I’m on an ICE train from Cologne non-stop to Frankfurt Airport; the trip is 70 minutes if there aren’t any delays. Online check-in completed last night, and the final feature is the 10.5-hour flight to Canada.
At Frankfurt Airport, I pass through security to go from landside to airside, and I pass through E.U. passport controls because I’m leaving Europe. The gentleman noted from my passport I’m on day 90 inside Schengen. I replied: “I know; that’s why I’m now at the airport.”
This ends 91 consecutive days of journaling for my European summer of 2025. Thanks for sticking around to the end, and I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoying putting all of this together. Additional and lengthier descriptions will follow in the coming weeks and months.
Bahnhofsvorplatz: see ya’ later, Cologne!
Bahnhofsvorplatz: Cologne central station.
Digital departures board.
Gleis (track) number 5.
ICE arrival at track 5.
Heading out to Frankfurt Flughafen (Airport); switch of trains not required. The final destination for this short-duration ICE train is Frankfort am Main Hauptbahnhof.
Flughafen Frankfurt: The Squaire, on top of the train station for long-distance trains.
Frankfurt Airport: Terminal 1, departures hall B. Judging by multiple appearances, is Apple truly pushing use of Apple Pay in Germany?
Departures hall C: checking the big departures board for assigned gate.
In “purgatory” without an assigned gate; on the tarmac about to board at Frankfurt Airport.
I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 6 August 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.
For the next 3 months, I have a medium-sized 21-Litre (21-L) Timbuk2 Classic Messenger bag in blue and black, and a 32-L Timbuk2 Command backpack in black. (Both products have unfortunately been phased out of production.) These will be my “personal item” and “carry-on”, respectively, for long-haul flights.
What’s in my 21-Litre Timbuk2 Classic Messenger bag?
Messenger bag
Tilley Hiker’s Hat (with evaporative cooling insert)
Mountain Equipment Company (MEC) medium-sized mesh pouch in blue, containing a change of clothes
Columbia grey long-sleeved half-zip fleece
What’s in my 32-Litre Timbuk2 Command backpack?
Backpack
Centre-left
Tenba BYOB7 Camera Insert bag in black, carry-case for my X70, extra batteries, and chips.
Kompass 4in1-Wanderkarte/map, for Wettersteingebirge and Zugspitze
Centre
• 3-L Peak Design Field Pouch in charcoal grey, containing:
pouch’s carrying strap
small pouch with wired earphones and small USB-C to 3.5mm audio jack.
small freezer bag with “Europlugs” (type-C) adaptor plugs for western Europe
Charger for MacBook Pro (c. 2016; not shown)
translucent film-roll cannister, for spare change
USB-A power cube wall charger (retractable), light blue
USB-A to USB-micro cable for camera, black
• 3-L Peak Design Field Pouch in midnight blue, containing:
pouch’s carrying strap
WCL-X70 wide-lens with small rubber lens-hood
small clear zip-pouch with cleaning cloths
Mophie 5000mAh PowerBank, dark blue
USB-C to USB-A cable, black
I’ve used the Field Pouch as a compact lightweight day-pack; can’t carry much except for camera, batteries, memory chips, PowerBank, cables.
Below the field pouches
USB-C to USB-C cable, white
2 pens
USB-C power cube wall charge (retractable), black
Sunglasses in hardshell case
Passport
Moleskine hardcover small lined-notebook
Portable hard disk with black USB-A to USB-microB cable
Centre-right
• Heys medium packing cube in black; containing 3 short-sleeved shirts, 3 changes of underwear, 3 pairs socks
• Small (<1-L) freezer bag containing:
pill jars (“arts & crafts”), ear plugs, sunscreen stick, lip balm, eyedrops, nail clipper, Mopiko ointment, toothpaste, collapsible toothbrush, small bottles with body wash/shampoo, roll-on “deo”.
Many items on display can be replaced in my destination nations. I described my summer 2024 itinerary here.
My nods go to their versatile Field Pouch, their Leash strap for my X70, and their Everyday case for iPhone 👍🏽
I made the images above with an iPhone15 on 7 May 2024. I have received no support from an external organization. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-sts.
( 2025 note: On 18 September 2025, Bavarian state broadcaster BR24 reported the monthly price for the Deutschland-Ticket will go up by 5€to 63€, starting 1 January 2026. The price had already gone from 49€ to 58€ for the 2025 calendar year. My summer 2025 purchase went the same way as in 2024, whose details are described below. )
89 days within Europe includes by necessity substantial travel by train within Germany. I’ve already booked in advance a number of intercity express segments, but what about local transport and regional trains?
