left the wrong piece of paper at the counter, but realized it just before boarding the train. I sprinted 300 meters back from the concourse with my luggage and the ticket was still there by the counter; the sales lady had just noticed it. Then had to sit around 90 minutes waiting for the next train.

The next day, before the bus leaves at Brussels-North, there’s another two-hour wait. Everything’s still closed. Even the railway museum that used to be in the station is permanently closed. The “bus station” consists of two half-open, drafty little boxes without benches. Typical of Europe’s capital. Palaces for the bigwigs, the people are freezing and can’t even buy cake. I’d already said on my first visit to Brussels in 1985: “If a few bombs had been dropped here in 1940, this city would have been a better place.”

Avranches turns out to be a disappointment. I’m standing in the lower part of town near the train station, a 20-minute walk from the city. Unfortunately, the town is near the border between Normandy and Brittany regions. Thanks to the “competition in local transport” mandated by the EU twenty years ago, bus networks are tendered regionally – here, the result is that you can’t get to Mont St. Michel (23 km) by public transport because it’s in a different region. Fuck it, just carry on this is not the Khyber after all. Meanwhile, the last bus of the day down the coast has already left; after all, it’s 5:20 p.m. At least the one bakery still has something to take away. There’s a train to Saint-Malo in an hour – not! It turns out to be a “rail replacement” bus service. Unfortunately, with a change in Rennes, instead of being 69 kilometers by road [from Avranches], it’s 145 kilometers by rail. While I’m waiting, a group of four young Americans come into the waiting room. The worst kind: loud, stupid and from the southern states. They can’t even manage to get a drink from the vending machine because the four of them can’t manage two euros in cash! Anybody over 30 watch this now: Dumbest Generation Ever
Rennes station is one of the SNCF’s new glass-and-concrete palaces. The last train to St. Malo departs just after ten. I get here just after seven, everything is closed, not a shop in the vicinity.
I find a set of keys and want to hand them in somewhere, but nothing is open. Ten minutes later I run into two security guards who look so puzzled when I hand them the keys that I assume they've thrown them into the nearest bin. The train, coming from Paris is initially announced to be 45 minutes, then 80 minutes late. This is the kind of evening that would be significantly improved by a reasonable amount of Calvados, but “nitschewo” - not even a can of Kronenbourg can be found, the greenish-yellow rice brew for which the Bavarian Purity Law (The „Reinheitsgebot“ is a series of regulations limiting the ingredients in beer in Germany and the states of the former Holy Roman Empire. The best known version of the law was adopted in Bavaria in 1516 (by William IV), but similar regulations predate the Bavarian order and modern regulations also significantly differ from the 1516 Bavarian version. Although today the Reinheitsgebot is mentioned in various texts about the history of beer, historically it was only applied in the duchy, electorate, then Kingdom of Bavaria and from 1906 in Germany as a whole and it had little or no effect in other countries or regions. In March 1987 French brewer Kronenbourg sued and, in the case of Commission v Germany (C-178/84), the European Court of Justice found that the Reinheitsgebot was protectionist and therefore in violation of Article 30 of the Treaty of Rome. This ruling concerned only imported beer, so Germany chose to continue to apply the law to beer brewed in Germany.) was sacrificed on the altar of European freedom of trade.

Saint-Malo

Saint-Malo is the correct French spelling, but I shall use the German style of St. Malo. People around here are proud of Chateaubriand, who was born here, which may be justified given his literary work; on the other hand, he also remained a royalist propagandist for the Catholic Church.

For the first time ever I've used booking.com. The only affordable hotel on offer is Hotel F1, a little way out of town. It turns out this is a budget chain belonging to the French Accor group. They send a reservation code by email, on arrival you pay at a box with your credit card to open the door, so you don’t have to worry about staff.
My train finally arrived in Saint-Malo shortly after 11 p.m. Ready to take a taxi the 4½ kilometers to the hotel, the three available taxis (an estimated 150 people got off with me) were snatched up immediately. So I walked to the hotel, which, as it turned out, was in an industrial park. A quick fight with the door code-check-in interface shortly before midnight. The bed was bearable, but in the shower and toilet, both plastic capsules 1.35 meters square, you have to be careful not to suffocate.
The next morning someone was there to serve breakfast (one thing one can always do without in French hotels). I decided to book a second night. That receptionist was extremely nice and spoke excellent English – probably because he wasn’t a “real” Frenchman, but a Negro from some colony.

