Living in Germany: €49 ticket jaunts, festival mud baths and Birkenstock's origin
From €49 ticket travel perks (and setbacks) to how some people made the best of the stormy weather, we look at the current highlights of life in Germany.
Germany’s €49 ticket is inspiring - but accessibility problems remain
Although you’d never guess it by looking out the window (at least in the last few weeks), summer is in full swing in Germany. But that isn’t stopping most people from heading out to explore the ‘Schland. One of our most popular stories this week has been a feature on tourist favourites to check out with the €49 ticket.
Whether it’s the wine town of Rüdesheim am Rhein in the Rhine Valley, the sandy beaches of Usedom Island or looking in awe at the Zugspitze, there are plenty of amazing places to get to via local public transport or regional trains.
Despite being a whole €40 more expensive than the €9 ticket from last summer, the Deutschlandticket has captured the imagination of German residents, with passenger numbers on Deutsche Bahn regional trains up 25 percent since it launched in May.
But it’s emerged that there are extra obstacles for people who don’t have a German bank account. Payment for the ticket is processed through the SEPA direct debit scheme and problems arise when customers with foreign bank accounts have to enter their IBAN. If a foreign IBAN is entered on the deutschlandticket.de website, customers often receive the message: "Please enter a correct IBAN". As a result, they are unable to purchase the ticket.
German IBANs start with the letters "DE" and are followed by 20 digits, but in countries like Belgium, there are 16 digits, and in Poland, there are 26 digits after the country code.
The Central Office for Unfair Competition in Bad Homburg and an international initiative called "Accept my IBAN'' have been collecting and documenting cases of customers being unable to buy the Deutschlandticket with their international bank accounts.
There are other ways of getting the ticket so if you’re affected then head to a service centre and they should be able to help. This issue is being investigated, however, so hopefully it will get sorted soon.
Tweet of the week
This kind of mind-boggling paper-obsessed behaviour just doesn’t surprise us anymore.
— Slow Travel Berlin (@slowberlin) July 31, 2023
Where is this?
Photo: DPA/Christian Charisius
Thanks to the torrential rain and storms we’ve seen in Germany recently, the heavy metal festival Wacken Open Air has turned into a mud bath. It got so bad this week that organisers of the event based in northern Germany urged fans to stay away or turn back unless they were already at the event. The issue was due to accessibility, with the weather sparking traffic chaos and waterlogged car parks. Organisers then announced they were capping the amount of attendees at 50,000 instead of 85,000. However, the muddy conditions haven’t dampened the spirits of the music lovers already at the festival, pictured here, on Wednesday.
Did you know?
If you’ve seen Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie then you’ll know that Germany’s Birkenstocks got a bit of a starring role (in pink, of course). Perhaps, given the rocketing popularity of the practical sandals, it’s no surprise that Birkenstock is planning to enter the US stock market, as we learned this week.
But did you know just how far back the brand actually goes? The roots of Germany’s favourite sandals can be traced back to 1774. That’s when Johannes Birkenstock was first mentioned and went to become a ‘master craftsmen in shoemaking’.
By 1897, Konrad Birkenstock had made the first flexible sole fitting the contours of the feet.
The Birkenstock craftsmanship has endured through the ages, becoming a favourite of Germans and others all over the world. But their "unfashionable" association with sock-and-sandal wearing Germans is a thing of the past - they have become standard footwear for celebrities while the company has launched collaborations with top brands.
And we’ve also seen many young people out and about wearing socks and sandals as some kind of fashion statement. So if you’ve been doing that for a while, you’re actually a forward-thinking fashionista.
Comments
See Also
Germany’s €49 ticket is inspiring - but accessibility problems remain
Although you’d never guess it by looking out the window (at least in the last few weeks), summer is in full swing in Germany. But that isn’t stopping most people from heading out to explore the ‘Schland. One of our most popular stories this week has been a feature on tourist favourites to check out with the €49 ticket.
Whether it’s the wine town of Rüdesheim am Rhein in the Rhine Valley, the sandy beaches of Usedom Island or looking in awe at the Zugspitze, there are plenty of amazing places to get to via local public transport or regional trains.
Despite being a whole €40 more expensive than the €9 ticket from last summer, the Deutschlandticket has captured the imagination of German residents, with passenger numbers on Deutsche Bahn regional trains up 25 percent since it launched in May.
But it’s emerged that there are extra obstacles for people who don’t have a German bank account. Payment for the ticket is processed through the SEPA direct debit scheme and problems arise when customers with foreign bank accounts have to enter their IBAN. If a foreign IBAN is entered on the deutschlandticket.de website, customers often receive the message: "Please enter a correct IBAN". As a result, they are unable to purchase the ticket.
German IBANs start with the letters "DE" and are followed by 20 digits, but in countries like Belgium, there are 16 digits, and in Poland, there are 26 digits after the country code.
The Central Office for Unfair Competition in Bad Homburg and an international initiative called "Accept my IBAN'' have been collecting and documenting cases of customers being unable to buy the Deutschlandticket with their international bank accounts.
There are other ways of getting the ticket so if you’re affected then head to a service centre and they should be able to help. This issue is being investigated, however, so hopefully it will get sorted soon.
Tweet of the week
This kind of mind-boggling paper-obsessed behaviour just doesn’t surprise us anymore.
— Slow Travel Berlin (@slowberlin) July 31, 2023
Where is this?
Thanks to the torrential rain and storms we’ve seen in Germany recently, the heavy metal festival Wacken Open Air has turned into a mud bath. It got so bad this week that organisers of the event based in northern Germany urged fans to stay away or turn back unless they were already at the event. The issue was due to accessibility, with the weather sparking traffic chaos and waterlogged car parks. Organisers then announced they were capping the amount of attendees at 50,000 instead of 85,000. However, the muddy conditions haven’t dampened the spirits of the music lovers already at the festival, pictured here, on Wednesday.
Did you know?
If you’ve seen Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie then you’ll know that Germany’s Birkenstocks got a bit of a starring role (in pink, of course). Perhaps, given the rocketing popularity of the practical sandals, it’s no surprise that Birkenstock is planning to enter the US stock market, as we learned this week.
But did you know just how far back the brand actually goes? The roots of Germany’s favourite sandals can be traced back to 1774. That’s when Johannes Birkenstock was first mentioned and went to become a ‘master craftsmen in shoemaking’.
By 1897, Konrad Birkenstock had made the first flexible sole fitting the contours of the feet.
The Birkenstock craftsmanship has endured through the ages, becoming a favourite of Germans and others all over the world. But their "unfashionable" association with sock-and-sandal wearing Germans is a thing of the past - they have become standard footwear for celebrities while the company has launched collaborations with top brands.
And we’ve also seen many young people out and about wearing socks and sandals as some kind of fashion statement. So if you’ve been doing that for a while, you’re actually a forward-thinking fashionista.
Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.
Please log in here to leave a comment.