Train: Brussels Midi, Belgium

It was a short trip from Rotterdam to Brussels. We arrived on a slightly cloudy day, but it wasn't raining. I was amazed at how old Brussels looks, even compared to many of the other older European cities I have been to. This is likely exaggerated by the fact that we arrived into the city center through some of the older and lower-income parts. The main downtown area was a little cleaner, however, it is clear that most of the city lacks the significant modern growth of many other large European Union cities. I can imagine it looked almost exactly the same during WWII as it does now, minus the modern cars.

 

I took a few pictures from the train as we approached the Midi train station.

Despite the older look of the city on the outside, the train stations and subway stations are quite modern inside. Once at Brussels Midi, I walked around to make sure I knew where I needed to be to catch the Eurostar to London. It turns out they have quite a large and nice entry with significant security for entering the UK. 

Once I was sure of where to go, I headed for the subway station to find my hotel and check in. I would be arriving back in Brussels late in the evening, and didn't want to be wondering around looking for the hotel in this city in the dark.

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Train: NB Intercity Utrecht to Rotterdam

My first impression of Netherlands Bahn trains is that they are very modern, bright, shiny, and clean. This is in contrast to the even newer German trains (Sure they are clean inside, but they always look worn and dirty on the outside). In contrast, the NB IC and Sprinter trains all look like they were scrubbed from end to end, inside and out, every morning. The next thing that I noticed is that (at least most of them) have free Internet on board the train. That was great, since my Germany-based O2 SIM card only works inside Germany.

Shiny Clean Outside

Inside, the trains look as nice as they do outside. Large, bright orange leather(ish) seats with plenty of legroom from seat to seat. It doesn't appear that the IC trains have food service, at least not on the trains that I took, so you would need to grab something at the station. However, given the size of the country and the speed of the trains, I don't think many of the routes take more than 2 hours, even with stops, so for domestic trains, this probably is not an issue.

New And Bright Red Inside

Another bonus, a 1st class Eurail pass also gets you into the NB HighSpeed Lounge, just like in Sweden. Once I got to Rotterdam, I went upstairs near the Ticket and Service Desk, and around the side near the Burger King (Seems there is a law now requiring at least one Burger King in every train station in the EU!...sad...) there is a door with a button. Press the button and they will buzz you in. Up one level and in the door on the right. Show your pass and the attendant will get you a drink from the bar. They also have free soft drinks, but you have to drink them there, you can't take them out. They have free secure WiFi and very nice restrooms.

Soon enough it was time to head out to my train to Brussels.

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Train: City Night Line, Deluxe Single Sleeper, Munich, Germany to Utricht

This was a much older train than the one I took last week. Just a single level, the cabins were about half the size, and the toilet/shower combination room was quite a squeeze, though functional. While clearly old and worn, the train was very clean as with anywhere in Germany, so overall it was perfectly adequate.

Much Smaller Cabin in the Older CNL Coach

I boarded about 20 minutes before the train was to leave, and as I did last week, I wanted to have my ticket verified and get checked in before unpacking. I always have the fear that I'm in the wrong coach, or the wrong cabin, and I'll have to repack everything and move once they come to check my rail pass. No worries though as usual, after just resting in the room for about 30 minutes, the attendant came by, gave me the quick safety briefing and methodically went through every feature and light switch in the small cabin. He asked about wake up time and breakfast preference, then took my rail pass, promising to return it in the morning.
 

Once he left, I went ahead and unpacked some things for the morning, hung my shirt and jacket, and sat down on the bed to Skype chat with family. Unfortunately the cellular 3G service in rural southern Germany is spotty and video conferencing wasn't going to work outside of Munich. I tried an old fashioned phone call, but that wouldn't stay connected either. After a frustrating few minutes, we just text chatted for a while, then I got ready for bed.
 

The ride this time was a lot rougher throughout the night, kind of like a bad weather airline flight on a larger airplane. I don't know if it was the tracks, or the older train car, or both, but I kept waking up every time we switched off to a siding to let another train pass, or slammed on the brakes for some unknown issue, or at a station. It was noisier as well. On most German trains you can barely hear or feel the tracks most of the time, but this one felt and sounded more like what you would expect on a train in a 3rd world country. It was definitely more of a "train" experience than I have become accustomed to recently!
 
Right on time, I got a wake up call and breakfast. The tray was exactly what I got the last time, cereal, warm whole milk, orange juice, hot tea, rolled dried meat, and some bread. This room doesn't have space for a table full time, so he opened a panel in the hallway outside and extracted a table attachment. This connects to the window and has a leg kind of like an ironing board. You sit on your bed and eat like at a bar. This room holds up to 3 people, but with just me, I could barely move while the table was installed. Once finished eating, I immediately took it down and stacked it in the corner until the attendant could come get it. I can only imagine how the 3 large men in the next cabin were fairing...