Then I walked back into town, also to buy a new belt. It cost € 15 and after three days, I had to throw it away because the buckle was broken. In the harbour, I bought a ticket for the next day’s ferry to Guernsey. Like all English ferry operators, € 82 for the short trip is outrageously expensive for the quality you get. Several online reviews for Condor Ferries are enough to make your hair stand on end. There’s no bus to the dock due to road works, so I’ll walk that route again tomorrow, Saturday.

The town center of Saint-Malo, built in the 18^th century as a fortress in a fairly uniform style from gray blocks, is not wheelchair accessible. The streets are all narrow, buses are not and only a limited number of cars are allowed intra muros. 85 % of the town was flattened by the invading Americans in August 1944. The ensemble, including the cathedral, has been rebuilt largely true to the original.
The aforementioned Gothic Saint-Vincent Cathedral is built over two levels, with the rear third reached via steps. The altar is in the center. It is said that Jacques Cartier, the “who discovered Canada,“ sailed from here. A side chapel is dedicated to him, into which his remains were moved in 1949. Some of the furnishings show that the reconstruction was completed in 1972.

Saint Malo 

The Notre-Dame-des-Grèves appears much older than its eventful construction history would indicate. Works began shortly after 1900 but weren’t completed until 1936. My impression: "cute."

Notre-Dame-des-Grèves in St. Malo 

Guernsey

The Channel Islands were the only part of Britain that came under German administration from 1940 to 1945. There’s a museum dedicated to that time 

I must say, the beautifully designed buildings from that era (Bauhaus-inspired?) look greatly improve the beaches.

The ferry docks in Jersey first, where onward passengers are also subjected to immigration checks. Prime minister Boris, who isn’t just messed up because of his messy hair, came up with the glorious idea that all Europeans, after Great Britain cut itself off from the continent, must present a passport upon entry, because Britishers have to do this travelling in Europe too. The fact that Whitehall bureaucrats never managed to distribute handy identity cards to their island monkeys was deliberately overlooked. [April 2025 an electronic visa requirement was introduced – one is now charged £ 16 to enter the realm of warm beer and greasy food.] I was questioned as to why I wanted to visit the island. I couldn’t resist saying, To shore up your rotten economy with my tourist dollars, which at least prompted a Fair enough from the slightly perplexed border guard. Stiff upper lip?

The prices are simply outrageous; even the cheapest B&B above a pub costs £ 65 and everything else – we’re still in the off-season here – starts at £ 85. So, the first night, I rolled out my sleeping bag near a rowboat erected as a memorial by the “Pools,” which are enclosed seawater basins just outside the town of St. Peter Port. Then the second night, right at bedtime at 9:00, it started pouring. I set my self up in the “changing cavern” on a stone bench under a 3-meter canopy, by the somewhat hidden pool. It was awesome to look at the sea. Some truly hardy swimmers were already swimming at 6:00 in the morning in the other pool.

First, I bought a snack in the market hall and sat down on a bench near the nearby church, next to three people who, one could tell, weren’t millionaires. We started talking and I offered them packets of tobacco for 7 pounds – that’s what they cost in Luxembourg in euros, so my profit was 20 percent. The very talkative lady bought two packets and the guy sitting next to her bought one. Later in the shop, I discovered that the cheapest tobacco here costs 26.50 pounds.
I went into a stationary shop because they had the postcard shown on the left and a few old ones in their window. They also gave me some nice commemorative stamps. At least I’d taken care of my obligatory postcards for this trip.

On Guernsey 

Day two, Sunday, I took one of the delights of the English-speaking world, the Sunday Times, under my arm on the bus to take a day ticket around the island. The drivers no longer accept cash and there’s no ATM. Two kilometers from the end of the line to the beach on the west coast. It was actually quite chilly, but I lay down on the grass to read the newspaper. I’d barely been there five minutes when a dog came along and jumped my leg. I had a heated argument with the uncooperative owner, who then, five minutes after my ”polite” suggestion that he put his muzzle on a leash, contradicted me by saying that the animal hadn’t jumped on me at all. Dog owners are the same assholes all over the world; it’s a shame the German magazine Kot und Köter [“Pooch and poo”] was satire.
I hiked on to the next bay, had a pie and a pint in the pub. Another bus along the north coast; on Sundays they run every hour. I got off again on the east coast. Into a fish and chip shop, I had a huge portion of delicious grease priced a reasonable 6 pounds – an absolute high point of British cuisine! In the beginning rain, I walked the six kilometers through St. Peter Port to the pools for a waterproof overnight stay.

