Locomore is running trains between Stuttgart and Berlin again

The private train operator Locomore has started up again and is operating in cooperation with Flixbus. You can book your tickets on the Flixbus website: www.flixbus.com. Prices are less than the Deutsche Bahn but the journey is slightly slower than with DB.

Electro Cargo Bikes for Hire in Cologne

I came to Germany about 40 years ago. At that time most German young men drank beer. If a visitor came round it was usual to offer them a bottle of beer, so every two or three weeks one would buy a crate of beer. In those far off days one normally used a car in order to drive to an out of town supermarket to pick up the beer. Trolleys, bike trailers and cargo bikes were unknown. I did not have a car so would walk round to a local shop and stagger back with 20 bottle crate causing my fingers to gradually numb. These days we drink about a crate of beer annually and now there is a possibilty of hiring an electro-cargo bike, in Cologne at least: www.donk-ee.de.

Beer soft drink mixtures for cyclists Part II

We spent a week in Oberstdorf way down south in Bavaria recently and I tried a Russenhalbe. This is a mixture of Weizenbier and lemonade. Avoid it like the plague. It is dreadful.

Reducing air pollution in city centres. Finding room for cycle ways in cities.

Mannheim like many German, nay, European cities is looking to the bicycle as a way to reduce air pollution levels. The idea is to reduce the number of not only diesel powered vehicles on the road in the city centre. New cycle ways are planned, both in city streets and as bike-bahns, bicycle super highways. There are a number of new cycle ways in Mannheim and those that are in city streets take up room that could be utilised by motor traffic, shock horror! Opposition to these measures normally fall in to two classes, either suggesting a different, more inconvenient route along quieter city streets running parallel to a direct route or the end of civilization as we know it argument, that the measures will make shopping in the city centre so inconvenient, that customers will go elsewhere. The latter argument falls down when one notices that many people, us two for example, use public transport to visit the city to buy clothing and outdoor gear. If we decided to buy furniture or white goods - fridge or washing machine we'd have it delivered.
The one thing that most of the petrol heads miss is that although they might be slightly delayed driving their status symbol into Mannheim to find a parking spot or coughing up the tram fare to park the beast, there will be 10 or 15% fewer cars on the road. This will mean the delay will be less. In view of the air quality in cities all the world, there are going be restrictions on the use of cars and we all might as well get used to them.