Today, we leave Bremen behind. But before we embark from our current stay place we should come to witness a historic event: The mysterious stove clock displays an hour greater than 12!
It barely lasts long enough for us to notice, and then it resets back to 12:00 again.
Having found out by now that the Quer-Durchs-Land-Ticket is not actually valid in the tram, and since it's still quite early and we do have the time, we decide that in spite of the station being kinda far away and us having to lug our backpacks all the way, we want to walk all the way to the station. As such we should begin this particular leg of our journey by...
Straying to the Station
20-Sep-2020Distance: 4.0km
Ascents: 20m
Duration: 1.0h
Counting our initial tram ride, we have by now crossed all but one bridge in the city area of Bremen, and since we've got some time to spare this morning, we figure we might as well plot our course across that missing bridge. From there, we take a little detour through another historic quarter, then walk through the Wallanlagen ("Wall Facilities") for a bit, and finally approach the Bremen central station from the southeast.
Despite what the stove clock is claiming, we embark around 7:00 in the morning, at a time when the sun is not yet out.
Walking through the civil dawn, we cross the Neustadtwallanlagen along yet another different route...
...and after leaving them pass through a commercial district with plenty of notable shops, such as a bar with plenty of attitude. I wonder if they also serve the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster?
Across from that is the seat of the Bremen Comic Mafia...
...and then there's this driving school where even donkeys can get their licence.
Dawn is in the process of breaking through at the point where we cross the Kleine Weser one last time, this time around by means of the Wilhelm-Kaisen-Brücke ("William Empiron Bridge")...
...and the first rays of Radian reach us just as we cross the narrow stretch of land between the two rivers.
Subsequently, we cross the actual Weser, looking out towards the "No Locking" bridge, the St. Martini Church, as well as Admiral Nelson's Pannekoekschip...
...before coming across whatever in Lerra that is. We leave it well alone, just in case, you know, it is some sort of Doomsday Device that would set in motion an unstoppable chain reaction that would eventually cause the annihilation of all matter in the Solar System. And before you ask why such a thing would be standing around in Bremen, I ask you: Why would such a thing not stand around in Bremen?
By the way, since it's quite early, the outside temperature is at only 12°C right now. However, thanks to us keeping in motion while carrying around reasonably heavy backpacks, this temperature is actually quite comfortable for us.
Just a little bit further down the road, we pass by another historic quarter of Bremen, which goes by the name of Schnoor ("String").
This district is the oldest remaining part of the old town of Bremen, featuring houses from the 15th through 19th centuries. It's name originates from the fact that its many small houses are tightly lined up like pearls on a string.
We should actually only pass through a very small part of this historic district, but it is enough to come across the St. Johan church, which is made of bricks (and it is always bricks), because there aren't already, like, three other churches within 300m of here. Have I mentioned that you can never have enough churches?
Also, we pass by a town musician mural painted artfully on the corner of a building. I bet at night this one can be quite scary if you don't expect it and then suddenly turn around.
Moving on, we come across a bicycle parking lot, where for some strange reason the police have locked up a bike. I wonder for what? Well, at least they demonstrate some capacity for humor ("Angeschlossen" === "On-lock-ed" ≙ "Connected").
Afterwards, we reach the Wallanlagen, following the course of the old zig-zagging town wall of Bremen along of what remains of its moat...
...and from there, it's pretty much a straight walk north to the train main line. Interestingly, the road underpass features an artfully decorated noise barrier that from a distance might be mistaken for actual trains.
Now, all that's left is a short walk along the line, and then we're at the central station of Bremen, just short of 8:00 in the morning.
As for our overall planned route today... Our goal is the town of Geilenkirchen ("Horny Churches") in Nordrhein-Westfalen ("North Rhine Westphalia"), which I intended to reach by means of a conenction over Osnabrück ("Eastern Bridge") and Düsseldorf ("Twit Village"). However, due to the DB operating this rout, there's naturally some complications - construction in this case - that should result in us having to take a slight detour over Gelsenkirchen ("Mosquito Churches"), along with roughly three thousand other people. Overall, our route should lead almost directly southwest.
After an hour's walk with heavy backpacks, we're quite glad to sit down in the train, and while normally the Quer-Durchs-Land Ticket is only valid after 9:00, the fact that today is a Sunday allows us to use it even as early as this. Hence, I impulsively lead us to the first train running into the direction we are meant to take today, which would end up taking us to Osnabrück past...