Early in the morning, I strengthened myself at a mobile café stand, mounted on a bicycle. The driver remarked: Weighs half a ton.
A family with a whopping eight children, clearly their own, arrived in the waiting room for the ferry. As Uli’s grandmother in P. remarked back in 1984 when she was first allowed to leave Dresden for the West [from East Germany only OAPs over 65 were allowed to travel], this was “almost antisocial.” The oldest girl was perhaps 11 or 12, but the gang was very well-behaved.
The crossing on the ship to Cherbourg was uneventful.

Cherbourg

Room 9 Hôtel de la Gare, [2024: Hôtel Les Quais; from € 60] cost € 52 without breakfast was the cheapest in town. As everywhere in France single occupancy is charged the same as double.

Napoleon der Große, der ja eher klein gewesen sein soll. 

There isn’t that not much to do in Cherbourg. The ferry port is about two kilometers from the small town center. The train station, a shopping center and a casino surround the fishing harbour basin. The old town is manageable. Cathedrals is one thing they can do impressively in France. Compared to the one in St. Malo, the Basilique Sainte-Trinité is smaller but also worth seeing; there are no photos of it here.

The opening times of the indoor swimming pool are worth mentioning; I hope I copied them down correctly from the photo: “During school terms: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 12 noon-1:45 pm, plus Monday 4:45 pm–6:30 pm, Tuesday and Thursday 4:45 pm–7:15 pm, Friday the same and also 8:30 pm-10:15 pm. Also Wednesday 2:15 pm-5:15 pm, Saturday 2:00 pm-1:15 pm and Sunday 9:00 am-1:15 pm.” If you paid attention and learned that, then we come to the school holidays: for the sake of simplicity, the pool is open from 2:00 pm to 6:15 pm on weekdays, except on Wednesday when it opens from 12 pm. Sunday as usual.
But there are still summer holidays (vacances de été): now, Monday to Friday, the pool is open at 12:00 and closes at 18:15, except Saturday, when they still open only at 14:00. Sundays are as before, to keep it simple I suppose.

A pleasant surprise was the quality of the art in the Thomas-Henry Museum, which features works by Jean-François Millet as well as paintings and sculptures from the 15th to 19th centuries. The collection was initially assembled by an art dealer in the 19th century who, initially anonymously, donated “leftovers” to the city.

Thomas-Henry Museum of Cherbourg 

An attempt to book a crossing to Dublin for the following evening initially fails because the counter at the port is being moved from one office to another. So another try the next morning. Now, Irish Ferries, like all ferry operators around the British Isles, is a nuisance (and I've been annoyed every time since 1985): exorbitant prices for lousy service. The trip is advertised online for € 69, but you have to book a seat separately “from € 32” - it’s impossible without it. This is the same scam as the “plus tax and ticket booking fee” that was once common with flights in New York.
The journey takes twenty hours. In case you get hungry, the only food at the bar is a Pizza Margherita priced at € 18 - I assume microwaved. The night on board passed.

Dublin

The ferry docks at what’s pretty much the farthest pier of Dublin. By the time I find my way out of the terminal, the bus that only runs once in a blue moon has just left and the next one is in 90 minutes. So I set off, 3½ km through the harbour (there’s apparently a harbour ferry “around the back”), to a friend’s flat in the Ringsend district, where I’m staying for four nights.

Still, I am out of luck, somehow. I've barely walked through the door when I’m told it’s her son’s graduation party. There goes my first bottle of Bushmills I brought over cheaply from France. But the boy is fit; he’s gotten rid of my remaining packs of tobacco in three phone calls. School graduations are common in gyms all over the world. There’s a buffet stocked by mothers. In Ireland, at least, they don’t feel the need to dress up. Speeches follow thanking everyone and anyone – there are six sports teachers at the school, each of whom teaches only one sport! [Unheard of in Germany with 2 hours PE per week only.] The distribution of the diplomas and several sports certificates is handled quickly and unceremoniously. Strangely enough, in Ireland, pupils receive their “leaving certificate” three months before the grades are announced.7 In some subjects, the final exams don’t even take place until after this certificate has been handed out. The principal announces the date of those exams, pointing out that pupils no longer have to wear a school uniform.
After what I've learned here about the quality of Irish education, I’m even less surprised at how poorly organized the bus service and Dublin Airport are.

