Day 2: Markranstadt-Quedlinburg

April 14, 2022

Telco Bait and Switch

As with most new tourist arrivals, our visit to this country could not really begin until the matter of SIM cards cards would be resolved. So Jurgen and I left Dodie arranging our bikes and luggage while we strode out to downtown Markranstadt in search of Vodaphone.

Two points of clarification: 1. Markranstadt is the suburb of Leipzig where Jurgen and Birgit live, and where we will be staying until We pedal off on Sunday. Markranstadt is not a suburb exactly in the North American sense, but is more like its own real town that just happens to be 15 km from Leipzig. And 2. When I say Dodie was arranging our bikes and luggage, I mean the scene looked like this:

Dodie soon had this under control. I think she rather enjoys organizing this stuff.

I should also mention that before any striding or arranging could happen, it was German breakfast time. And within German breakfast time was brotchen, of various types. Putting aside any eggs, cheese, wurst, fruit, etc. that might be included, it is the bread, or brotchen, that is our favourite thing. So quite before all the other wonderful things that came up today, Brotchen already nailed down the Favourite Thing of the Day crown:

Favourite Thing of the day. They can not seem to make this properly in Canada!

Before heading to town, I did some internet research about prepaid SIMS. I looked at the offerings of Vodaphone, O2, T-Mobile, and some of the lesser suppliers, like LIDL. Also, Jurgen subscribes to the magazine "Connect", and their latest edition has a review of prepaid offerings. I reviewed that too. So my approach was fairly serious, and we headed out to Vodaphone because their deals looked most reasonable. What I was then after was a fairly simple (on their website) looking 8 gB for €14.99 and 6 gb for €9.99. I would put one in one smart phone, to help with Booking on the road, and one in the laptop, to help with the blog when there would be poor or no wifi.

The Markranstadt local Vodaphone shop for some reason had no prepaid to sell. So we jumped in the car and headed off to the giant Nova shopping centre, 6 km out of town. This was the first of it kind to be built after reunifiction, and I expect it has also grown, because it was large, and suitably west Germanly glitzy. It currently has 160 shops. (Ok, ok, the West Edmonton mall - largest in Canada - has 800 shops! Mall of America (largest in USA) has 520).

At Vodaphone in Nova, nothing was simple. They began by declaring that anything I may have seen online was online only - a common scam. The actual offerings were skimpier, and trickier. To boil down one hour of discussion (with Jurgen as man in the middle between me and the non-English speaking sales agent) the cell phone got 5 gB of data for €14.99 monthly, and they seemed to charge 15 euros for the physical SIM while selling it with a 15 euro credit. And it's possible that I could get a 3 gB special gift through their app once downloaded, presumably for one month only. As for the laptop, they claimed I needed their special laptop SIM, offering something totally lame like 5 gB for for €34.99! In addition, they not only wanted a German address, but they scanned my passport and had me sign electronically three times to lock in their ability to drain my euros credit card over the coming months.

I stomped out with one SIM only, but I did better than the lady who was just ahead of us. Here was our first encounter with the Ukraine situation, for the lady was from Ukraine, and was tripped up by the passport requirement. What she had for a passport was something that did have a photo but the rest was hand written in Cyrillic alphabet. The high tech Germans could not scan such a thing, and gave her the boot. So much for special refugee assistance, at least from Vodaphone!

Meanwhile my SIM is lightening fast, but Dodie is trying to decree that it is only for doing Booking on the road. Still, I am likely to be reading Cycleblaze while parked with the bikes outside of grocery stores. It would however do me good to stay away from the Ukraine news.

Juergen and I found Dodie and Birgit seated at a bakery in the mall. My head, still swimming from the Vodaphone tricks, needed a latte and a erdberen schnitte. The schnitte was ok, but not the greatest. Research will have to continue on that score!

Ok, but I'll keep looking for a better schnitte

Our main target for the day was Quedlinburg, which is a town on the eastern edge of the Harz mountain eco preserve. The western edge basically corresponded to the GDR boundary, and was a forbidden zone from which the Red Army peered down on the West. But Harz is apparently also stuffed with witches, and was the stomping ground of Hansel and Gretel. Also at nearby Thale the witches do a lot of dancing and flying, on Walpurgis Nacht in April, which stems from Goethe and Faust. (And that is all I know about Thale!)

