DB Cross Country Ticket! 🚂

Recently, Deutsche Bahn has a cross country ticket which allows you to travel all over Germany for a day. The only catch is that you can't use it on ICE trains, so you have to plan your journey well to catch the regional bahn trains, but otherwise it is a great way to see alot of Germany! :D So this was something I decided to do this new year and visited places like Stuttgart and Heidelberg which I've never been to before :) I checked beforehand and the weather was extremely pleasant as well, sunny but cool enough so that it was comfortable to walk...and not snowing/raining :)

The other thing you should do before travelling is to also check the region specific COVID regulations. For example, in Munich (so Bavaria), it is perfectly fine to show your vaccination booklet as proof. However in Stuttgart, they want a pharmacy approved QR code when you visit museums/eateries. The good thing however, is in areas where 2G+ (ie. a negative test) is required, there are sufficient pop-up testing centres available in all the towns for you to get tested rapidly. On that note, recently a campaign using sheep in Hamburg was used to encourage people to get vaccinated :P “Sheep are such likeable animals — maybe they can get the message over better” haha

Article: https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-germany-europe-animals-0261370f3b30d30fb12a215de69dd236

ANYWAY, some cool things I saw that day included the pig museum at Stuttgart though only from the outside cause I didn't have my QR code...but I found the whole concept of such a museum quite amusing : ) Also, there are many lucky charms with pigs on them in Germany! In Heidelberg, I saw many grand and historic structures like a castle atop a hill and a bridge. There is also a long lane in the city centre with an eclectic mix of shops selling unique foods from around the world and handicrafts;- for example Turkish coffee (Mokka) and these snowball cakes. There was also a packaging museum that talks about the history of packaging and the machines invented over time, some unique to Germany like the one used for sealing the ends of sweet rolls. At a stopover I also picked up some really yummy "Nicht Berliner" from a bakery called Zeit for Brot. It's a really yummy cinnamon roll with jam filling.

It was truly a FULL day of travelling and when I returned home though exhausted from all the walking (20,000+ steps ><), it felt like a good break away from Munich. I enjoyed the remnants of Christmas through glühwein, had a really delicious curry pan for lunch from an authentic Japanese bakery I discovered along the way, and even enjoyed some science through pop-up exhibits around the city...especially learning about Otto Hahn & the Max Planck Society at a time when Germany closes down more of its nuclear power plants, something important to me and what I'm studying :)