The day started with a simple list of things to do and once these were done, a few vague ideas on things to see and do. We needed to find a bank to get some cash and also book our train trip back to Amerongen. We also wanted to do some shopping, maybe see a castle in Lörrach and the kids wanted to play in the climbing forest.
The return train trip was going to be a bit complicated since we could not make the trip easily in one day. We would need to ride our bikes a few kilometers to the train station, take a series of trains to Amersfoort and finally ride the last 20 kilometers to Amerongen. The only connections available had us arriving in Amersfoort at 10:00 PM. Navigating from Amersfoort to Amerongen was going to be challenging during the day and impossible at night.
We had resolved to make the return trip in two days with an overnight in Düsseldorf. We first traveled from Lörrach to the main German train station in Basel. When we were leaving we forgot to pack the phone which would turn out to be a significant problem. We arrived at the Basel train station in about thirty minutes and were able to confirm with the Deutsches Bundesbahn (DB) that the two day trip would work. We now needed an Internet connection to make hotel reservations in Düsseldorf using my Priority Club points. Since we were in Switzerland we could not easily find a T-Mobile Hotspot and other Internet connections required a mobile phone confirmation. We returned to Lörrach and eventually found a T-Mobile Hotspot. There we were able to make the reservations and complete all our chores except actually buying the train tickets.
I returned to Basel to buy the tickets and the rest of the family returned to the Youth Hostel to experience the Climbing Forest. Both of our experiences were exciting for different reasons. We I returned to the train station, I went to the ticket counter to book the tickets. Everything was going smoothly until the transaction was almost complete. The two previous times I booked train travel, the distinction that our bikes were tandems was not important. I was going on this assumption but I though I should confirm my assumption. It was an important distinction on the IC trains but as I found out not on the RG trains. Tandems required special reservations on a IC train.
The agent was quietly furious with me for mentioning this at the last moment. She was relatively calm but her anger could be seen in the shaking of her hands. She first tried to make the reservations for the tandems but the tandem spots were full. She backed out the entire transaction, which required an extreme amount of stapling and stamping, and pushed my papers back at me.
“It is not possible” the agent stated.
“Can we try another route?” I asked
“I guess we can try” she reluctantly replied.
After some searching we found a night train from Basel to Utrecht and then a short train to Amersfoort. This was a change in plans but it had its benefits. The trip would require a total of two trains, the previous trip required four. The overall travel time was 10 hours overnight not spread out over two days. This meant we had an additional day before and after our train trip. The most important benefit was that the train had space for us and our tandems. I had the choice of a seats at no extra charge, a six person sleeping car for 20 euros per person, a four person sleeping car for 30 euros per person or a 2 person sleeping car for 60 euros per person. Not having any idea what sleeping accommodations were like on German trains, I choose the four person sleeping car hoping it would be reasonable.
“Do you want the upper or lower bunks” the ticketing agent asked.
“We are in a four person sleeping car?” I asked in a puzzled tone. Why would we need to choose bunks in a four person sleeping car?
“Yes you are in a four person sleeping car and there will be two other people in the car with you” Replied the agent.
“I'm booking for four people” I said as a pointed to my papers saying that I needed tickets for two adults, two kids and two tandems.
“I did not see this. We will now have to see if there is room for the two extra people and the extra tandem”
This further rattled the ticketing agent and she started muttering “this is not easy for me”, “you should have let me know earlier about the tandems” and “it is complicated to return train tickets.” Luckily there was room for all of us and our stuff on the train. After about 45 minutes I was booked on a overnight train with the two tandems. I instinctively ducked as I left the ticketing area, expecting a stapler to be thrown my way.
I returned to the Lörrach Youth Hostel to find the kids in the Climbing Forest. The climbing forest is a series of obstacles strung up between trees about 10 to 20 feet in the air. There were many different types of obstacles and a number of zip wires. The kids wore harnesses with two carabiners and traveler for the zip lines. The kids were to always to have two carabiners attached to the safety lines except when they were transferring lines. When they were transferring they would transfer a carabiner at a time. If they followed the rules the climbing forest was actually quite safe. The amazing part was that after a short instruction period, the kids were allowed to enter the forest without supervision. We of course made sure the kids followed all the rules. The kids had a great time climbing through the obstacles and especially zooming along the zip wires. I thought this was a really fun facility and really only required a sloped forest. I'm guessing facilities like this don't exist in North America because of different liability rules. After a few hours of climbing, the kids were exhausted and their hands and forearms were almost useless. The day ended with a good meal at the Youth Hostel, some soccer and a little bit of table tennis.
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