I then showered, got dressed, and packed up. We were about 30 minutes from Utrecht, so I just sat and watched The Netherlands speed by for a while. They announced that the train would not be continuing on to Amsterdam due to a bridge being closed. That didn't effect me, since I was getting off at Utrecht anyway to catch an NB Intercity train to Rotterdam. Later in the day, I noticed a lot of trains were canceled due to this bridge issue to Amsterdam.


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Train: DBBahn ICE, IC, RE Freiburg, Germany to Reutlingen, Germany

The City Night Line was the last reserved train I have until next weekend, so today I'm just casually taking trains in the direction of my office in Germany for the work week. Today, that involves a quick 1 hour ICE high-speed train from Freiburg to Karlsruhe, lunch, then an IC Inter-City train to Stuttgart, and finally an RE Regional Express to Reutlingen Hbf Central Station.

When I arrived, I didn't see an ATM in the Freiburg station, so I went across the street to the large Volksbank building. Luckily my ATM card worked there. I went back to Starbucks for some free WIFI and checked the train schedules on the DBbahn App, the most awesome travel app I have ever used. I entered a number of cities and it showed on a map the routes of those trains. I then picked out a few options and the app saved them out to my calendar, which then automatically synced from my iPad to my Phone. With the various train options loaded into my phone, I headed out to catch the ICE train which was leaving in a few minutes.

Lunch - Sweet and Sour Shrimp

An hour later I was in Karlsruhe. I decided to make a round of the station and check out my options for lunch, then chose the small Asian noodle shop in the main shopping area...pretty good actually, if not the healthiest option. I went shopping at the small carry out next door to get some juice and fruit for the hotel. Since it is Sunday, there won't be anything open in Reutlingen until tomorrow.

Next was the IC train to Stuttgart. These are not quite as nice as the newer ICE trains, but for an hour they get you there. 1st class has 6-person individual compartments with a large window. When the train is not crowded, you can often get a whole room to yourself. 

With only 10 minutes for the connection in Stuttgart, I didn't have time to stop at the Starbucks for free internet. At that point I was only 30 minute from the hotel anyway, so it didn't matter. The Regional Express to Reutlingen is a simple regional train. It does go fairly fast, but not like the IC and ICE trains. Reutlingen is the first stop, and it takes about 30 minutes.
 
From there, it's just a quick taxi ride to the hotel to settle in, unpack, and prepare for a busy work week in the office. Now only 5 days until the next adventure this Friday to Belgium, the Netherlands, and England, via the Channel Tunnel!

 

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Train: City Night Line Delux Single Sleeper - Copenhagen, Denmark to Basal , Switzerland

I barely made this train due to the joke that is Oresundstac. I had read online that these trains are regularly delayed, and had left myself more than an hour for the connection, but I had no idea how bad it was really going to be. I did make it though, with just a few minutes to spare!
 

I hurried through Copenhagen Central to track 7 were the CNL was to depart and saw that it wasn't there yet. I quickly ducked into a 7-Eleven and grabbed some orange juice and water. Unfortunately, as is often the case in Europe (contrary to the constant assurance of US credit card companies), the clerk couldn't figure out how to run a (non-chip-and-pin) US credit card. After a minute or two, I just walked away and headed for the train with teenage clerk telling me it was the machine's fault. I had only been in Denmark a few minutes at that point, and had no time to get local currency (Why can't all the EU countries just get along and use the Euro already?).


I had no trouble in Sweden, and generally have no trouble in Germany, France, England, or Switzerland, but if you go to Denmark from the US, plan to carry cash with you for when your credit card won't work. Someday the US will catch up with the rest of the world...

Not much to look at on the outside, but pretty awesome on the inside!

By the time I was coming down the escalator to the track, the train was pulling in. I headed to my car and wandered down the hall looking for my berth. It was a bit confusing determining which number on the doors I was to match with the numbers on my ticket and had to ask the attendant. It turns out you ignore the room number and just look at the bed number below. They might be the same in each coach, so make sure you get that right first, then look for the berth. I had a Deluxe Single/Double Sleeper, which is standard with a 1st class rail pass with two bunks, a toilet, sink, and shower in the room. It was upstairs in this double-stacked sleeping car with both side and upward-facing windows, quite nice, and very spacious as sleeping accommodations go, similar to a very small cruise ship room. 

An office away from home!

