Germany Archives - Rebel Flying

Flight review – Lufthansa Business Class, Frankfurt – Paris, with Senator Lounge Frankfurt

Following a pleasant flight from Punta Cana back to Europe, I had a short connection to make from Frankfurt to Paris CDG.

After 9 hours on board that flight, my first port of call was the Camel smoking lounge, conveniently located airside.

With my nicotine craving satisfied, I headed off to the Lufthansa Senator Lounge, which can be accessed by American Express Platinum card holders travelling in Lufthansa Business Class.

The first thing I wanted was a shower. However, there was a waiting list and I had to pick up a pager to notify me when a shower was available.

In the meantime, I decided to grab a quick coffee.

After a few minutes, my pager bleeped and it was time to check out the shower suites, which were well appointed, spotlessly clean and very welcome after an overnight flight.

The lounge itself was quiet and pleasant with a reasonable breakfast selection and an impressive array of refreshments.

Having already eaten breakfast on my inbound flight and looking forward to lunch on my way to Paris, I contented myself with some rather overcooked sausages, Spanish tortilla and a cheeky Rum & Coke.

On arrival at the gate, I noticed that the flight had been delayed for 30 minutes and there wasn’t actually an aircraft at the gate.

This was soon rectified.

Once on board, I settled into seat 2C, which is a bulkhead aisle seat and probably the best seat in Lufthansa’s short-haul configuration. Although it is the usual intra-European business class standard of economy seating with a blocked middle, it offered extra legroom and was perfectly acceptable for this very short flight.

Shortly after take-off, I was served a light lunch of salmon and a glass of German Riesling.

The salmon was tasty and wonderfully fresh and the Riesling, although sweeter than my usual choice of whites, paired well with it.

Very soon after I finished lunch, we were on final descent to CDG and the flight was over in the blink of an eye, a pleasant way to round off a 6-week trip.

Flight review – Eurowings Discover Business Class, Punta Cana – Frankfurt

Following a delightful trip to the Dominican Republic and the USA it was time to return briefly to Europe.

This was done using Eurowings Discover’s long-haul business class, purchased as the return half of a round trip from Paris, which included a superb outbound flight on Air Canada.

My flight was scheduled from Punta Cana at 19:10, landing at 09:30 in Frankfurt. I found this to be more or less an optimal timing for an eastbound overnighter, as it allowed me a couple of hours after take-off to enjoy dinner and a few drinks before settling down for a decent few hours of sleep.

My evening started at the VIP Lounge Terminal A, which is a basic, catch-all contract lounge used by a number of airlines as well as Priority Pass. Although the lounge was nothing special, it was a perfectly decent place to wait and enjoy a couple of pre-flight beers.

Once on board, I took my seat in the centre pair of the 2-2-2 configured business class cabin. In this configuration, I always prefer the centre pair of seats, as it offers direct aisle access to both passengers and avoids the annoying “climbover factor”. As it happened, I was pleasantly surprised not to have a seat neighbour, which proved advantageous later.

Nuts and aperitifs were served shortly after take-off. I opted for a glass of the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, which was served nicely chilled.

Dinner followed soon after with a choice of courses and a reasonable wine and cocktail list.

I chose the serrano ham to start, which was decently presented and fresh, served with another glass of the Sauvignon Blanc.

The beef tenderloin was my choice for the main, accompanied by the Argentinian Malbec. Beef is often not a good choice on flights, as it is nearly always overcooked. Whilst this was no exception, it was still tender and tasty.

I rounded off the meal with the cheese platter and some more of the Malbec.

After a few cognacs, I reclined the seat into flatbed mode and settled down to sleep.

Although it felt rather narrow, the bed was comfortable enough to sleep reasonably. The one thing I noticed was the foot space was rather small and angled toward the neighbouring seat.

As the seat next to me was unoccupied, I was easily able to slide one of my size 12s over to the other side of the divider, but the configuration could have been awkward if both seats had been occupied.

I managed around 4 hours of decent sleep and awoke around an hour and a half before landing, ready for breakfast.

Breakfast was a Spanish tortilla, served with bread, cheese and fruit, along with orange juice and coffee.

We landed a little ahead of schedule in Frankfurt, with more than enough time to catch my connecting flight to Paris, which will be the subject of my next review.

This Eurowings Discover flight exceeded my expectations. While the hard product is decidedly mid-table in business class terms, the service was friendly and attentive. I had a comfortable flight with a decent meal and a good few hours of sleep. I arrived in Frankfurt ready for the day ahead. For a little over £1,000 ($1,300) for a transatlantic round trip, I couldn’t ask for more than that.

Germany – large scale transport strikes

25 March 2023
by thebouncer

Anyone who is planning on travelling to or from Germany in the next few days may wish to reconsider their plans.

Several transport unions have announced plans to paralyse the country’s transport networks this coming Monday, March 27.

AIRPORTS

No flights will operate from Munich Airport for two days, Sunday 26/03 and Monday 27/03. Disruption is likely to continue into Tuesday.

Frankfurt Airport will be closed to all regular flights on Monday and it is reasonable to expect sone cancellations starting on Sunday evening.

Stuttgart and Bremen airports have also announced they will be closing all day Monday, with Düsseldorf Airport warning of severe disruption “in the unlikely event” that your flight is actually running.

LONG DISTANCE TRAINS

Deutsche Bahn has announced that there will be no long distance trains running on Monday throughout Germany.

Disruption is expected to begin on Sunday evening and run into Tuesday as trains and crew will be out of position.

