(Saturday, Sept. 12)
As we leave Leipzig, the weather was sunny with a few puffy clouds in the sky. The forecast for Sunday, when we will tour Munich with a private guide, looks good. But after that it may rain or shower for the next few days.
At 1:15 pm we are rocketing at 120 KPH through the countryside. Our last stop was at Erfurt where there is a large IKEA distribution center and large containers designed to carry goods aboard ships line the railroad tracks. We pass through small town stations without stopping and at a speed that leaves the station name boards a blue and white smear as we fly by. I just spotted the Golden Arches of a McDonald’s restaurant so we must be nearing a city that is much larger than the villages that we’ve past in the last hour or so, but the Germans do not seem to put the town names on the end of train stations as is often the case in Italy. Announcements (given in German and English) are periodically made over the train’s PA system, although I can never quite catch the place names.
The countryside is a mix of small towns and farms spreading across rolling hills. Corn is grown here and there. Unlike California in September, the grassy hillsides where the odd cow grazes are bright green. Larger mountains rise in the distance. The scenery is much the same as we saw during our train ride from Vienna to Salzburg three years ago.
With over three hours to go until we reach Munich, but my netbook’s short battery life will soon force me to shut down the computer until we reach our hotel and a source of A/C power (about the only thing, plus Wi-Fi, that is missing on this train). We’ve now reached Fulda and are stopping for a few minutes to drop off and pick up passengers (one of whom is apparently going to join us in our cubicle) before resuming our speedy journey south to Bavaria.
