Sun 29 Apr 2018. Munich to Passau Germany, and Andorf, Austria

Sun 29 Apr 2018. Munich to Passau Germany, and Andorf, Austria

Oh the noise and stuffiness in this pokey room - we’ve never disliked accommodation this much. Last night we found the hotel we were happy in two years ago (with similar name) just a few doors down – it was undergoing renovations behind 10-story dropsheets. No wonder we missed it! Relieved to have a quick breakfast and checkout, lugged our very heavy luggage over to train station. Initially glad we’d booked online because we had no drama trying to understand ticket kiosk BUT when went to show conductor we’d paid on phone, couldn’t open PDF ticket so he could scan code. We showed him email which stated date, destination, train, our names and amount paid - but he wasn’t interested. GirlRob swapped sims to another with data credit - still no luck. Guy in next seat interpreted throughout but conductor insisted we pay again. We (politely) declined and tried to open PDF on BoyRobs phone - same issue. Conductor wandered off to other passengers. GirlRob removed and reinserted BoyRob’s sim, and re-entered new profile, checked still had $25 data credit. Finally success! GirlRob clapped, conductor didn’t even smile as he scanned code and moved on. Checked second train ticket through another company - phew! No problems as it had already been downloaded. 

Arrived in pretty pretty Passau, our favourite German city. Disembarked only to find the luggage lift down under the tracks was “kaput”! So lugged baggage painfully down two flights of stairs to go to toilet, buy lunch, and check which platform for next train. Drat! It was the one we’d landed on! Back to the stairs. Fortunately two fit young men had just carried their bicycles up, looked down at GirlRob with pity, and came to the rescue! How very generous with their youth/ muscles! Had clean, quiet, modern train almost to ourselves for the 5 stops to Andorf. 

Erich and Gina were at station with two two-seater cars to fit us and our luggage and drop to our Gasthaus. On arrival Erich said he was going to work on our vehicle service this arvo if we could give him the spare parts we had brought with us! So right on the pavement BoyRob opened up the strapped suitcase, extracted the oil filter, fuel filter and water filter and Erich happily drove back to Raab, saying he’ll pick us up in the morning. Once more we gathered our bits to check in - to a room on the first floor, without a lift, sigh. It will be a relief to finally separate the camper items and leave them stored in it for the trip to Africa. Lovely bright room overlooking the square and Catholic Church with its impressive somber crucified Christ on the front. Set about sorting out everything we had packed into two piles (1) truck, and (2) onward luggage. Felt good to be ready for the driving leg (albeit we won’t know until tomorrow how the truck has fared since we last left it here in October 2016). 

There was a commotion in our ensuite - we found a pigeon had flown in through the open window and was struggling to escape from the toilet bowl. Poor thing. BoyRob rescued it and set it free (washing thoroughly afterwards of course!) 

Went for a walk to loosen up the travel kinks - nice to re-aquaint ourselves with "our" village. It was a pleasure to meet up with proprietors Heidi and husband Hans the chef again; dinner of fried salmon was ever so tasty. Heidi told us they were closed as usual tomorrow night, but also on Tuesday because of May Day, so GirlRob decided to have their house-specialty apple strudel one last time!