The Dublin Botanical Garden is extensively laid out. Compared to other such facilities, it’s average, but reasonably well labeled. Specialized collections include the Palm House, which was closed for renovation, as well as Crassulaceae and Peralgonium sp., also Geraniaceae – neither of which are the most exciting plant families. It was interesting enough for a 3½ hour stay. So, here’s a small selection of Kniphofia species to brighten up the rather gray Dublin with a bit of colour.

Dublin brightened up by Kniphofia sp. 

I skipped a detour to Monaghan due to bad weather. Instead, I took the train out of Europe to the still British-occupied “six counties.” I’d only been here once before, in 1988 - ten years before the Good Friday Agreement – when, on country roads just across the border, I was greeted by soldiers with orders to shoot from their armored “pigs.” Not as professional as the guys on the inner-German border, but precisely for that reason, more intimidating.

Belfast

How fucked up can a society actually be? In the UK, firearms are strictly controlled and hard to get hold of. This has led to young people, frustrated by the social coldness characterized by Calvinism, which since the Thatcher era has reduced everything to the question of “cost to the taxpayer,” repeatedly giving vent to their lack of opportunity, caused by society, in the form of knife attacks on buses. This is why everyone has been banned from carrying knives on all public transport.
England may like to see itself as the “mother of Western democracy,” something that has been up to debate since the events in France in 1789 at least, but there are clear weaknesses in its unwritten constitution. Firstly, the “principle of proportionality” is missing, which under the ruling Tories since 1979 has led to a cut-throat mentality with sometimes draconian threats of punishment. Secondly, “no court is above the government,” which was and still is a characteristic of formerly feudal, now autocratic states. In addition, access to the courts is limited for ordinary people due to extremely high costs, also due to the combination of “solicitor” and “barrister” at Crown Court level. Innocent, until proven Irish and A fair trial and a quick death are both very true sayings. Furthermore, poorly trained personnel often hide their own incompetence behind “security reasons” without being able to substantiate them. Instead, they produce booklets like Bus and coach security: best practice.

The botanic garden in Belfast consists only of a Victorian-era glasshouse, a collection of Crassulaceae (i. e. cabbages) and a new tropical house, also modest. However, they are located in the same park as the Ulster Museum. That seemed rather small and unimpressive. It turned out to be a curious mixture of an art gallery with many oil paintings from the Victorian era, a (modest) natural history museum and a local history museum. It was especially in the latter section that it became clear who really still runs Northern Ireland.

In the “six counties” of Ulster, which remained under British occupation after 1923, an attempt was made over three decades from 1968 to 1999 by a colonially subjugated population, initially inspired by the "civil rights" movement in the USA, to rid themselves of their oppressors or at least to gain equal opportunities in a society that was and still is segregated not along racial but religious lines. The government in Westminster (The choice was clearly open: crush them with vain and unstinted force, or try to give them what they want. These were the only alternatives and most people were unprepared for either. Here indeed was the Irish spectre - horrid and inexorcisable. Winston Churchill in The World Crisis and the Aftermath, 1923-31. Still appies to his sucessors since 1969.) fought the Catholics with an intensity that Oliver Cromwell and his henchmen had already displayed. The Royal Ulster Constabulary, paramilitary since 1969, was a police force made up of Protestants, for Protestants. (The renaming into Police Service of Northern Ireland has changed little in this regard .) Burnt-down houses, years of internment without trial, torture, orders to shoot on sight - in the interpretation of the Germans in the 1930s, all signs of an “unjust regime,” right? But that doesn’t interest the West in Palestine either – only when a third of a country’s inhabitants are forbidden from using their mother tongue does the German government give away its best tanks: to the oppressors. Margaret Thatcher’s contempt for humanity – she’s stolen your milk! – reached its peak 1981 in the starvation deaths of the Ten. Ultimately, the IRA lost, primarily because of the aforementioned typical Irish indiscipline, which allowed for infiltration by the “Forces of the Crown.” The face-saving “Good Friday Agreement” ensured a tense calm until the successors of the exposed grimace of Protestantism, Ian Paisley, began to use “Brexit“ as their tool to oppress from Stormont by blocking government – and as an opportunity to once again disenfranchise the Catholic Irish, who had by then become the majority of the population.. From the perspective of a European, I say to the Britishers “good riddance.” Your a not part of the comity of civilized nations.

