O Tannenbaum - A tour of German Christmas Markets and other spots

[OZDUCK]

We fly out today for a 37 day trip to Europe. The plan is to do a circuit starting from Frankfurt down to Salzburg up to Leipzig and then depart from Frankfurt. We fly QF economy to Singapore, Vietnam Airlines in J to Frankfurt via Vietnam and then reverse the route back to Singapore. Our last leg is in SQ J on a points redemption. Initially we had booked on Oman Air out of KL with the connecting legs for Perth on MH. Oman cancelled our flights so we had to a quick workaround to get the current schedule. Vietnam Airlines has changed the times of all four of our flights, cancelled one and caused an misconnection with another. We have also lost our preselected seats on the first leg and are now in two aisle seats. The plane is full as they amalgamated two flights. The trip is now about 9 hours longer than when we booked. D Bahn has also cancelled two of our booked trains so the transport legs are off to a good start.

I have struggled in the past to do a 'live' trip report so will mainly just be posting updates and some photos until we return. Of course the long winter nights, rain and cold might give me plenty of inside time to do some updates.

 

[Cossie]

Looking forward to this TR. Dresden if you get the chance and my favourite city in Germany, Goerlitz, also Meissen and Quedlingberg.

48 hours in Görlitz – welcome to an urban open-air stage

Germany’s easternmost town is full of stunning architecture spanning 500 years: discover this historic marvel on a long weekend with our insider tips!

visitsaxony.com

Christmas markets tour is on our todo list as well, there are many small shops that sell locally made Christmas items all year round, always fun to visit.

 

[tgh]

Swmbo reminds me that we have "done" a Xmas tour of Rothenburg et al...and pls stop rambling on about doing another..
Her view is that once done.. thats it.. no returns permitted...
Passes my mind that this visit was with our young children, probably close to 30 years age...
sigh.. the crosses we must bear….

 

[RooFlyer]

Planning to do (mainly German) Christmas markets next year, so will be following along with interest

 

[OZDUCK]

We have made it into the departure 'lounge' - no Business Lounge for us alas. QF didn't seem interested in my $700 offer for an upgrade. There were plenty of machines available to drop our bags off and the whole process took less than 10 minutes. Being the Qantas terminal we had to go through both domestic and international security. It took about 2 minutes for the domestic process. Everything remained in the bag but belts off. The scanner was the stand with arms spread type. For international, about 4 minutes, the laptop had to come off but the belt stayed on. This was a walk through slowly type of scanner. My wife had to have a second scan and her knee patted. Apparently her jeans must have been a bit thick there. My passport worked at the Border Force machine but my wife had to be manually processed. The longest delay was having a chat with the TRS officer about my days in Customs.

 

[jbman]

If you get a chance, please go to The Hellbrunn Adventzauber | Schloss Hellbrunn, Salzburg in Salzbur. Well worth a visit

 

[Black Duck]

I hope your flights, etc, settle down and everything from here on goes smoothly. Have a great Christmas.

 

[OZDUCK]

If you get a chance, please go to The Hellbrunn Adventzauber | Schloss Hellbrunn, Salzburg in Salzbur. Well worth a visit

I have made a note and if possible we will go there. We have 5 nights in Salzburg.

 

[OZDUCK]

As we are just staying in tonight I will post the first lot of photos.

We left about 40 minutes late after boarding didn't start until about 20 minutes before the scheduled departure time. Premium pax were called up first and there was a 5 - 10 minute gap before rows 45 up were called up. We were in row 44 and our boarding pass was scanned at about the scheduled departure time.

Our plane - QF71 - an A330-200. In economy we had tablets.



Takeoff with the QF terminal in view



Optus Stadium in the distance



Perth CBD



Rottnest Island



Sea Views - with some colours



We were in exit row 44A & B

Legroom - the shiny object by my feet is my wifes tray table. As she pulled it out is fell apart and the crew could not get it back together. She ate off a tray. More about this later



Food - peppered chicken with warm herb bread. We got a Lemon Lime Splice later. It does not look special but tasted extremely nice. Far better than the Hainan Chicken Rice I had in SQ J from Book the Cook. Unlike the SQ chicken it was moist and flavorful.

 

[OZDUCK]

As regards the flight, the plane was in urgent need of refurbishment. Apart from the self destruction of the tray table nothing worked well. One of the crew was talking to us and said that many seats were broken, there were not enough working tablets for the pax and the ovens were playing up. Several of the crew were obviously annoyed with the state of the aircraft.

As regards the cabin crew they were possibly the best I have ever experienced. Certainly so for an economy cabin. They were cheerful, helpful and very pleasant to deal with. When we were served coffee my wife had to hold her cup as she had no tray table and the FA opened the sachets and put the sugar and milk in and stirred it for her. Then what appeared to be the Senior FA came around and said that because of the problem with the tray table we would receive a $50 voucher for wine or a hotel. And yes, I definitely leave a glowing comment about them on the QF site.

