B & B in Germany

"Paul" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hi there,

My wife and I will be touring in the Neckar Valley area of Germany in
June and intend staying in Bed & Breakfast accommodation. Our german
is virtually nil. Does anyone know if the local Tourist Information
Offices will ring around for us each night, or do we just knock on
doors and use semaphore? What time do we need to arrive somewhere to
be sure of a bed for the night?

There is a link to B+Bs on the Neckar route here:

http://www.germany-tourism.de/biking/route46.html

Info centre tab - accommodation - B+B

When we toured Germany by car, I booked all of my accommodation on the
internet, even small guesthouses. You just then turn up say "Guten Tag" and
hand them the printout from your computer with your details on. If you do it
off the cuff, look out for the sign ""Zimmer Frei" (room free) knock on the
door and say "Zimmer Frei?" They will be used to dealing with all sorts of
nationalities so don't worry.
--
Simon Mason
Anlaby
East Yorkshire.
53°44'N 0°26'W
http://www.simonmason.karoo.net

Quoted message said:

When we toured Germany by car, I booked all of my accommodation on the
internet, even small guesthouses. You just then turn up say "Guten Tag" and
hand them the printout from your computer with your details on. If you do it
off the cuff, look out for the sign ""Zimmer Frei" (room free) knock on the
door and say "Zimmer Frei?" They will be used to dealing with all sorts of
nationalities so don't worry.
--

Yup - I found booking accommodation in Germany easy. When the Unfit Family
stayed in Cologne last year, I booked the accommodation online via the Cologne
Tourist Board. They were very helpful.

Plus, quite a few people in Germany can speak English too.

Also found generally people very friendly if you are at least making the
attempt to speak some basic german - a few phrases are handy at breaking the
ice, so take a phrase book with you :-)

Cheers, helen s

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"dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers" <[email hidden]> wrote in
message

Quoted message said:

Also found generally people very friendly if you are at least making the
attempt to speak some basic german - a few phrases are handy at breaking

the

Quoted message said:

ice, so take a phrase book with you :-)

I must admit it was tough when we went on grand tours of Europe, since I
had to learn bits of French, Dutch, German, Czech , Italian and so on. The
numbers were easy 'cos of my hobby, but people were genuinely pleased when
you said "Dobry Den" to them in Czech when they knew you were British by
your car on the filling station forecourt or wherever.

I didn't bother with Letzeburgesch though, although I now and again watch
Luxembourg TV and it seems everyone there has a French first name and a
German surname, like Guy Weber or Marcel Schulze. Weird.
--
Simon M.

Simon Mason said:

I didn't bother with Letzeburgesch though, although I now and again watch
Luxembourg TV and it seems everyone there has a French first name and a
German surname, like Guy Weber or Marcel Schulze. Weird.

But then, all the hotels and cafes there seemed to be owned by Dutch
anyway...
I had a very confusing bike trip about a decade ago from Amsterdam to
Basel which mostly followed borders, and most of the time the people
didn't speak the language of the country we were in, and seemed to prefer
being paid in the currency of the neighbouring country.

Roos

Wouldn't that be "B&F" (Bett und Fruhstuck)? ;-)

(Paul) of urlhttp://groups.google.com/url said:

My wife and I will be touring in the Neckar Valley area of Germany in
June and intend staying in Bed & Breakfast accommodation. Our german
is virtually nil. Does anyone know if the local Tourist Information
Offices will ring around for us each night, or do we just knock on
doors and use semaphore? What time do we need to arrive somewhere to
be sure of a bed for the night?

A bit of vocabulary for you.
Doppelzimmer = room for two people, quite likely to have one double bed in
Zimmer mit Dusche = room with a bath or shower
WC im Flur = bathroom along the corridor (W is pronounced V, so WC sounds
like vay say)

What time you need to arrive depends enormously on how touristy the area is,
and whether it is school holiday time locally. German states set different
school holidays so they are staggered across the country; some do start as
early as June. What may well limit your cycling time is that most eating
places outside big cities have kitchens that shut at 9pm, so to get a meal
you need to be sitting down ready to eat by 7.30-8.
--
Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit. Henry Brooks Adams
Steph Peters delete invalid from [email hidden]
Tatting, lace & stitching page <http://www.sandbenders.demon.co.uk/index.htm>

[email hidden] (Paul) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Thanks for all the help. Some useful info there! We have our phrase
book ready and will certainly be trying to communicate a little in
german. From previous experience though, you can practice a phrase for
ages, finally use it and be well understood... it's when you get the
reply the trouble starts! All part of the fun though!

Thanks again,

Paul
New Zealand.

(Paul) () said:

[email hidden] (Paul) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Thanks for all the help. Some useful info there! We have our phrase
book ready and will certainly be trying to communicate a little in
german. From previous experience though, you can practice a phrase for
ages, finally use it and be well understood... it's when you get the
reply the trouble starts! All part of the fun though!

"Entschuldigung. Ich bin ein Kiwi. Ein Kiwi, Sie wissen? Ganz-Schwarz?
Lord der Ringe? Walmitfahrer?" :-)

I loved Germany. Great place for cycling, the locals are friendly, the
beer is good and although the tea isn't up to much, the cakes more
than make up for it.
Have a great trip!

--
Matt K
Dunedin, NZ

Paul said:

[email hidden] (Paul) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Thanks for all the help. Some useful info there! We have our phrase
book ready and will certainly be trying to communicate a little in
german. From previous experience though, you can practice a phrase for
ages, finally use it and be well understood... it's when you get the
reply the trouble starts! All part of the fun though!

Thanks again,

Paul
New Zealand.

I don't think you'll have much problem communicating. Most hotel and guest
house owners will speak enough English and local tourist offices certainly
will. It might be a good idea to ring the tourist offices and ask them to
arrange accommodation. I would think you only need to do this in the
morning before your arrival in each destination.

There is a national network of hotels and guest houses that specialise in
bike touring and provide secure bike storage etc. The website is
http://www.bettundbike.de/ but it's all in German. If you speak with
tourist offices you might want to ask to be booked into Bett und Bike
accommodation.

Esterbauer Verlag publishes a wide range of Bikeline cycle touring guides
(http://www.esterbauer.com/). These are mostly in German only, and the
Neckar one certainly is, but the maps are very detailed. Each guide
contains a list of accommodation and, although not shown on the example
pages on the website, it's probably easy enough to understand.

The website itself provides a reasonable amount of information about the
route, unfortunately only in German. It says the following about
accommodation:

"In the upper reaches of the Neckar as far as Tübingen you'll find a only
small number of guest houses and hotels, but this appears to be adequate in
view of the low level of tourism. Accommodation is more expensive in the
Stuttgart metropolis. Along the subsequent Wine Road (Weinstrasse) to
Heilbronn there seems to be a gap between supply and demand: a high number
of tourists means that rooms can get booked out quickly, particularly at
weekends. In this area you should reserve your accommodation by phone
before midday. You shouldn't expect any bottlenecks along the Castle Road
(Burgenstraße)in Odenwald."

Heidelberg is a very popular destination so you should expect problems
there. I suspect that the difficulties referred to along the Wine Road
reach a peak following the grape harvest in Autumn so you might not have
any problems.

--
Michael MacClancy
Random putdown - "He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder
www.macclancy.demon.co.uk
www.macclancy.co.uk