The “Deutschland Ticket” (D-Ticket) is a rail ticket for one person and costs 49€ per month on a rolling subscription. The ticket is generally valid for local transport (bus, tram, U-Bahn, S-Bahn, intracity ferry) and regional rail (RB, most RE, IRE), but not for long-distance IC and ICE routes. Intended primarily for commuters, visitors to Germany can also purchase these tickets.
It’s early-April 2024, and I’m about to buy the D-Ticket for 49€ for the entire month of May. The ticket’s “rolling subscription” means if I do nothing else before 10 May, I’ll also automatically purchase a D-Ticket for the month of June for 49€. I’ll need the D-Ticket for May, June, July, and August; but I can only buy one month at a time.
I choose Munich’s MVV-App, based on successes reported by other travellers. I’m only using the Munich app for ticket purchase, and I’m not planning to use public transport within Munich. To buy a D-Ticket, customers are neither limited by their choice of app/method, nor by the base/location where the app is based. My question is whether a Canadian-based credit card is an acceptable form of payment by the processing company in Germany for a German-based app.
Above/featured: S-Bahn station Messe Nord/ICC – 27 Nov 2021 (X70).
I’m going home to Berlin, for the 1st time in 4 years.
To travel at all, and to go international, is a big privilege; I’m grateful for the window of opportunity.
After a long gruelling emotional 2020 year taking care of an elderly parent at home with cancer and accompanying them safely to their final days, I’m desperate to get outta Vancouver for a break. But another 9 months pass before the largest roadblock to travel is dissolved. At the end of October 2021, the Canadian government releases a digital vaccination certificate suitable for domestic and international travel. Within a week, I have a set itinerary using credits from a cancelled trip.
The following describes plans and unconventional sights for Berlin, Germany over 11 days in the 2nd-half of November 2021. As case counts change and situations evolve at both ends, travellers must remain vigilant with extra preparation and adapt to changing policies, protocols, and requirements by different countries for visitors, ensuring safe and smooth travel, out and back. I go over all guidelines supplied by Germany’s Federal Foreign Office and the city state of Berlin.
I’m not going to lug my DSLR camera and extra glass for this quick trip. Instead, I’ll only use my 340-gram (12-ounce) compact fixed-lens camera. In all respects, it’s a big weight off my shoulders.
Above/featured: From Philosophenweg: across the Neckar, over the Altstadt, and up to Königstuhl – 21 May 2016 (HL).
Heidelberg is “eine adoptierte Heimatstadt” (an adopted hometown). Some have called this place “scenic, natural, and spectacular”; some call it “boring, provincial, and extortionate”. I could be referring to Vancouver, but that’s a subject for another time.
I’ve long struggled with questions of place: what defines “home”? Can those definitions and qualities change with time? Do people have choice(s) and do they apply their choices in their search? Can people find meaning with “home”? Must “home” be restricted to only one place, or can different needs be met from different places?
Images can provide access to memories of having lived in a new country, experiencing the shock of the new, and settling into the mundane. I remember advice someone once gave me which became constant companion and reminder: that I was inhabiting a place at the same latitude as my birthplace, 8000 km in distance and 9 time zones apart on the other side of the planet, a place that’s seen its compact share of activity with flair and impact.
Most recall is naturally connected to sight. Occasionally, it’s a rush of the senses: the quick breeze on the skin, the ankle-spraining undulations of the cobblestone, how fog clings like a cold clammy cloak, the sing-song of birds among tall trees in the forest on the hill, the smell of grilled sausages in town by day, and the satisfying late-night noms of a spicy Dürüm Döner with a cool Ayran. And other times, human history leaps out and buries its claws, when the unthinkable must be acknowledged and understood in a synapsis of memory and senses.
In the autumn of 2001, I moved to Germany and Heidelberg: both sight unseen and without having learned any of the language. I stayed in town for a little under two years. What’s astonishing is I have no pictorial record of my time in Heidelberg, Germany, and Europe: I had no camera before the dawn of the smart-phone.
I have some great memories, even if time is casting long shadows. What I lost (no, gave away) was some part of me that actually has little to do with the “Schlager” hit song “Ich hab mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren“. It might be a piece of the heart, a part of the soul, or simply a scrap of good sense; but what it is precisely still remains undefined and shapeless. Finding solid answers about what I’ve surrendered might take years. And so, for the sake of clarity, I’ve returned many times since leaving town in 2003. A sharper focus comes through the post-departure blur whenever I step off the train in town.
I couldn’t have possibly known the experience of moving to and living in Heidelberg would be life-changing. Time so far has been kind, because it didn’t take long for me to adopt Heidelberg as “home”.
Fotoeins Fotografie 