Initially, I just dropped my bags and sat there looking out the window. I figured I would wait for the attendant to check my ticket before I unpacked anything, just in case I was in the wrong place. No worries, shortly after we left the station our attendant for the 15-hour trip showed up, checked me in, and asked if I wanted a drink to start off. Paperwork all finished, I went ahead and opened my bags and put things in order. After an hour or so we made an extended stop at another station in Denmark so I decided to hop off for a minute. Everything was closed, so I jut headed to the dining car to look for some food. 

Quite a bit of room compared to some older sleeper cars

Unfortunately, my favorite DB train meal was sold out, as was most of the menu. They only had about 5 items left out of the 50 or so on the menu, so I ended up with a horrible sandwich, chips, a Fanta, and some fairly good Goulash soup. Not too bad, at least it was food. I sat and read for a while in the dining car, then headed back to the room. It was getting pretty late by this time and I was exhausted as usual, so I was ready for bed.
 

At first I thought I would leave the window shades open so I could look out at the landscape going by. However, being so far North meant that the sun didn't really set until around midnight, and the station and track lights kept going by jolting me awake like spotlights through the upper windows. After a short time I ended up closing them for the rest of the night. It was a good thing anyway, as the sun was back up at 4am, and another problem I realized was that in the stations, the upper level bridges across the tracks allow people in the station to look right down on you in the room...a good reason to close the bathroom door even if you are alone in the compartment!
 

Having a shower in a train is awesome! It does take a bit to get used to though. It works kind of like a small boat or camper shower. You press a button to get water for about 10 seconds or so, use some soap, press the button again to rinse, then repeat a number of times till your done. Beyond that, it was great, the water was hot and the flow was good. A great start to another day of train riding around Germany!

Breakfast showed up at the agreed upon on time. A very traditional German travel breakfast of cereal, bread, meat, juice, and tea or coffee. I had brought some bananas with me from the buffet at the Opera hotel as well. As expected, they provided a little box of about room temperature whole milk for the cereal. I ate it quickly and washed it down with juice, I'm gradually getting use to it, but I still prefer my cold fat-free milk in the US.

Breakfast

All too soon, we arrived at Freiburg, where I planned to grab an ICE back North and East toward Reutlingen for my next hotel for the week.

Ever been on a sleeper train? Tell me about it below...

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Train: Oresundstac Gothenburg Sweden to Copenhagen, Denmark

For the trip from Gothenburg to Copenhagen there were unfortunately no SJ fast trains available so I had to use Oresundstac. This is a sort of express regional international train that goes between Sweden and Denmark, stopping at about every major station along the way. Even so, it gets there in about 4 hours. 

The major downside is that these trains are notoriously late. The schedule will say 3:40, but as many have pointed out, always allow extra transfer time for your connection when you take Oresundstac trains. In my case, I was about an hour late getting to Copenhagen and almost missed my next train (More on that in a minute). I'm used to German trains which are rarely more than a few minutes late, and thus connections are often scheduled at less than 10 minutes.

Random Scene in Southern Sweden

As with many regional express trains, it was completely packed. In fact, there were people standing most of the trip. Lots of people get on and off at each station, so watch your bags closely. The man sitting near me said there was a major robbery on this line just a week ago. He made it sound like a wild west hold-up, though surely he was exaggerating... 

2nd Class

Another thing to note is that 1st class on these trains is basically just a separate section labelled 1 Klass instead of 2 Klass. The seats are exactly the same as far as I can tell, other than being a different color. There are still 4 seats across just like in the rest of the train, instead of 3 across with most 1st class coaches in Europe that I've seen. So, unless you are traveling on a rail pass where it makes no difference, you might not find it worth the difference in ticket cost. On this particular train though, the primary difference was the amount of people. While there was standing room only between some stations in 2nd class, the 1st class coach always had a few open seats.

As to the delays, they started almost as soon as we left Gothenburg. First, they announced over the intercom that due to work being done on the tracks, we would be running at half speed for a while (From what I have read online, this "work" has been going on for over 10 years now, but still is not accounted for in the train schedule). By the time we approached Malmo, we were running about 40 minutes behind schedule, but I was still showing about 25 minutes for my transfer. ...Then all hell broke loose...

Right before we arrived in the station at Malmo, as everyone was casually sitting and watching out the windows...they announced that the train would be stopping there, and we would all have to get off and take another train across the bridge to Denmark and Copenhagen Centraal. Worse, the connecting train would leave in 3 minutes. As soon as this was announced, the overloaded coaches went crazy with everyone scrambling to grab their bags and race to the doors to make the connecting train.