REGIONAL TRAINS

Deutsche Bahn is expected to run very few regional trains on Monday and travellers can count themselves very lucky if any services are operating on their intended route.

LOCAL TRANSPORT

Unions in seven of Germany’s 16 federal states are involved in strike action, affecting services in Bavaria, Baden Württemberg, Saxony, Lower Saxony, Nordrhein-Westphalia, Rheinland-Palatine and Hesse.

CONCLUSION

This is the largest scale transport strike action in Germany for some decades and will cause extreme disruption to transport networks.

Travellers should expect to be unable to reach their destinations using flights or trains.

Flixbus services may be an alternative, but are likely to be very heavily in demand. I tried several searches for connections between several major German cities and found that many are already showing “almost full”.

My recommendation is that if you absolutely must travel in Germany on Monday, a rental car is going to be the most reliable option.

In all honesty, however, if you are in a position to postpone or cancel your visit, or to choose an alternative destination, my advise is to do so.

If you have any questions or further information on the upcoming strike action in Germany, please visit the Germany forum.

Bavaria drops masks on public transport

As of yesterday, the German state of Bavaria has finally dropped the mask mandate on local public transport, after two and a half years.

Along with Spain, Germany has been the most mask manic country in the western world and has continued to enforce the slavish dogma with an iron fist while every one of its neighbours has tacitly admitted the futility and failure of the measure.

Bavaria now joins Saxony-Anhalt in once again allowing freeface travel on buses and local trains.

It must be noted, however, that long distance trains fall under the remit of the federal government, which is still stubbornly dragging its heels and insisting on FFP2 beaks being religiously worn.

Fortunately for libertarian travellers, there is a very simple workaround to this.

All buses, trams and city U-Bahn and S-Bahn services are now freeface.

Trains are split into regional services (coded RB or RE), on which gag rags are no longer required.

Forced muzzling still applies on InterCity, EuroCity and InterCity Express services (coded IC, EC, and ICE).

Just like travelling on a cheap LänderTicket, avoid anything with a “C” in the train number.

With all this in mind, a simple city break in Munich and a trip to the Christmas markets should once again be back on the menu for non-adherents of the mask cult.

It is good to see this positive move in Bavaria. Germany is a country I have been very fond of for many years and I have been dismayed to witness first hand some of the disgraceful behaviour that has taken place there in the last few years.

Hopefully this belated outbreak of sanity will quickly spread to other states and sufficient pressure can be put on the federal regime to finally put an end to the misery.

Trip review – Lake Constance

Lake Constance, nestled between Germany, Austria and Switzerland, encapsulates the contrast between the rugged landscape of the Alps and the gentle serenity of the lake waters. It is truly area of stunning natural beauty and I consider myself privileged to have lived there for nine years.

However, over the last two years, the region has been subject to some of the most brutal covid restrictions in Europe, leading me to spend much of that time away from home. Those restrictions ended in Switzerland several weeks ago and on June 1, Austria finally let go of one of the last hangovers of the covid panic, the mask mandate for public transport and everyday shopping.

I decided to fly down from my temporary base in Stockholm to see how fully this new found freedom was being embraced. I was pleasantly surprised.

My trip started with a flight to Zürich on Swiss, which no longer forces passengers to wear a mask. The airport in Zürich was also mask free, as was the 80-minute train journey to my home in Bregenz, Austria.

During my visit, I checked out the situation in all three countries bordering the lake, beginning with a walk along the Austrian shoreline, from Bregenz to Lochau.

This section is one of the more picturesque walks in the region and hugs the shoreline for several kilometres.

The rigours of the last two years seemed a lifetime away.

My next stop was the Swiss lakeside town of Rorschach, an easy 35 minute train journey away. The journey was entirely mask free and there were no formalities required to enter Switzerland.

Rorschach was exactly as I remembered it from the pre-covid days.

I then headed off to visit my former workplace in Lindau, Germany. This is a relaxing one-hour cruise on one of the famous Lake Constance ships, which ply many routes around the lake to ports in all three countries.

Lindau was as charming as ever, with the rigours of the last two years seemingly forgotten.

Technically, the Bavarian mask mandate still applies to the first five minutes or so of the train journey back to Austria, but I observed only around 50% compliance and zero enforcement by the Austrian train crew.

On my last day of the trip, with one of the infamous Lake Constance thunderstorms rolling in, I headed off on the excellent new Swiss InterCity train to spend the day in Zürich before my flight back to Stockholm.

Overall, this was a successful and enjoyable trip. Switzerland has been restriction free for several weeks now and has returned entirely to pre-covid normality. Austria has now returned to every day normality and Germany seems not to be far behind.

However, it remains to be seen how long the new found freedom in this region will last.

Switzerland has generally been the least restricted of the three countries throughout the pandemic, and I am now reasonably confident that they, at least, have finally emerged from the panic and will not slip back into the restrictions.

Austria and Germany, however, have been somewhat stricter throughout and witnessing first hand how fully the restrictions were accepted and even embraced on a societal level was unsettling, to say the least. With that said, there seems, at least currently, little appetite in the general populations for a return to those restrictions. I remain optimistic, at least for the summer months.

In conclusion, I would highly recommend a visit to this stunning region, to which no written account can do full justice. Unfortunately, I did not have time on this short trip to enjoy the many other delightful areas of the lakeside, such as the pretty sailing town of Langenargen, the castle and wine region around Meersburg and the eponymous historical town of Konstanz. Hopefully I can cover those areas later in the summer.