Quedlinburg is an extensive medieval preserved town, equal to any in Germany. It is stuffed with cobble streets and half timbered houses. This is not a theme park, it's a working town, but watch out, it is thronged at Christmas Market time.

We stopped at a restaurant in Quedlinburg, and naturally got dark panelling and stained glass surroundings. But importantly we blew away Julie Andrew's schnitzel with noodles by getting schnitzel with spargel, with noodles. Spargel is white asparagus, which is in season now. You could go out for spargel dishes alone, and dump the schnitzel, but this was the full meal deal!

We walked all over Quedlinburg, stopping to sample what was touted as Germany's oldest and best cheesecake. It was ok, but I think I can do better. They did, however, claim to have 193 flavours. We got raspberry/pomegranate and orange/whiskey.

The final bonus came as we were trudging back toward the car. An old man (i.e. someone our age) was walking in the same direction, and he passed an idle comment about some aspect of a building we passed. From there he proceeded to tell us many many things about the various buildings. It turns out, if I got the story right, that he was a retired archeologist who worked for years among ruins in Turkey. He chose this town to retire to, because of its authentic preserved history. The photos below describe just a few of the things that were included in our impromptu lessons.

You can not quite make it out in the photo, but many of the fachwerk spaces here are filled with mud and straw. This was illegal after 1660, helping to date the house.

The vertical marks on the side of the church are made by soldiers forbidden to bring their weapons (swords, bayonets?) inside. They parked them here, but also sharpened them on the stone. The cup shaped holes are from devotees powdering the stone to add holy essence to their food. Was the guy putting us on about these things?

This tower was the prison and execution space. If you could afford it, you could be rapidly beheaded, but otherwise it would be an economy class hanging. If you were really poor they would just throw you in a pit at the bottom to rot. 55 skeletons were found on excavation. I asked if I could now rent a floor as an apartment but the man said the lack of safety fire escapes rendered the place vacant - thanks a lot Germany, he said.

Our "tour guide". He also walked us around the church, pointing out the Roman vs Gothic sections and showing where wall had to be reinforced with steel.

The Harz witches theme was strongly carried by one shop, with wild meat products like venison sausage, and witches liqueurs. There were also cycling maps of the Harz region, which were very tempting.

See the Harz region just to the west!

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Sue PriceSo happy to know you are over there having a new adventure!!! Watch out for those witches!!!
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2 years ago

Rachael AndersonI thought I had a hard time getting Scott’s phone set-up but your experience was much worse! Now that we both have a French phone number and a plan that covers Europe we can continue to add phone and data. And as long as we load more minutes every 6 months we can keep the same phone and add minutes online. We definitely plan to be back to Europe in 6 months. Have a great time!
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2 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Sue PriceThere were several weather proof cycling maps in the store at Quedlinburg, covering the Harz mountain region, and with reasonable prices like 6 euros. But we didn't get them, knowing it could be years before they would be used. It means the witches are safe for a while, as our present route circles around their land!
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2 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Rachael AndersonMy SIM will die if not fed within 3 months. But I think I can keep it alive online. I will choose the cheapest plan, one with zero data, for when it is not in use.

I am still really confused about the difference between the apparent online offerings and the package "deals" on cardboard cards hanging in the shop. I am unclear, for instance, the extent to which in the shop I was buying the physical SIM, or the service, or somehow both.

Also the Playstore would not allow me to download the Vodaphone app, claiming it was not available "in my country". Web research showed I would have to create a dummy Google account and somehow use a VPN to get the darn thing. Why??

Oh, and a final random rant: As soon as physically installed, the Vodaphone SIM was demanding a PIN, which is found in the package materials, and it wanted this on every restart. Three errors, and you are locked out of the SIM, and thereby the phone. But there is a second PIN, of more digits, that can override the lockout. Do I need such noise in my brain?? I did finally find a way to shut that all off, in the Android setup.
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2 years ago

Rachael AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesYou’re right that it’s a major pain. I had an issue also with the pin code and was locked out and had to get a new SIM card but I was in France so it as easier. Hope all goes well with the SIM card.
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2 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Rachael AndersonA SIM pin was a new one on me. Somewhere found by Google I read that it is a bit of a relic of past SIM days. I found a setting in my phone, though, that shut off the demand for the SIM pin. Of course, I needed the pin to accomplish that!
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2 years ago