Thoughts

Thoughts

This is good. We leave the campsite, the buses are on time. Google optimises our journey, tells us where to get off to connect with the next transport. Routes change by the minute as transport is updated. 

Take this morning for instance, we walked the 50m (if that) from the campsite to the bus stop. Horror of horrors it was 4 minutes late. Google tells us which stop to get off to connect to an S-Bahn. As we walk onto the platform the train pulls in. We get off at Alexanderplatz, the central  station for East Berlin and the end of the line. We walk across the station to the underground line and a train is pulling in. Had we missed it there's another one in 2 minutes. 7 minutes later we are at our destination (a camping shop)

We're sitting here in a restaurant on the north-eastern part of the city. No idea how to get home but Google assures us the tram 150m away will get us to an S-bahn stop which will take us to a train which connects with our bus and we'll travel the 12 miles or so diagonally across the city in just over one hour - for goodness sake, Google also tells us it would take 48 minutes by car.

This is public transport planned by people who have a burning desire to remove cars from roads. It works. It works incredibly well!