The journey from Prague included a rail replacement bus service which saw us all being taken off the train, put on to buses and driven at great speed through the Czech countryside to get back on another train beyond the closed section of track. Naturally this put us rather behind schedule and meant that our leisurely 30 minute gap to make our connection was reduced to 6 minutes and resulted in another platform and stair dash to make our connection but we made it and soon found ourselves in Regensburg in the Bavarian region of Germany.
Our original plan was to spend three nights in Regensburg but whilst checking train times we suddenly realised that a 50 hour rail strike had been called from 10pm on Sunday meaning that we would not have been able to leave on Monday to get to our next destination. In fact in reality we would have been unable to leave until Wednesday at the earliest and that was looking problematic so we made the decision to leave a day early on Sunday to get across the border into France. Unfortunately the hotel were not prepared to change our booking so we will end up paying for a night we cannot use but we were determined not to let this spoil our time here so after a quick refresh we set off to explore and get something to eat.
The altstadt (old town) of Regensburg dates back to the Romans but is now a particularly pretty medieval town. It was unscathed by the bombing of the Second World War and was designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 2006. It is made up of narrow winding streets with pretty pastel buildings and towers. Apparently at one stage there were as many as 50 towers in the town.
As we had arrived quite late we headed to a nearby restaurant for a delicious meal (Italian) before taking a walk through the old town to get our bearings. Again our friends Margaret and Arthur had told us to look out for spaghetti eis whilst in Germany so of course we had to try and find some and we had skipped dessert in the restaurant. We found a small ice cream parlour near the stone bridge and sure enough spaghetti eis was on the menu so naturally we had to order one with two spoons. I can confirm it was just as delicious as we had been told, vanilla ice cream put through a potato ricer to make it look like spaghetti with strawberry sauce and white chocolate on top to make it look like spaghetti bolognaise, very clever.
With only one full day to explore Regensburg properly we were up quite early and ready to go. On leaving the hotel we saw that a stage and various tents had been erected overnight and we later realised that it was all part of German traffic safety day. How very responsible.
Regensburg is a beautiful town with lots of little streets to explore and we spent a very happy few hours wandering and enjoying the atmosphere of this lovely place. It was also lovely to see so many of the young people of the town wearing traditional Bavarian clothes and very smart they looked too. We had thought that wearing lederhosen was just a stereotype but clearly not. The girls too looked gorgeous in what can only be described as Sound of Music style dresses.
After another delicious meal (Spanish) and another spaghetti eis whilst watching the sun go down it was time for bed and to get ready to leave tomorrow.
Next stop Colmar in the Alsace region of France.
NB. The train strike was called off late on Saturday but sadly too late for us to change our plans.
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