A Variety of Fields
Ride Duration: 2:10hApproximate Distance: 126km
Originally, I had planned for us to take a later train than this, and one going along a slightly different route. However, in a rush of vulpine spontaneity, I decided to hop onto this earlier train and totally not drag Robert in with me. As such, we're now aboard a slow local train that departs from Bremen about half an hour earlier than our planned train, takes a rather roundabout route, stops at every station, and ends up arriving in Osnabrück ten minutes later than originally planned. Oh well. The good thing about this is that we get to see more scenic landscapes around the way, and pass by places that we would not otherwise have seen, such as Brettorf ("Board Bog"), Vechta ("Venca") or Neuenkirchen ("New Churches").
Probably due to a combination of this being a slow regional train and the early hour, this train is spectacularly underutilized, with us being one of the few people in the entire train. A few should come and go again along the way, but I suppose we are the only passengers nuts enough to take this slow train all the way from Bremen to Osnabrück when there's a faster alternative available at the same price.
Anyway, our ride commences, taking us out of Bremen, and across first the Weser and then the Ochtum, as well as past some of Bremen's many Schrebergärten. After that, we pass over 100km straight of fields, interrupted only occasionally with towns and forests. However, fields are not simply fields, but come in a wide variety. For example, since it's already early fall, approximately 20% of all fields have already been harvested. Maize fields are still up and about, as are those covered in green-leaved vegetables that are difficult to distinguish at this distance (I'm gonna guess potatoes though). Some types of grain are also still around, and naturally pastures and fallow fields are still green. We also come past some horses, a solar farm, as well as two wind farms. Apparently renewables are not quite as common in Niedersachsen as they were in Schleswig-Holstein. Also, among the many trees we pass, the first few are already beginning to change color in preparation for the approaching fall. Finally, we arrive in Osnabrück, where we can just make out the Herz-Jesu-Kirche ("Heart-Jesus-Church") and the St. Katharinen Kirche ("St. Catherine Church") in the distance.
Despite our detour, we still arrive in Osnabrück more or less at the same time we intended. The station itself is not really noteworthy, however.
As such, we should have no problem catching our connecting train... at least in theory. Originally, we had planned to take a direct train to Düsseldorf from here, but instead, it looks like we'll be heading...
Into the Ruhrpott
Ride Duration: 1:19hApproximate Distance: 123km
The Ruhrpott ("Stir Pot") - more formally known as the Ruhrgebiet ("Stir Area") is Germany's biggest coherent urban area, and the sixth-biggest of Europe. In the original plan, we were going to just pass through it, but on account of the DB obviously thinking its okay to mess up things for their customers like this, the part of the route running through Essen is apparently closed due to construction (in Japan, such a thing did not happen for the entire year I was travelling around the country, and here it's now already the second time within a week, see Book IV ~ Chapter 7 ~ Coastal Connections). So, instead we have to change trains in again in Gelsenkirchen. Not a big issue thus far, but the hammer should fall later. Our route there should take us past the towns of Lengerich ("Longer-ish"), Münster ("Cathedral") and Haltern am See ("Holster at the Lake").
It's interesting how the landscape we pass through should be subtly different as soon as we cross over into Nordrhein-Westfalen. For one, there are not as many fields around here, and instead more forest. Also, since we're headed into aforementioned Ruhrpott, both fields and forests gradually grow more and more sparse, making way for towns and cities the further south and east the train takes us. Another notable difference is the speed of the train. Since we're now travelling by Regionalexpress instead of Regionalbahn, the forests, fields and towns just zoom by and we cover almost about the same distance of the last leg in only half the time.
And this is where the unplanned part begins. In Gelsenkirchen, we have to change into another train that would take us to Düsseldorf.
The good news is that this connection would work out okay. However, the bad news is that this should be...
