It is 4:45 Am and I have no idea where the fuck I am. Holzkirchen reads the sign above my head, but the town is sleepy at this hour. If I had some wi-fi I would have already educated myself with the wikipedia version of this small town’s history. I have now been sitting on this platform for the last 3 hours, patiently waiting the 5:05 train to Rosenheim. Butt on hard concrete, eyes on a shitty heist movie on top of some bike boxes (note: “Takers” – fucking terrible). A sleepy looking conductor finally rolls past, I am sure he thinks that we’ve just arrived, and within 10 minutes, we are on our way.
It’s hour 22 of our journey that started in the haze of a hangover, our last night in the party village known as Chatel. I was smart enough to slow down my personal celebration of the weekends events. My travel mates are not so lucky, they are both in rough shape but one is feeling relaxed from a midnight dip in a cold jacuzzi and the other is feeling good about his pool game. They are both going to feel sour after the twisty drive that our french shuttle driver speeds through with little regard to the separation between the left and right lane.
We arrive at Geneva International Aeroporte and say our goodbyes to those that are flying home, my travel mates and I head to the rental car area fully intent on hiring a car at the last possible minute. Of course we have 4 bike boxes and and 3 large bags, plus backpacks, so we need something rather north american in size. Nothing available. A quick decision is made, we’ll travel by train to Linz, our original destination when we awoke at 7 am. Train travel seems like a novel idea, quick, cheap and very european in nature. Tickets are purchased, and overpriced food is eaten. I get a bad feeling about our tickets and the ability to take the amount of luggage that we have, on any train. I quickly check with a travel agent, who spoke perfect english, but appreciated my attempt to converse with my limited french. She informs me that we would have been fucked had we actually tried to board the train due to it having very limited baggage restrictions – not much more then a purse or backpack.
I blamed it on an inadequate ticket agent, and not our own stupidity in failing to mention that we had more bikes than people, after an hour of refunding our tickets, she informed us that all Trains in the next two days that connected to Linz, would have the same baggage requirements. We decide to just wing it and head to Munich, which is cheap(ish) and is bike friendly. We’ll decided along the way whether we want to head to Linz in the end, or just go straight to Saalbach. 7 Hours later we’re in Munich with hardly a game plan, nor any idea of what to do, the amazing race would eat us alive. I quickly check a electronic ticket agent and discover that we can take a route to Leogang (around the corner from Saalbach) with 4 or 5 transfers. It leaves immediately, so we hurry to buy tickets. The machine, not liking Mark at all, decides to slow us down, but we make it. 1:42 AM rolls around and we end up taking a subway style commuter train all the way to edge of the Munich suburbs where we find ourselves sitting on a train platform for the majority of the evening.
The commuter train to Rosenheim finally arrives and it’s a short 42 minute trip, we all doze off and nearly miss our stop, luckily it is the terminus. Up next is 32 minute journey to Kufstein, then the 10 minute Journey to Wörgl, we change and finally get on our last train to Leogang. It is the longest train ride, and an hour and a half, but it’ll get us “around the corner” from our destination in Saalbach. It is finally time to exit the last train, we hop off and find ourselves on the hill high above Leogang at a deserted train station. Awesome. Eventually a postman rolls by and Geoff flags him down, we ask if he can call for a van taxi and he comes through. A large Volkswagen van rolls up a short time later, our non english speaking driver is whisking us away to our final destination in Saalbach. Originally thought, by our most experienced traveler, to be around the corner, it slowly reveals that it is actually 25 kilometres way, a 70 euro cab ride. We get dropped off in Saalbach, only to realize once again we are idiots and that we want to be in Hinterglemm, almost 4 km up the road.