I quickly checked the train schedule and determined that the next train to Copenhagen would not even LEAVE Malmo until after my night train left Copenhagen. If I was to have any hope of making that train, I MUST make this connection. So, I joined the 1000 other people who ran through Malmo station bowling over everyone on the way, to make that regional connecting train. And if anyone thought our first train was crowded...the already full second train turned quickly into a scene from a Japanese commuter train.


Luckily, being in the first coach in the arriving train, and fairly agile, I was one of the first to arrive at the new train, so I managed to get a seat in the 1st class coach, though many were not so lucky.


Once on the connecting train, the short connection was otherwise uneventful, and we arrived at its designated time with 9 minutes to spare for my night train. I quickly checked the local train schedule in the station to verify the time and track for the City Night Line train to Basal, then headed into the nearest 7-11 hoping to get some food quickly before boarding for the night. That was not to be either, but I did make the next train...


Do you have any great train adventure stories? Please share below!


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Hotel: Grand Hotel Opera, Gothenburg

I stayed at the Grand Hotel Opera for one night in Gothenburg, Sweden. It is a relatively inexpensive but elegant hotel right in the center of the city, nearly across the street from the Gothenburg Central train station. Its location makes it a very convenient place to stay when traveling through Gothenburg by train.

Canal Side View

This hotel has a newly renovated section that is quite nice. Checkin was simple, I was given an end room on the 4th floor with a single queen sized bed. The rooms all have heavy curtains for the windows, which is a requirement in the summer when the sun sets for only a few hours this far north! One note however, there was no bathtub, just a simple shower. Not a problem for me, but if you have children, or otherwise desire a tub, you might verify this before making a reservation.

Front View from the Canal

It was very late when I got in, after an overnight flight and several hour train ride from Stockholm I was exhausted. I was out in minutes. 

I did take advantage of the breakfast the next morning. It was a very nice setup, similar to what you would expect to find at any respectable hotel in Germany. Scrambled eggs, various meats, breads, cereal, yogurt, fruit, etc. Of course tea, coffee, and juices. One notable thing for me was the milk. It was not the normal room temperature, sour, heavy cream milk that I find in Germany, but very fresh, low fat, milk like I enjoy in the US. I had the first bowl of cereal in years in Europe that I enjoyed and didn't have to quaff down as fast as possible and wash down with lots of strong juice.

Breakfast Buffet

After breakfast, check out was quick and I put my bags in their luggage room to go explore the city for a few hours.

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Gothenburg, Sweden

Gothenburg Central Station

I only had a few hours in Gothenburg in the morning before catching the train to Copenhagen. I checked out of the hotel and put my bags in the luggage room, then headed out to explore the city. I decided to check out the local tour bus first, then the boat version. While these are quite "touristy", I have found over the years that they often a good first step in exploring a city. If nothing else, they are an easy way to get around to the various attractions, and the narrative will often point out facts and details you didn't know. You get a quick overview of the city, and maybe notice a few additional things you will want to check out later in more detail. Today however, I wouldn't have much time to explore so I wanted a way to see the sites quickly.

Old-fashioned Street Trains

Gothenburg is a port city. It used to be one of the largest ports in Scandinavia, but 3 of the 4 major port operators have closed over the years, so now the port mainly does dry dock maintenance on large ships. Being the second largest city in Sweden, next to Stockholm, it is a large city by Swedish standards, but more like a large town by global standards. There are lots of options for ferry and ship travel to Denmark and the major islands off the west coast. In fact, the giant Stena Express catamaran ship can get you to Copenhagen in half the time of the train, and you can get a full restaurant meal on the way!

Most of the city is covered in parks. You can barely stand anywhere, even in the heart of downtown, and not see at least one park. After taking one loop around in the bus, I had a few minutes until the boat tour started so I took a walk through the main park Kungsparken along the canals downtown. It is quite nice, with lots of statues, flowers, trees, dogs, etc. 

Rhododendrons everywhere

These bridges used to rotate by hand for boats

There is no shortage of shopping and restaurants though, most prominently Sushi. I think there are more Sushi restaurants in Gothenburg, and Sweden in general, to rival the number of Starbucks per block in Seattle!

Where else can you see an ice sculpture in June!

jgf

The Liseberg amusement park is in Gothenburg.

Locks get boats father inland

Retired Battleship

This old sailing ship is now stuck here due to a recent bridge addition. It's a hotel now.

Dry Dock ship lowers to pick up large ships out of the water

Low Bridge!

Old Fish House is now a seafood restaurant

Another low Bridge! We had to sit on the floor for this one.

It was a quick tour, but very interesting. We'll have to add this to the list of places to come back to someday.

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