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Postcard From the Rhine

by Toby Young
24 September 2021 4:01 PM

We’re publishing a new Postcard today from a Daily Sceptic reader – this one about a trip he and his wife made to the Rhine in Germany and Switzerland. Sounds pretty nice – if you don’t mind complying with all the testing rigmarole. Here is an extract:

Originally my wife and I were due to go on a Rhine Cruise from Amsterdam to Basel, but due to the ban on even doubly vaccinated travellers from the U.K. from entering the Netherlands without undergoing a 10 day quarantine on arrival this was cancelled with only two weeks notice. We were only due to spend less than two days there before our next port of call at Cologne to which we could fly very easily and enquired whether it would be possible to join the cruise there instead. Apparently not. No explanation has yet been given. So being keen continental rail travellers we arranged our own itinerary instead, along with all the testing rigmarole.

We flew to Cologne from Stansted and then took a local train to the main station in the City. The weather was perfect and we had a pleasant meal outside in one of the many restaurants beside the Rhine. Being outside meant no mask wearing and no signing in anywhere. Even in the hotel there was no compulsion to wear masks.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: NHS Test and TraceRhine

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42 Comments
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unmaskthetruth
unmaskthetruth
3 years ago

Sounds horrific. Was there the possibility of saying ‘I’m exempt’ to stupid mask wearing edicts? What about the plastic gloves, what’s that about! Are we ever going to get over this madness?

53
0
RickH
RickH
3 years ago
Reply to  unmaskthetruth

You reflect my thoughts about the baseline of acceptance portrayed here.

We are truly fucked with this degree of complicit shoulder-shrugging at totalitarian edicts. You don’t have to go on such a trip.

I am currently missing the first ‘real’ production in a real theatre since the start of the shit-show by the national company for which my daughter works – because I’m buggered if I will bow to the theatre’s yellow-star apartheid. Because that’s what push-back entails, even if a single non-compliant individual won’t make much difference.

69
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Hypatia
Hypatia
3 years ago
Reply to  RickH

Yes. I agree. But thousands of individuals not complying will add up, and they can make a difference.
I too won’t go anywhere that imposes apartheid based on some sort of medical procedure.

50
0
RickH
RickH
3 years ago
Reply to  Hypatia

Agreed. The problem is with the ‘If’

2
0
Rowan
Rowan
3 years ago
Reply to  RickH

I know several people who have dispensed with all foreign travel, while this madness lasts. That may well be forever for many, especially the double jabbed, who are now very much on borrowed time. With boosters on the way things can only get worse.

20
0
stevie119
stevie119
3 years ago
Reply to  Rowan

Including me. I have driven across America, driven round NZ and visited over 30 countries over the years. No more though – for now at least. In late 2019 we nearly booked to visit Japan in the spring to see the blossom season but I had a sense that a shitstorm was approaching. It was. Being pure of blood, I now consider myself lucky to be allowed in the feckin pub. It`s all gone to shit.

26
0
Hypatia
Hypatia
3 years ago
Reply to  Rowan

Yes, I’m one of them. I won’t comply, and if that means no foreign travel, so be it. That’s my choice, others must make up their own minds.

15
0
Rowan
Rowan
3 years ago
Reply to  RickH

Yes like many others I wouldn’t be remotely interested in going on a trip where you have to pander to the intrusive restrictions of the fake pandemic. Partaking in such idle ventures will only prolong the misery and as for being double jabbed, well oh dear me. Compliance in this madness is of course complicity.

Last edited 3 years ago by Rowan
30
0
Oscarone
Oscarone
3 years ago
Reply to  RickH

Very true. As James Corbett says, It’s a chump’s game. Don’t play it.

6
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Hypatia
Hypatia
3 years ago
Reply to  unmaskthetruth

It’s not my idea of a holiday if you have to wear a mask. It’s my idea of torment.

Dining outside, oh, what a lark; won’t be as much fun in winter. Dining outside in your coat, possibly having to hold an umbrella in one hand, lovely. Or will diners be given blankets?

31
0
charleyfarley
charleyfarley
3 years ago

The longer this sort of compliance goes on – for the sake of a holiday for Christ’s sake – the longer it will be before normality returns, if ever.

Why should the cabal stop what they are doing when people are not only willing to go along with the charade, but seek out sites like this one to publicise the fact, in the process alerting the cabal to the success of their policies?

