Wednesday 5 August 2020

(Too) many trains

The day started well, leaving our comfortable Premier Inn room for a 5 min stroll to St Pancras and a crisply on time Eurostar to Brussels (pic from my seat - not busy).

Then comes the harder bit; five trains across Northern Europe, with some tight changes (pic). All was well until Dusseldorf where the Hamburg train would be 60 (sixty) minutes late ... in Germany ... whoever heard of such a thing! We would miss the connection to Lubeck. So we jumped onto another train to Hamburg requiring a tight extra change at Hannover. Getting slightly sweaty now; as bad as missing a tidal gate with a foul wind.

Semi-realtime reporting now. Hannover was a mess, but we survived: arrived 3 minutes late (yes. I know, but in an 8 min transfer it matters); raced to advertised platform but turned away - last minute change; down the steps and up the escalator again; screen says 1st class at front (yes, I know, but we're going for lowest density of travellers), but it's actually at the rear. So we're v sweaty (well I am, L is glowing) in quite busy 2nd class. That was worse than wind over tide on the Elbe estuary ... well, not quite.

Puff ... Puff ... late in again, made the change at Hamburg to the Lubeck train by running, with only a minute to spare. The lift wasn't working and if we hadn't positioned ourselves first out of the door we would not have made it. Deeply disappointed in Deutsche Bahn. Maybe it's because all the businessmen are on hols in Aug.

And we're on the last train, (actually the seventh train of the day)Lubeck to Fehmarn Burg - just a small frisson of uncertainty because there were two trains on the same platform so the signage (to a non German speaker) was confusing. To be fair,  the DB staff have been unremittingly friendly and helpful.

OMG we've arrived in our little apartment - the taxi was ready for us at the station, and Jutta was ready for us here. A blizzard of unpacking and off to zzzzz

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