All photos courtesy of Standard Travel Photos
We decided to explore more of Deutchland (Germany). So we headed down to the Hauptbahnhof (Main Trainstation) and bought tickets for DeutcheBahn (DB) train from Dresden, which is in eastern Germany, to Frankfurt, which is in western Germany. Here’s the google map of the route:
Between the cities there is mostly agriculture. We saw many fields of green or yellow things growing. Any farmers out their know what this yellow plant is?
The train travels through Leipzig and Weimar. The next time, I think I will stop in Leipzig.
Then there were more farms. Germany is laid out quite intelligently. There are densly-populated cities, surrounded by farmland where food is grown for the city’s inhabitants.
Here’s some more pastoral scenery.
Contrast that with the U.S. where the cities are hollow shells where no one lives, except a few extremely wealthy people and, of course, the growing numbers of homeless. U.S. cities are surrounded by suburban sprawl which extends for 20 or 40 or 60 miles.
There’s little farmland surrounding the U.S. cities, it’s mostly been developed into subdivisions. Consider, for example, Orange County in California. It used to be all orange groves, hence the name OC. Now it’s all homes, condos, malls, freeways and traffic jams. This is a lesson in how to ruin what was once paradise.
This means that in the U.S., food must be trucked in from far-away farms, often from another state like Florida or California. Sometimes our food come from countries, and is flown in on airplanes. The price of food in the U.S. depends more on oil prices than anything.
By the way, Dresden is in the German state of Sachsen (Saxony). Frankfurt am Main is located in the German state of Hessen (Hesse). Frankfurt is on the Main River, hence Frankfurt am Main.
Of course, we arrived on time in Frankfurt. This is DB and Germany, after all.
The trip was about 4 hours, but was very expensive. The second class ticket cost 90 Euros. Ouch! I think this was for the ICE train. ICE means Inter-City Express. I think the IC (Inter-City) ticket would be cheaper, but a little slower. But the ticket agent didn’t tell us this, I think they are told to offer you the most expensive ticket, unless ask for a cheaper option.
