The summation of today is when it rains it pours.
As part of our stay in Bayerisch Eisenstein we each received a complimentary “Bayerwald-Ticket und GUTi” card that entitles us to free use of the Waldbahn rail network, local buses and discounts at a number of the key attractions in the region. Today we made use of the free rail travel to head to Waldspielgelände Spiegelau, a 50-hectare adventure area in the Bavarian Forest National Park.
The local train station in Bayerisch Eisenstein is quite unique in that it is actually two adjoining stations back-to-back, with the Bayerisch Eisenstein platforms in Germany and the Železná Ruda-Alžbětín platforms across the border in the Czech Republic. From 1953 until June 1991 the rail line was severed and a fence divided the station and rail tracks, but today there is a simple red line marking the border.
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| Country plaques. |
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Stepping into the Czech Republic.
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The Waldbahn (Forest Train) network is centred around Zwiesel station with all trains arriving and departing within a short 10-minute window of time each hour allowing for a multitude of connections. It must be a German thing as it was just the same last year at Halberstadt when catching the train to Quedlinburg, the station was empty then all of a sudden trains arrive for all destinations. Today we changed at Zwiesel from the WBA 1 to the WBA 3 line to reach Spiegelau.
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| Our Waldbahn train to Zwiesel. |
We didn’t get to explore as much of Waldspielgelände Spiegelau as we wanted to since the entrance was by the start of the adventure playground that immediately took the kids attention and not too long after arriving a rain storm arrived and seemed to settle for quite some time over the national park. This didn’t stop the kids having fun though and we still had a pleasant stroll through the woodland.
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| Lots of climbing to keep our monkeys happy. |
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| Paloma making the best use of her time whilst sheltering from the storm. |
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| Walking in the woods. |
However, with the weather still not great at this time and the trains back departing only once every two hours, we decided to cut short our trip and head back to Bayerisch Eisenstein where, at least when we arrived, the weather looked much better.
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| Looking sleepy on the first train home. |
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Entertainment on the second train for the kids.
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After a quick mid-afternoon drink and snack in a pub next-door to the station we walked back to the holiday apartments in sunshine with the plan to cook a BBQ for dinner, little did we expect the sudden change in weather that was to follow. Out of nowhere came a sudden downpour of hail and this then turned into a couple of hours of thunder storms putting the BBQ in doubt. Jana and Petr however were determined that we would get to have our alfresco meal and as predicted by the weather radar app on Petr’s phone the rain did stop close to 7pm so whilst the kids made the most of a delayed bedtime playing in the garden, we enjoyed a selection of different sausages cooked on the BBQ.
Blogged by Matt.
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