It has been a while since I have been on a trip worth blogging about, but last weekend I travelled more than 1000 km on trains, providing me with plenty of things to show and tell… My main destination was Stuttgart, for the CBFS24 – Craft Beer Festival Stuttgart. Since I would never be able to be back in time in Brussels for the BMPH3 hash on Sunday, and I had to change trains in Frankfurt am Main anyway, I decided to run with the Frankfurt Hash House Harriers instead.
The original plan was pretty straightforward: A direct ICE Brussels-Frankfurt, and another one to Stuttgart. However, the Friday before my trip some vandals did something that seriously screwed up train traffic between Köln and Frankfurt, and my original direct train was limited to just Köln… From there, there were different options to get to Stuttgart—none of them direct—so I opted for the least obvious choice, the EuroCity 9 until Mannheim. Since it was not the recommended connection announced on my first train, not that many people made the same choice, and my carriage was almost empty. And as a bonus: the views were really nice! From Mannheim, it was only a short ride to Stuttgart. In the end, I arrived almost two hours later than originally scheduled…
After dropping off my bag at the hotel, it was time to go to the festival, which was already open for over an hour by the time we finally made it through the gates… The Craft Beer Festival Stuttgart was completely new to me, and no beer list was published in advance, but the announced breweries were interesting enough for me to give it a go anyway. Well, I was not disappointed! The breweries brought some of their tastiest brews, and the activities on stage were great fun! Maybe I’ll give that Bierkrugstemmen a go next time… Karaoke? Not for me, although it was entertaining to watch!
Hash Day!
Sunday started as scheduled, but I already knew I would still have to cope with the consequences of the Friday acts of vandalism later that day… The journey to Frankfurt am Main however, went without a hitch. That meant I could make the visit I planned to naïv, the bar where I only arrived after last call the last time I was in Frankfurt…
I didn’t have a lot of time though, and after two beers I was back on the S-Bahn, this time to Frankfurt am Main Stadion, where the Frankfurt H3 would meet up for today’s run. That run turned out to be slightly longer than usual—12,5 km for me—but I made it, and the company and some of the views were really nice!
Unfortunately I didn’t have time to stick around after the run: if I wanted to make it back to Brussels at all that evening, I had to leave about two hours earlier than originally planned,… Finally, three trains and some platform changes later, I arrived home just a little after midnight.
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