#interrail2025: Day 2 - “We don’t talk about Brno?”*

Sunday morning dawned bright and early. Cool too, as the temperature had dropped sharply. But Nuremberg is perfectly charming on a Sunday morning without the crowds of a Saturday night, and I thought that a walk would clear the cobwebs before the next train.

As you might expect, Nuremberg has that comfortable sense of a city that does quite nicely for itself, with a high class array of retail opportunities and, despite the results of US and UK-inspired urban renewal, has retained some interesting architecture. The Weißer Turm, which actually has a U-Bahn entrance underneath it, marks the gateway to the shopping district, and I managed to get as far as the castle before turning back to pick my luggage and head for the station.

On reflection, I might have given myself an extra five minutes, as it was a slightly breathless bureaucrat who threw himself and his luggage onto the 10.38 to Schwandorf, where I had discovered a scenic route into the Czech Republic, rather than the obvious Railjet dash via Vienna.

Deutsche Bahn Regional Expresses can be a bit of a mixed bag, and things were made more complex by the unexpected splitting of the train at Neukirchen (bei Sulzbach-Rosenberg). Luckily, I’d got the right half…

I’d left myself just over an hour to connect in Schwandorf (there was an alternative with a six minute connect but I try not to do those anymore), which was intended as an opportunity to get in a few extra steps (yes, I’m still doing my 10,000 steps each day) and whilst I did have luggage to drag, I strode boldly down the mean streets of Schwandorf.

As a small Bavarian town, it does attempt to live up to the cliché. Pretty, white-washed church? Check. Beer garden by the river? Check. I didn’t see anyone in lederhosen, but it was probably only a matter of time.

Back at the station, my connection to Prague was pulling in. Described as a Regional Express from Munich to Prague, the Alex service runs via Plzen and has compartments in first class, which I approve of in an old school sort of way, especially when I get to be undisturbed for three hours, as we wandered across Bohemia. A quick connect to a rather swish Railjet, and I was in Brno in time for dinner. As was Political Animal and his family who, somewhat unnoticed, had picked the same route as I had. And no, I really wasn’t stalking them… or were they now stalking me?

There may have been beer and dumplings involved again, bread dumplings this time - my personal preference - before a relatively early night. A change of scenery beckoned…

* with thanks to Helen Belcher, whose knowledge of Disney hits is clearly superior to mine…