Bodensee & Danube by boat to Budapest 2022: 2 - San Jose Costa Rica to Lindau Germany

Sunday, May 29, 2022

Monika, the general manager of our company, arranged an Uber to pick us up at 7:30 AM for the short trip to the airport. The flight was on time, but the anticipated flat beds in business class were not. In checking, it was my error - there are two types of flights to Costa Rica and I'd selected the wrong one. This was on Air Canada Rouge, the low end of Air Canada, and the stewardess explained that this was a flight given to Rouge to help them out of the financial slump caused by covid. The plane was a very old and well used A319 that had been put back into service. Even in business class my legs were pressed into the seat ahead. Entertainment was on I Pads they handed out. This leaps into the lead for the worst business class flight I've been on.

Due to the flight from San Jose being late leaving and later still arriving in Toronto, instead of a two hour layover we had to dash for the boarding gate for the flight to Munich. Marilynn had arranged for a wheel chair for me, and after being passed over to two other pushers we arrive at our gate just in time to be first onto the Munich overnight flight. This was a different world - very friendly helpful staff, comfortable beds, large screen TV for the large selection of entertainments, great service and food.

Monday, May 30, 2022

We were met by a wheel chair lady from Croatia in Munich. She was great, we had to go all over the airport, and our car rental was literally miles away. The tip I gave her made her eyes bulge out, but Marilynn and I would never have found the place - she was worth ever Euro.

When we tried to pay for the rental car both Marilynn's and my credit cards were declined. The helpful counter lady made a call to someone and the card was then accepted. The car was great and we were soon zipping along the autobahn at 130-140 km/hour guided by the built in GPS system. As there aren't much in the way of fast roads in Costa Rica I was having a great time. We arrive in Lindau on Lake Constance (Bodensee) in a little over 2 hours to sunshine through scattered clouds.

The Helvetia Hotel was very nice, located in front of he port entrance though the breakwater. I paid for parking which was in a garage where once the car was in, it disappeared underground and another empty parking spot took its place. Our reservation had been changed from the Yacht to the hotel due to expected cold and rain. When we saw the yacht, actually a large floating hotel, we were glad we changed. We had an OK dinner, a couple of drinks and went to bed.

Tuesday, May 31, 2022

We both slept late, just making it in time for the very good included buffet breakfast at 9:20. It was after noon when we walked around town, then to a cell phone place to get a sim card. We needed to change US dollars to Euros, but there are no banks and no currency exchange. Here we are with a credit card each from Costa Rica, a debit card each from our bank in Canada plus Canadian & US dollars in cash. but we can't buy any thing or pay the hotel bill because none work here.

Marilynn has a Costa Rican debit card, so she phoned Monika to top it up. Monica also got the bank on to MasterCard and that now works and is all we have to work with.

After a late lunch and beer we headed back to the room where I got some work done. Things certainly weren't going as planned!! We are on an island in the lake, but apparently there is a bank in the main town across the bridge, however I did not want to go through the hassle of extracting our car from the parking place. We ate at the hotel.

Wednesday, June 1, 2022

It was sunny with clear skies for the first time, so we got the car and headed to nearby Austria to drive up a narrow, winding road to an elevation of 1,700 meters (6700 ft). There was a small outdoor bar where we had drinks while looking over the spectacular view of Lake Constance and the twos along the shore. On the left we could see mountains still with a lot of snow. It was well worth the drive. An interesting point was that our credit cards worked perfectly in Austria, so it is only in Germany they were blocked. We loaded up on bottles of wine and snacks to take to the boat tomorrow.

Back in Lindau Marilynn got her Ipad fixed and we walked through the old city which dates aback to 600 AD. Marilynn did a bit of shopping and we returned the car to the parking garage. We had a fabulous meal in one of a number of restaurants in front of the beautiful city hall in light rain. Large umbrellas kept us reasonably dry.

Back at the hotel we were told we could not leave our car where it was even though we would leave first thing in the morning, we had to put it in the underground part. The one elevator the hotel had was not working, so I had to work my shot knees up 4 flights of stairs, stopping to sit for a bit after each flight. We are pretty fed up with the hotel, so after catching up on the computers we went to another restaurant a short walk away in the evening for creme brulet and wine before heading for bed.