A Crowded Ride
Ride Duration: 0:43hApproximate Distance: 50km
This ride should be relatively short in distance, and yet take quite a bit of time on account of being on a slower Regionalbahn again. It more or less takes us from one side of the Ruhrpott to the other, passing by Altessen ("Old Eating"), Oberhausen ("Upper Housing") and Duisburg ("Jet Castle") along the way. Our originally planned route would have been kinda longer, but not require us to change in Gelsenkirchen, passing through the heart of Essen instead. One interesting aspect of either route is the beeline from Duisburg to Düsseldorf, which includes an about 15km long stretch of almost perfectly straight track that stands in sharp contrast to the previous zig-zag course.
The main problem for this ride, however, is that the DB apparently did not do the sensible thing and arrange for replacement trains to take the passengers around Essen, but instead go and figure "Oh, I'm sure we won't need any of those. All those people can just take one of the regular trains to Düsseldorf from there, never mind that they'll be terribly full and we have a pandemic ongoing."
And what's worse is that certain people are not only lax about wearing their masks, but aggressively defiant. As such, me and approximately threescore passengers involuntarily have to witness a scene where a young female train security officer politely asked an older male passenger to properly put on his mask, only to get harshly rebutted and berated. The truly sad part here is that apparently the security officer does not actually have any authority to do anything about this, and is forced to just leave the man alone. I'm sure that's just great for the pandemic. I mean, the Green Shnolz definitely won't mind. In the end, all that this scene accomplished is an awkwardly empty area next to said man, who also wears a conspiracy theory shirt claiming that the pandemic is only one step towards an European dictatorship or something.
Anyway, with the train being this crowded, Robert and I should not be able to get a seat for this segment. As such, taking videos of the ride should be a kinda shaky affair, but somehow I still manage to get a few shots out the window as we pass through the Ruhrpott. There's quite a bit of greenery here, especially along the railroad tracks, but whenever the trees give way to a clear view, all we get to see is houses and buildings, rarely interrupted with a few parks surrounded by houses.
After his crowded ride, we finally arrive in Düsseldorf. Originally we were going to have about half an hour to catch our connecting train here, and I suppose we're lucky that even with this conundrum we are still in time to make our original connection. However, we now have only ten minutes to change, and our connecting train departs from a completely different track, so we have to hasten through the main hall of this reasonably-sized station.
Fortunately, we manage to make it to the station shortly before our train arrives. And in typical DB-manner, the display is broken. At least I hope it's broken, because I don't really feel like going to █ ▐▐▌█▐▐▐▌▌▌▐▌▌▌█▐ █▐ ▌████ ████ today.
This time around, the train is considerably less full. In fact, there's so much space in here that I totally forgot to take a picture of it. Anyway, in this last segment for today we should be...
Leaving the Rhine Behind
Ride Duration: 0:56hApproximate Distance: 65km
This is the final leg for today, taking us out of the Ruhrpott, away from the Rhine, and within walking distance to the Netherlands. Along the way we pass towns such as Mönchengladbach ("Monks Slippery Stream"), Odenkirchen ("Fallow Churches") and Erkelenz ("Ahrgelency").
We also pass an unusually progressive train which offers free WiFi. However, since that one is going the other way, it would be a titbit counter-productive to board it and check it out.
This time around we are aboard a Regionalexpress again, and as soon as we're out of the city, we zoom by the fields like a biting gale once again, quickly eating up the remaining distance between us an our goal. There's still a lot of towns and cities along our route, but as we travel further to the west the area progressively grows more rural, and most towns are seen from a distance, with the occasional pointy church tower sticking out.
And then, we arrive at the Station of Geilenkirchen, after a somewhat improvised ride. I had planned for us to take three Regionalexpresse, but we ended up taking a Regionalbahn and a Regionalexpress twice alternately. And in the end, we still arrived right on time.
Now all that's left of today's travel segment is...
A Rather Short Walk
Of all the places we've been to on our journey, our stay place in Geilenkirchen should be the closest to the station. It's closer to the station than the platforms are long.
It's literally only a stone's throw, and yet along the way we should still come across one of Geilenkirchen's eponymous churches, this one being St. Johan ("St. John").
Only a few minutes after departing from the station we have already arrived at our stay place...
...where our host already awaits our arrival, and one spectacularly uncomplicated check-in later, we are settled into our new home base and ready for our adventures here in Geilenkirchen.
With that, we have completed our third-last journey segment of our Germany tour, and are now poised to strike at the westernmost point of Germany. That, however, is its own tale, and shall be told in the next chapter of the Travelling Fox Blog.
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