{"id":691,"date":"2016-06-11T07:07:05","date_gmt":"2016-06-11T13:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beltguy.com\/blog\/?p=691"},"modified":"2016-06-11T13:39:16","modified_gmt":"2016-06-11T19:39:16","slug":"691","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/?p=691","title":{"rendered":"Hello from Kassel Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\tHello from Kassel Germany\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tDrafted started Wednesday afternoon &ndash; June 8, 2016&nbsp;&nbsp; (fifteenth post of this travelogue)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tUploaded:&nbsp; Saturday afternoon &ndash; June 11, 2016\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tWell, actually I am cheating a bit.&nbsp; We are on the train from Berlin to Kassel (about 2 &frac12; hours).&nbsp; This is the second leg of our trip today.&nbsp; The first leg was this morning from Prague to Berlin (about 4 &frac12; hours).&nbsp; We specifically scheduled a long layover in Berlin to make sure we would get on this train.&nbsp; We are a bit gun shy about the trains after our experience in France.&nbsp; Besides that, the typical schedule calls for transfers of less than 15 minutes.&nbsp; With our gimpy knees, that would be cutting it too close.&nbsp; In addition, some of these stations are complicated with gates everywhere in the station.&nbsp; Indeed, in Berlin, there are three levels of train tracks and the station is more like a three story mall rather than a train station (see photo).&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_692\" style=\"width: 280px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-692\" alt=\"Inside of Berlin Train Station\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-692 wp-caption aligncenter\" height=\"300\" src=\"http:\/\/beltguy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Inside-of-Berlin-Train-Station-Large-270x300.jpg\" width=\"270\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-692\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Inside of Berlin Train Station<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\n\tIn Spain, France, and Czech Republic, the train systems seem less organized when compared to Germany.&nbsp; In Germany, every train has a specific track permanently assigned and the trains all have printed schedules for that train and are placed on about half the seats.&nbsp; It is much more comfortable to know in advance where your train will be.&nbsp; The trains also seem to be more prompt in Germany\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tOn this train, we have a compartment (see photo can you tell that Pat is getting tired? {grin}).&nbsp; I guess I prefer the non-compartment seating, but Pat likes the compartments.&nbsp; Unfortunately, you don&rsquo;t get to choose.\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_693\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-693\" alt=\"Train Compartment\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-693 wp-caption aligncenter\" height=\"225\" src=\"http:\/\/beltguy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Train-Compartment-Large-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-693\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Train Compartment<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\n\tWhile we had time, I got our seat reservations for our trip from Kassel to Paris.&nbsp; That will be on the June 12 &ndash; Pat&rsquo;s birthday.&nbsp; I again scheduled a longer train connection in Mannheim.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tWe had considered staying a night or two in Berlin, but we were there for an ISO meeting several years ago.&nbsp; That stay and the meeting are a bit of a blur, as I had contracted shingles and was pretty sick.&nbsp; I felt bad before we left Denver and even had the Gates clinic do an EKG because of the chest pain.&nbsp; We ended up driving to Houston (business after the ISO trip) and then flew out.&nbsp; On the plane I was in pretty bad pain, but they had upgraded us to business class, so at least I could stretch out.&nbsp; The shingles did not reveal themselves until we had reached Germany.&nbsp; But I degree, and the real story is that we are getting a bit worn down on touring big cities so we decided to spend an extra day in Kassel.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe weather continues to be pretty decent.&nbsp; We have seen a couple of short showers and the temperatures are moderate (mid-high 70s).&nbsp; The same can&rsquo;t be said for other parts of Europe.&nbsp; For Example, Paris has had some major flooding.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tI have been so impressed with Google Maps (both on the phone and on the computer). On the phone it saved my butt a couple of times when I got lost in the maze of streets in Nimes.&nbsp; I have been using the amazing detail of these maps to check out tram stops in Prague and Kassel.&nbsp; We will be renting a car in Kassel and the Enterprise lot is on a tram from where we are staying overnight.&nbsp; When we return the car, I can take the tram back to the apartment (looks like I will be within a block).\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tWe have paid quite a bit in taxi fares and have had to put in an extra effort to schedule the taxis via the internet.&nbsp; Our host in Prague pointed out that we should use the Uber app on our phone.&nbsp; We did that for the trip from the apartment to the train station in Prague and it worked great.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThat is all for this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello from Kassel Germany Drafted started Wednesday afternoon &ndash; June 8, 2016&nbsp;&nbsp; (fifteenth post of this travelogue) Uploaded:&nbsp; Saturday afternoon &ndash; June 11, 2016 Well, actually I am cheating a bit.&nbsp; We are on the train from Berlin to Kassel &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/?p=691\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=691"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":696,"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691\/revisions\/696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}