 

[OZDUCK]

We ended up arriving in Singapore over an hour late. Our late departure was made worse by a big storm in Singapore that caused about a 40 minute landing delay. We got into the Village Hotel in Changi Village at about 19:30.

Our room. It is old fashioned but clean and big for Singapore



There is a blind to pull down to hide the bathroom. Unfortunately it does have a 'shrub'.



We had tea at the Changi Hawkers Market. Most of the stalls were closed by the time we got there.



My wife had fried Hokkien Noodles with a Lime Juice. It looks a bit odd but tasted fine.



I had Satay and a couple of Chicken Wings - with a Tiger.




On the way back to the hotel I managed to get my compulsory pavement dive on holidays out of the way early. We were walking from a dark footpath into a bright food hall and neither of us saw a small step down. I did a 1 1/2 pike onto the ground. Luckily only my pride was hurt. A stallholder rushed over and gave me a glass of water and a couple of police also asked if I was ok. I was too focused on looking ahead at the food rather than my feet. My wife also stumbled a bit but retained her dignity. There was no permanent injury from my clumsiness.

 

[Major]

We have stayed at the Changi Village Hotel a couple of times. It's good value and had a shuttle to/from the Airport last time we were there.

 

[OZDUCK]

We have stayed at the Changi Village Hotel a couple of times. It's good value and had a shuttle to/from the Airport last time we were there.

Yes, the shuttle bus is operating. We used it to get back to the airport.

 

[Flyfrequently]

On the way back to the hotel I managed to get my compulsory pavement dive on holidays out of the way early. We were walking from a dark footpath into a bright food hall and neither of us saw a small step down. I did a 1 1/2 pike onto the ground. Luckily only my pride was hurt. A stallholder rushed over and gave me a glass of water and a couple of police also asked if I was ok. I was too focused on looking ahead at the food rather than my feet. My wife also stumbled a bit but retained her dignity. There was no permanent injury from my clclumsiness.

Oh dear @OZDUCK (shades if my mis- step at Lisboa airport - so easy to do)
Glad no ongoing impairment

 

[OZDUCK]

Oh dear @OZDUCK (shades if my mis- step at Lisboa airport - so easy to do)
Glad no ongoing impairment

Thank you I am fine. My wife has now fallen over twice - not something she does normally. Once in a pitch black Frankfurt St over one of those Devil's works - an abandoned electric hire scooter. And last night over a hidden curb. This time she fell in soft snow and the conditions were somewhat tricky. She is also fine.

Walking out for our meal -

 

[Flashback]

How did you end up dealing with DB to sort out the trains? My folks train from Stuttgart back to Berlin in a few days says the connection is cancelled, but doesn't show which train is cancelled nor given them an option to choose a reschedule either via the app or online. Will we need to swing by a DB station to try sort out in the next day or so?

Looks like we're not far from each other at the moment, although we're over near the French border now in the Black Forest region.

 

[I love to travel]

Yes, the shuttle bus is operating. We used it to get back to the airport.

Is it quiet?

 

[OZDUCK]

How did you end up dealing with DB to sort out the trains? My folks train from Stuttgart back to Berlin in a few days says the connection is cancelled, but doesn't show which train is cancelled nor given them an option to choose a reschedule either via the app or online. Will we need to swing by a DB station to try sort out in the next day or so?

Looks like we're not far from each other at the moment, although we're over near the French border now in the Black Forest region.

Yes we are not too far apart but we are heading east to Salzburg today - if the local trains are running. The small private train out of here did not run yesterday.

If your train is cancelled, like one of ours was, you can take any other DB train on the same route in the same class on that day - actually up to 10:00 the next day. The DB site says you should get a written endorsement but also says that this is not essential. We just showed our old ticket, on the phone app to the conductor. When ours was cancelled the system never offered an alternative

Go to the DB site and see what trains are doing the Stuttgart - Berlin run and use the most convenient one. As it is such a long trip I would book seats for the few Euros it costs. You can buy seat reservations separately to the train ticket by selecting that option at the starting screen.

If possible I would book seats on one of the direct trains.

The DB rules for cancelled trains are here

Was bedeutet Zugbindung?

www.bahn.de

 

[OZDUCK]

Is it quiet?

Seemed very quiet there were only about 8 on the shuttle, 18 seater, at around 09:15.

 

[Flashback]

Yes we are not too far apart but we are heading east to Salzburg today - if the local trains are running. The small private train out of here did not run yesterday.

If your train is cancelled, like one of ours was, you can take any other DB train on the same route in the same class on that day - actually up to 10:00 the next day. The DB site says you should get a written endorsement but also says that this is not essential. We just showed our old ticket, on the phone app to the conductor. When ours was cancelled the system never offered an alternative

Go to the DB site and see what trains are doing the Stuttgart - Berlin run and use the most convenient one. As it is such a long trip I would book seats for the few Euros it costs. You can buy seat reservations separately to the train ticket by selecting that option at the starting screen.

If possible I would book seats on one of the direct trains.

The DB rules for cancelled trains are here

Was bedeutet Zugbindung?

www.bahn.de

That is of brilliant help, thank you!