42
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Emerald Fox
Emerald Fox
3 years ago

A lot of details are missing…

“At Zurich Airport our documentation was checked both at check-in and before boarding. As we had everything printed out this was very quick and easy.

On our return home we went for our day two test which was negative like the other two”

…what documentation needed to be shown at Zurich airport?

…where did they get it printed out?

…an LFT test 3 days before flight home? I have not heard of this before. Expensive PCR test, yes, that is what is required for a ‘green country’ to the UK.

…two day test? How about telling us it was a PCR test? How was this pre-ordered, which company, how much did it cost?

17
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Adamb
Adamb
3 years ago

Glad they enjoyed it. Shame the majority of us here are now effectively banned from travelling anywhere at all.

40
0
Dave Angel Eco Warrier
Dave Angel Eco Warrier
3 years ago

Sounds pretty nice? No, it most certainly does not.

39
0
Smotters
Smotters
3 years ago

I’d rather take a trip to the dentist in the 1920s! How can anyone imagine that submitting to such bullshit is worth it for “pretty nice”? I’d want paying (a lot) to endure a single day of it!

37
0
bOrgkilLaH1of7
bOrgkilLaH1of7
3 years ago
Reply to  Smotters

Indeed Smotters…. however the article misses the point. Jet travel for the unwashed masses is dying… deliberately. Zero Covid = Zero Carbon.

Meat… oopps no that’s a BAD No No. Gazz guzzlin mottas – HOW DARE YOU!

However guess what? Private hassle-free jet travel in booming….

Rules for thee, none for them

gRETSUM.jpg
15
-1
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
3 years ago
Reply to  bOrgkilLaH1of7

Just codifying the previous laws for us, not for them.

Yachts are like private legal domains.

2
0
Geoff Graham
Geoff Graham
3 years ago

“Our hotel in Koblenz was much stricter about mask wearing, but out of doors you could go mask free even when eating.”

The implication being that indoors, a mask is required even when eating? WTF?

33
0
Hypatia
Hypatia
3 years ago
Reply to  Geoff Graham

Not sure how you could eat with a mask in place. Soup through a straw through a discreet hole in your mask maybe?
It’s all bollox!

4
0
Fiona Walker
Fiona Walker
3 years ago

Nope. Not going abroad until this shitshow is over and if that means never, so be it. This is not a holiday, it’s masochism.

52
0
RickH
RickH
3 years ago
Reply to  Fiona Walker

“ it’s masochism”

… or servility.

22
0
gone_loopy
gone_loopy
3 years ago

Just been down to Weymouth for a week, didnt have to do any of that bs there and everywhere excepted cash.

25
0
Arum
Arum
3 years ago

It sounds like a dystopian nightmare…even the research into different covid rules in the various countries would drive me nuts. But if you enjoyed it, great

29
0
wendy
wendy
3 years ago

I couldn’t tolerate any of that sh*te it would drive me insane! I’ll holiday here.

30
0
Susan
Susan
3 years ago

“…. along with all the testing rigmarole.”

Our traveler makes light of the unnecessary, expensive, invasive, perhaps harmful and certainly humiliating tests.

If we would value our human pleasures less and our human rights more, we would not comply.

49
0
iane
iane
3 years ago

It is extremely sad that so many give up their freedoms (along with those of others) so easily. As with Toby’s acquiescence to our uber-lords, this is why we are still where we are.

Last edited 3 years ago by iane
22
0
AndyPandy
AndyPandy
3 years ago

I am going to Spain soon. I am probably going to be thrown out of the hotel if it’s like this.

5
0
kate
kate
3 years ago

https://pathologie-konferenz.de/en/
CAUSE OF DEATH AFTER COVID-19 VACCINATION
UNDECLARED COMPONENTS OF THE COVID-19 VACCINES

3
0
AndyPandy
AndyPandy
3 years ago

Anyone know if there are exemptions to mask wearing abroad? ‘Je suis exempt’ or something?

0
0
JayBee
JayBee
3 years ago
Reply to  AndyPandy

You need a medical certificate by a doctor in that country.
Which is very hard to come by, as most doctors are Covidian c*nts and as their licensing bodies and prosecutors threaten and investigate the few who aren’t if they issued them.
On top of that, many businesses won’t accept them regardless, which is most often illegal, but which the police and courts don’t prosecute or care about.
On top of that, the general public worships and believes in them and will harass you even if you had the certificate.
In short: it’s hell on Earth.
Which is also why there is a genuine civil war about this in all those countries.
The UK just got lucky because of common law and the equalitirs act 2010, which demanded and enabled the self-exemption facility and option.
I have no doubt that they would otherwise also have gone down the same path, including the resulting civil war.

