April 11, 2022
Finding Places to Stay
Under the bike, under the bridge, doesn't cut it.
It seems like in the old days we used to travel with maps, usually from Bikeline, that had all the camping sites marked on them. When the day was drawing to a close we would look on the map, spot a site, and head on over there. On rare occasions when we could not find something, then we could throw up the tent in a hidey hole, and tomorrow would be another day!
That was then, and this is now - when one of us has two titanium knees that can not be crawled on. So the tent and sleeping bag is out, and the guest house with the fluffy quilts is in! In parts of Germany, such guest houses are far more plentiful than camp grounds, and even when we had the tent and bags along, the fluffy quilts and buffet breakfasts, and the fact that the places were right there, were a powerful lure.
But now on this trip, we are starting out in the Sachsen-Anhalt region of Germany, and while of course there are places to stay, they are not exactly all that thick on the ground, or at least on our cycling track.
Our usual resort, as for many others, is to Booking.com. Using them consistently, they store (seemingly forever) the record of where we have stayed each night, and where/when our future bookings are. It's a nice convenience, as is the fact that they have a wide open pipe into our Visa account, so one click and a new booking is all done. And when you get there, language barrier or not, you have only to brandish your booking page and normally the possibly surly clerk will have to admit they have heard of you.
Questions remain, though, about Booking. When they say there is no vacancy at a given place, it may only mean that the rooms that were allocated to them are taken, but if you phone the place, you may be in. And perhaps the room will then be cheaper, but also perhaps costlier.
The comfort of the guest house, and the convenience of Booking still do not overcome our ability to worry about a place to stay. When a region does not have too many places, when demand is high, or when rivers or mountains stand in the way of getting to seemingly nearby spots, then it can still be a scramble.
For example, thinking ahead to our first night out after starting the tour at Markranstadt, we can see Bad Duben on our route. How far is Bad Duben? Well, we can figure that from our maps, or also with software and our track files. So it's 51 km - a very comfortable start, and it has a nice bike friendly hotel. But wait, we are starting on Easter Sunday - no vacancy! Booking helpfully suggests a place in Delitzsch - but that is way off route!
Another Booking feature comes into play. They will show you a map of available (and unavailable) places in the vicinity. But which of these is anywhere near the route? There is no way to superimpose the track on the Booking map. And if you choose a place at some certain distance for the next night, what does that mean for the night after?
I really found this mind boggling, and one evening with Dodie peacefully asleep, I spent four hours trying to optimally map out a week of stays. But when Dodie woke up, she threw my homework in the waste basket, declaring that this is why she is always the one to do the bookings! She seemed confident that she could do this, not only the night before, but even from the road at mid-day. I can believe it, because we see other cycle tourers sometimes booking their entire trips in advance. I can believe it, I just can't do it!
Into this mix came a casual comment in this blog from Keith Classen, who mentioned that he uses Hotels.com, not in the least because they give one free stay for every ten. I had a look at how Booking and Hotels make out, choosing the now familiar environs of Bad Duben for the test. As it happens, Booking has a lot more spots.
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Offerings from Hotels.com are thinner:
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But wait, there is one more hope! Germany has an organization called Bett und Bike, whose members are hotels (or pensions or guest houses) or BnB's that certify themselves bike friendly, according to some published standards. And, the Bett und Bike locations can be downloaded in a gpx, meaning that one can see exactly which are on route!
If you touch a white star you get address and telephone information. That's good, assuming that the person who answers the phone (assuming someone answers) can hear you over possible road noise, and that they speak English. Probably we'll try it somewhere and then can report how it went.
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One final thing about Hotels. If you tell their web site you are from Canada, then it will be in English, and the prices will be quoted in Canadian dollars. To get a price in Euros (and presumably to pay in Euros from a Euro card, without inviting ripoff foreign exchange and purchase fees from a Canadian bank) then you have to tell the site you are from France, Austria, Germany. Then you will be quoted in Euros, but the language will be French or German. Who wrote this bloody site? And don't try calling to ask about it. In several lengthy tries, I never got an actual human on the line at Hotels. Probably better to phone a Bett und Bike and try to nail down a stay in German!
(Flash - Dodie (of course) somehow got Hotels to talk English and Euros at the same time. No idea how! And Jacquie Gaudet points out that one may be able to find a web site for a listed Bett und Bike, and to book that way. Do you think that Steve is unnecessarily panicking in these few days before departure??)
Our Favourite Things
In this space we'll inaugurate a regular section in which we record the most significant life affirming thing we found on each day.
Today rather perversely the thing is Cats. We have relied on cats our whole lives, since we feel they send out waves of meditative calm, helping our frequently scattered thoughts and emotions to stay on target. Cats came up on the tour today (it's Day -1!) because Dodie detected that Fleurie the cat was not feeling well. We took her to the vet, and indeed, according to the blood work her kidneys were failing. Dodie does not need blood work to know these things, because of the aforementioned psychic link. Either way, we reluctantly had to say goodbye to Fleurie.
So our favourite thing today is not that we lost our cat, but the knowledge of a 20 year friendship we had with her, and the fact that she is now lying in the garden beside Stanley, who was her best friend in the cat world.
And oh, Julie Andrews, this counts as "Whiskers on kittens".
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We mostly use Agoda for booking. They have a rewards/discount program where they put a percentage credit toward future bookings. When you use the "Hotels" search on Google Maps, any hotels that use booking websites appear on the map with a price, clicking on one of those will give you a list of booking sites on the left side of the screen and their varying prices (You probably already know this). Any hotel that doesn't use booking sites will show up as a tiny blue dot, and you can click on those to find phone numbers or websites for further information. It's a fast way to shop for the best price amongst Booking, Hotels, Agoda, etc. And you're right, sometimes calling the hotel directly will give you a lower price.
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We may do it differently for the next trip but it's a challenge to go slow when I'm trying to make up for all those years when I couldn't travel.
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Wonderful, life-affirming musings on this round of the blog. I look forward to reading more. And writing more - I will let you know when our western-Cuban adventure is written, edited, and published!
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