June 2023
How transport failed us completely, but the festival was absolutely amazing!
Flixbus 2: us 0.
We figured out quite a good route to go to Landgraaf (also quite last minute, although we had the festival pass for around half a year before). Flew to Brussels, flight was on time, we knew where the Flixbus was going from, so, had plenty of time, bought a quick salad and a beer and were chilling behind the Midi train station in the sunshine, until 20 minutes before the bus decided to just in case check the tickets. And, discovered this bus was going from the North station. Panicked, thought what to do, according to Google Maps, we would not make it by public transport, also taxi was questionable, as there was a lot of traffic (and it was pretty much as expensive as the 3 hour Flixbus ticket to Aachen). Anyway decided to try our luck with Bolt scooters. Around 3 km of distance to cover. It was a bit complicated to get to the right track around Midi, but thereon pretty much straight. Got going, until 1.5 km before a slow zone, with 8 km/h. Figured out we will never make it like that and it was pretty much close to leaving time. Tried to find a phone number to call, but there wasn't any. Tried to find an alternative route, but next available bus was too late in the evening and trains were either sold out or horribly expensive. Then got a message from Flixbus that it was 15 minutes late. Went 1 stop by the underground tram and ran.. in the heat.. Got there about 25 minutes after the scheduled departure time, and it had obviously left. So, BlaBlacar to the rescue. Found one lady who was going the right direction in less than an hour from Zaventeem. Booked it, but she did not accept for ages, so we were sitting in the bus-stop, thinking if to risk taking the half an hour bus to Zaventeem when she has not accepted and we do not know for sure. Luckily, she accepted a few minutes before the bus came. We met her and she even agreed to take us directly to the festival campsite. So, we ended up getting to the festival earlier than with the route we had planned before. As the bus took longer, went to Aachen and from there we would have had to get to Landgraaf and to Megaland.
What we found out later, trains between Landgraaf and Aachen did not run this weekend as because of some maintenance works. So when going back Monday morning we did not make the Aachen to Köln bus we planned to take, but found a suspiciously cheap train directly to Köln/Bonn airport, we bought the tickets in German and still do not know for sure, what we bought, but made it in good time.
Anyhow, the festival was absolutely awesome! So many bucketlist bands seen and definitely will attend again in the coming years.
Fun fact, Pinkpop is also the oldest annual dedicated pop and rock music festival in the world, running annually since 1970 (with an exception of 2020 and 2021).
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