Bodensee & Danube by boat to Budapest 2022: 3 - Lindau to Deggendorf Germany

Thursday, June 2, 2022

I extracted our car from below ground then to the hotel to load. The GPS system soon had us out of Lindau and on to the autobahn back in the direction of Munich. Marilynn has become comfortable with my chosen cruising speed of 140 km/hr. Cars were still flashing past me.

Close to Munich we headed off onto the highway to Landau an der Isar, where the Thrifty car return map showed the railway station. When we found the station there was no Thrifty, and no one we asked knew where it was. After a few miles of driving around the small town Marilynn spotted a Hertz sign, leading to a residential area. The fellow on duty called the Hertz main office who said we were two hours late getting the car back and to charge for another day.

Eventually they accept their invoice that said 3 PM return - it was only noon. The fellow from Hertz drove us to the station, where we had lunch before sitting on the station platform to wait for the train. A kindly fellow pointed out that we were sitting where trains going the opposite direction to Deggendorf stopped. He also said the trains run every hour and not to worry about our tickets being for a train in another hour.

There were quite a few people waiting when the train rolled in a few minutes later. When the door opened many hand grabbed me and my suitcase and literally shot me up the stops into the train, What a big difference between the people here and those in Lindau! The train was packed, and our first class tickets meant nothing as there were no first class coaches. Nothing was said about our tickets being for a later train.

When we changed trains in only a few minutes the assistance was repeated, and over my protests a women insisted I have her seat. It was a 6 minute train trip to Deggendorf, where we found a taxi to take us to the boat.

We were dazzled by the layout of the very long boat, and speechless when we saw our stateroom. There was everything one could wish for. A separate room from the bathroom for a toilet and sink, and the bathroom had two sinks, each with every bathroom amenity one could want including separate coloured towels and facecloths so we didn't use each others. There were lots of closets and cupboards, a sofa, two chairs and a table plus a desk and working area plus 2 large screen TVs, one in the bedroom the other in the living room. By pressing 9 a request for anything would have it to the room in minutes. The river side wall had two floor to ceiling windows about a meter apart, one for the living room and one for the bedroom. These were each about 3 meters wide with a sliding glass door in each half the width. When open a sturdy railing kept a person from falling into the river. The bedroom had two good side beds where one could lay and look out the window. Everything in the rest of the ship was first class, including the food and staff.

When we had settled in the ship was underway, heading for the City of Passau. We went through the first of several big locks that maintain the level of the river constant between locks, thus avoiding both low water and floods.

We were tired, so snuggled into our comfortable beds early.