Le Vélo et Le Train

This posting is about what makes travel so interesting, the unpredictability.

Approaching Lübeck and becoming less and less enamoured with German footpaths, I thought of catching a train from about 20 km out. At the large town I had intended to do this, I saw no sign to the Bahnhof, so I rode on.

A few miles further my front brakes failed which reinvigorated my train catching plan. I made for another station in a smaller town called Reinfeld where I also thought I might find a repair shop to look at the brakes. In the main street, my gaze fell on a fellow aged bike rider (photo to follow). He was not from this place but he kindly rode around with me asking several people the location of a bike shop. This done he returned to his friend and the coffee stop he had intended.

The problem proved simple to fix so I had time to go back and thank him again. Over a coffee which he bought, we discussed journeys, bikes and gear. They were within a day from home near Kiel after a tour around Germany.

The point of this story, is the proposition of what would have happened if this bike rider had not just "appeared" in my gaze.

Another similar event, the same day was at the train station. It was unmanned and the set of stairs making up the underpass to the central platform looked formidable. My mind was on abandoning the idea but decided to look for someone in this unmanned but formidable looking train station. I pressed a button and a man in lycra opened the door of what looked like a locker room. He told me in perfect English that the train would take a bike and unfortunately the stairs were the only access. He also said that there was a train to Lübeck in a few minutes.

With this encouragement and the adrenalin arising from the soon-to-arrive train, I managed the fully ladened bike down and up the set of underpass stairs to arrive the platform just as the train approached.

As I was about to board the train, I looked over to the station building and the man in lycra came out and we gave each other the thumbs up! Why was he there? I will never know, but there he was!

In ten minutes, I was in the centre of Lübeck and in another 30 minutes looking out onto this view ( photo later). This is the very comfortable Hotel Jensen in the heart of the old city.