Also i hsve had very little success with trains and busses in germany before as few of the people working with busses and trains seem to know english.
I should like to say that as a Typical Stupid American who cannot learn other languages, I have had little problem finding employees of DB who could help me and provide what I needed - and usually give friendly directions - while using facilities in Frankfurt, Hannover, Koln, Magdeburg, and Suhl. The single time I had a problem, it was of my own making, when I was imprecise in pronouncing the name "Magdeburg" - and the ticket agent thought that I meant "Marlberg", and told me that a ticket only cost about 8 Euro (I knew that wasn't right, and explained that I meant the city on the river Elbe. "Oh, MAG-de-BURG", he said, with more than a hint of irritation - but there had been a long queue of people, and he had been - until me - working furiously, whittling that queue down and getting people on their way. I sort of disrupted his rhythm).
I have found the DB website - when in English mode - to be easy to follow and use when planning an itinerary, as well as the automatic ticket vending kiosks; and once I had spent a few minutes studying the posted timetables on the platforms, I felt fairly comfortable at finding the train, car ("Wagen"), and seat ("Sitzplatz", which sounds logical; on the ticket ("Fahrkarte"), it is just "Platz") that I wanted (if I had bothered to reserve a seat).
Most of the trains have an alphanumeric display on the carriage bulkheads, which announce the next stop; and there is usually a voice announcement - albeit in German - calling out the stop, as well. All I had to learn was "Ausstieg
Links" (Exit Left) and "Ausstieg
Rechts" (Exit Right).
The Travel Center ("Riesenzentrum") in the train station (at least, in the larger ones) will print out a Trip Itinerary ("Reiseverbindung") for you, to go along with your ticket (in fact, it is usually attached to it). They will print it out in English, if you request it that way. If not, under "Zeit" (
Time), "ab" is
departure, "an" is
arrival; and "Gleis" is
Track or Platform number.
Now - if
I can navigate around Germany with just that little information, then
you should certainly have no problem!
Good Luck, and enjoy the time spent visiting with your friend!
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Topic: Meeting a friend in Stralsund, how to get there x3 (Read 15331 times)