2
0
DanClarke
DanClarke
3 years ago

All of this cr*p still going on despite the evidence from so many sources where for instance you mask on or mask off, it makes no difference. Brainwashing for Idiots

14
0
mishmash
mishmash
3 years ago

Fuck the Rhine, I want a postcard from Australia! why are you shills ignoring what’s going on down there? Are you controlled opposition or what? Victorian Government has cut off the internet to stop news getting out and media outlets including Sky News have been ordered by police not to fly their news helicopters over the city!
It is a full blown fascist occupancy but the people do appear to have had enough and massive crowds have joined the construction workers in solidarity.

Last edited 3 years ago by mishmash
27
0
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
3 years ago
Reply to  mishmash

send pics

2
0
mishmash
mishmash
3 years ago
Reply to  TheyLiveAndWeLockdown

A short compilation of info in this video.

5
0
Paul B
Paul B
3 years ago

Here it it, the end game:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/uk-brink-joining-eu-passport-scheme-sources-confirm-nhs-system/

3
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul B

What a f*kin surprise.

Bliar must be creaming himself.

4
-1
DanClarke
DanClarke
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul B

Looks like not enough resistance yet, where has Mr Icke gone?

3
0
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul B

political suicide with bells on for Boris’s carrieservative party.

5
0
Silke David
Silke David
3 years ago

In Germany you would need a doctors letter to exempt you from mask wearing. Even police are not really allowed to check it, as it falls under medical confidential information. The exemption letter does not have to state your medical condition which qualifies you for an exemption, although some politicians tried to get that allowed. Police do check exemptions, especially at demos, and have confiscated them or made copies, often to record which doctor has issued them as there were quite a few doctors who just issued exemptions.
I queried with a local transport provider service department what I should do about an exemption, as I would need to get my English doctor to issue one, and if their ticket inspectors would accept a letter in English. Of course the lowly paid service advisor would not have had any policy from management about this, so just advised me: Just wear a mask.

In German hotels a breakfast buffet is standard and are now allowed. When hotels first opened last summer everything had to be plated and brought to your table, which caused a lot of hotels a severe headache, as it also required more staff. So now you have to put gloves on to use the serving spoons at a buffet. I guess there is a box of gloves, or are they extra large and one puts their hand into a communal glove? I forgot to ask my father how it worked when he stayed in a hotel a few weeks ago. It would be much easier to have a member of staff stand at the buffet and serve the guest with the items they want.

5
0
MonkeySeeMonkeyDo
MonkeySeeMonkeyDo
3 years ago

We recently returned from a Green list destination. We were pinged about 4 days after landing and told to isolate to day 10 after landing. Bit of pain, but we can work from home. Still it was from the plane back, as Test & Trace confirmed. I did wonder how close the positive case was, given many families swapped seats before take off. Now I wonder of the whole thing was even real, or a just convenient inconvenience.. (obviously no one ill etc). Who can tell? The take away though is that trust in the public is low and going lower..

1
0
Meltonian1
Meltonian1
3 years ago

I am surprised that a ‘sceptic’ would make such a trip. Masks, gloves…no thank you. I have enjoyed boating on the Great Ouse and hill-walking (camping) in the Lake District and Yorkshire. On such excursions everything and everyone were behaving sensibly, as people did before March 2020. I refuse to kowtow to the moronic world of the obedient majority…and it is still possible to do so. Some pubs allow standing at the bar and chatting. I will not enter those that have a rope preventing free access. Pick and choose and help things return to the civilised normal.

3
0
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
3 years ago

I love Germany, I speak German, drive through Germany at least twice every year and was there as recently as last month.

Sad to say that it is the most depressing place I visited in the last two years.

It sounds as if this trip along the Rhine was even worse.

Ah, well, you can’t explore everywhere in this life, so having fewer options makes things easier, in some way…

Tchuess, Deutschland. Bis bald. Ich muss ernst und ehrlich sein, weil ich Dich liebe – ich komme wieder, wenn Sie wieder zur Besinnung kommen.

Last edited 3 years ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
0
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