Second breakfast is sachertorte at the Demel Bakery. We sit outside watching people from all over the world pass by. My iced Turkish coffee is 1000% superior to any of the hotel coffee we’ve had on the trip. We tour the Sisi Museum in the Hapsburg Palace. It is moderately interesting but somewhat spoiled by visitors clogging the corridors as they stop and listen to electronic audio guides. I again struggle to not crush children and small Japanese men.

I wake up coughing. My throat has been destroyed by the second-hand smoke from last night. Breakfast is again lunch meat and hard boiled eggs, but I find the bread and jam hidden behind one of the food baskets. The jam is the friendliest employee at the hotel’s restaurant. Several in the group have acquired new luggage that comes close to overwhelming the trailer being pulled behind today’s transport. “This group has set a new record for most luggage.

Breakfast is lunch meat and hard boiled eggs. The waitress is less than enthused that we exist on the same planet as her. She jabs a finger at a table and grunts “Coffee or Tea?” I smile at her and she scowls back. “Water, please.” After breakfast, six of us meet for a bike ride. We are ported to a hill several kilometers from town and dropped off with 18-speed bikes and helmets.

Our guide said “Student Agency Bus” and I immediately envisioned a big yellow school bus with sliced-up seats. The bus that meets us is instead a two-story land yacht with video screens and drink service. The ride is un-notable with the exception of our arrival in Český Krumlov at which point the stewardess curtly informs everyone to “Get off bus, now.” Český Krumlov was effectively frozen in time during the 1600s but fell into disrepair during the Communist era.

We arrive at Prague Castle before opening time and take pictures from the courtyard. A man in anachronistic chainmail poses for the group, checking his phone between photos. The skyline of Prague is diminished by an ill-placed Starbucks. We are among the first waves of tourists to enter the castle grounds for the day. I do my best not to step on any small children or Asian people as we shuffle through St.

The train from Munich to Prague is not as nice as the other trains we’ve been on. It is decorated in early 90’s pastels and many of the knobs and gewgaws appear to be broken. My efforts to open the window fail until an hour into the trip when another passenger recommends pulling down on only one side of the window. This does the trick and the breeze makes our ride much more enjoyable.

The train rocks gently south toward Füssen. Solar panels seem to cover the roof of every building and a quarter of the fields we pass by. So far the S-Bahn is my favorite thing about Germany – I wish the US had a functioning mass-transit system. It’s a short bus ride from Füssen to Hohenschwangau at the foot of the Alps. Schloss Neuschwanstein and cigarette smoke greet us at the bus terminal.

We walk out of the train station and into the heat of the day. I pull up a map on my phone and look around for landmarks to orient myself. Which way is north? I’m thirsty but the water I bought in the station is undrinkable. “Mit Kohlensäure” is not the same as “Ohne Kohlensäure”, but my sleepy, post-flight German is weak – not that my non-sleepy German is much better.

Motel 8 breakfast consists of overcooked eggs & sausage, a small container of yogurt, and watching a woman from the English Midlands scream at the hotel kitchen staff “to do their fucking job” upon being unable to get coffee out of a carafe. After she storms out, Terry turns to the small woman who had just gotten yelled at and tells her he thought she was doing a great job.

I wake feeling better rested than any other night on the trip – perhaps due to a combination of a slightly warmer night and setting up the tent on a comfortable slope. There is no more sausage and we are forced to fall back to oatmeal. Historically, this is the fork in the road that leads to either a return to civilization or the Donner Party. We will return to civilization later in the day… hopefully.