The museum houses three display cases in one room dedicated to the entire freedom struggle. The catholic side is given almost no space. A ship of the Spanish Armada, which sank on the west coast of Ireland in 1588, is given several times more exhibition space. Two monuments in front of the Belfast town hall are also symbolic of the mentality of the occupiers. One is a triumphant soldier from the Boer War, the other is the monument to Lord Dufferin, one of the last “empire builders.” Apparently, word hasn’t yet spread to this corner of the world that, as Monty Python correctly stated in 1970, “the Empire lies in ruins.” I was in Belfast during preparations for the 70^th anniversary of Elizabeth II.† Only in the Protestant neighborhoods could one see houses decorated and then they were quite garish. It should come as no surprise that there is something like the Ulster Institute for Social Research, which publishes the highly intellectually racist “journal”Mankind Quarterly

Im Ulster-Museum, Belfast 

The hostel Vagabonds I had booked turned out to be a hit and deserves a more than honorable mention. Run by “Bob,” a puzzle-loving Italian, the facilities were impeccable; certain little touches like storage boxes under the bed, earplugs and a well-equipped kitchen allowed me to extend my stay from two to three nights. Oh and the place was also the cheapest I could find online. I’ll never forget the very blonde and, later, very drunk 18-year-old Swedish woman who helped out at the bar, along with a retired Dutch musician – all this combined with a bottle of good Irish whiskey on the second evening.
Next door, an entire church has apparently been for sale for years. A beautiful brick building and it already has a license to serve alcohol – but don’t Protestant pastors do that anyway?

Flight home

Finding out the name for complaints is not possible.
[…] several incidents of alleged assault and theft by newly hired security staff that are being investigated by gardaí and the DAA. […] Some recently hired security personnel were placed under investigation after a laptop was allegedly stolen from a passenger’s carry-on bag. 

I marched to the train station early Sunday morning because, like everywhere else in Britain, public transport won’t start before 9 a.m. on Sundays. Then I took the train to Dublin and off to the airport. During my visit a week earlier, the news was already full of reports of total overwork because they had laid off security personnel during the coronavirus crisis and were now unable to hire new ones quickly enough. And the ones they did get were just stealing luggage.

Dublin Airport has always been truly annoying. Irish people aren’t exactly organizational talents, which is probably due to the aforementioned schooling. Dublin Airport used to be tolerable. However, I once spent 45 minutes in the security line on a Sunday almost 20 years ago because an independent competency check had smuggled through two knives and an imitation hand grenade the day before, so they were double-checking.9 Back then, I had a pleasant conversation with three gentlemen from Starnberg, the type with blow-dried hair from driving Porsches with the top down. They explained that they’d decided to play golf while having a barbecue on Friday afternoon and the only available flight at short notice was to Ireland, where they played a round on Saturday and then spent the night in Dublin’s Temple Bar. One of the gentlemen commented on the generally fat butts of Irish women, which is understandable in a country where people like to have a pizza with fries as a nightcap. I won’t even get started on the “deep-fried Mars Bar.”

The overcrowding was even worse in the departures area. A bottle of vodka from the duty-free shop would have made up for the delay. It’s also written in bold: € 8 for a liter of Smirnoff. Then at the checkout: Sorry, it’s € 38, because the price posted only applies to flights to Great Britain, i. e., from within the EU. Everyone else pays full Irish domestic fares. Not that the alternative price is posted on the shelf. Irish organizational talent, or simply capitalist scam by a monopolist?

Two hours on a wooden bench with Ryanair also went by. Then, a delayed landing in Memmingen after a thunderstorm shortly after 9 p.m. local time. The announcement on site was that there was a festival. I would have liked to treat myself to a taxi to catch the last train, but experience has shown that they’re rare at this airfield, with a departure hall the design of a gym, as is the dismal bus connection; even on weekdays, they stop at 7 p.m., no matter what time planes are landing. So, I walked halfway toward town, looked around a corner to unroll my sleeping bag. As I said, there had just been a thunderstorm and all the meadows were soaking wet. Finally, a fairly open porch on a church. Not great, but five hours were just about bearable. The roar of the event was in the background. After barely three hours of sleep, I headed to the train station for the first train. There were several “corpses” from the festival on the platform. The young people of today – no stamina.