BIKE & BARGE, RIVER CRUISE - 2019
Strasbourg to Budapest via Baden-Baden
The overnight train from Munich to Budapest departed at 11:23 PM leaving all day to get from Kehl to Munich. So we agreed to stop off at Baden-Baden, a famous casino and hot springs resort town. Here we took a city bus to the valley station of the Merkurbergbahn, a cable car going to the top of a mountain where we did some hiking in the Black Forest.
The docking location in Strasbourg was so out of the way that we needed to take a taxi to the Kehl station. It took two packed local trains to get to Baden-Baden. What I didn't know was that the bus from the Baden-Baden station to the bergbahn was a local, make all stops and detours before reaching the town center. We could have taken a schnell bus to the center and transferred to the bergbahn bus.
A mosque viewed from the Kehl station.
Climbing from the so-called valley station. The cable car is operated automatically; and as the name suggests is pulled by a cable.
Half way up the mountain there was a siding allowing a second car to go down as we were going up.
Baden-Baden viewed from the mountain station of the bergbahn.
View of Baden-Baden from the top of the mountain. Somewhere near there was skydiving jump off spot.
Unknown town on the opposite side of the mountain from Baden-Baden
Hiking trail in Black Forest.
Black Forest
On the way back we stopped off in the center of town.
Taste of Baden-Baden set up on the grounds of the casino.
I'm not sure what it is; but the statues is of Kaiser Wilhelm.
Waiting for the bus back to the train station
When our train arrived in Munich at 10:26PM, there were two surprises. First, we were able to board the overnight train immediately even though it wouldn't depart until 11:23. I was asleep before the train departed.
Secondly, I thought I had booked an Austrian railways NightJet with its repurposed equipment from the defunct DB CityNightLine. Instead it was an older style Euro Night.
I'm not sure about the other sections; but ours was Hungarian. There were 3 other sections that got dropped in Salzburg for Venice, Belgrad, and somewhere I've never heard of.
Sleeping car accomodations on the Hungarian Euro Night. It was much more spacious the newer Austrian cars.
Detraining EN 463 Kalman Imre at Budapest Kelleti station after a good night's sleep
We arrived about an hour late; but that was not a problem because we had all day.
A very nice feature of the Kelleti train station in Budapest is the office of the public transportation system at the front door. It was even open on Sunday morning and is identified by the large transit map on the wall. I told the lady where I wanted to go and asked whether Bus 76 was the correct way to go. She said yes and sold me 4 tickets. I was able to pay with credit card, thus avoiding the need to get Forints (Hungary does not used the Euro).
Signs directed us to Bus 76 which dropped us only a short walk to the Amamagna's docking location.
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