A long day on the train awaits. One of the biggest single day trips of our whole adventure. Approximately the distance from Brisbane to Sydney, in less than a day!
We were up nice & early and got an Uber to the train station. As usual the soldiers were wandering around on their patrol. I've always enjoyed airports and the watching people in their anticipation to be somewhere else. Train stations have a similar atmosphere, heading off on holidays, to see family & friends or just escaping for a few days. We sipped on coffee and watched the early morning crowd putting their travel plans into action.
Our train arrived, we found our reserved seats & observed the chaos that ensues when there is no room left on the luggage racks. Our carriage was modern and very comfortable with heaps of leg room. Lots of handy spots to store things in the seat back and overhead luggage racks for smaller bags. A screen at the front of the carriage displayed information about the scheduled stops and also the current speed, on average over 300km/hr! Again we were impressed with how smooth & quiet the train was.
We got comfortable for a few (3hrs) and then had to get off and change trains in Mannheim. Fortunately, an easy change that only involved walking to the other side of the platform and a 10min wait. We didn't have seat reservations for the next leg so we were pretty keen to jump on and grab the first available seats we could. Success! And the overhead bag racks were even big enough for our big back packs. We sat smugly watching other groups of people, and individuals, scouring up & down the carriages for seats together. This carriage was hot though! And and was only about an hour later that we realised that the air-conditioning was broken.
Next stop was Frankfurt, where a large number disembarked. A bit of seat shuffling for a better window view and we were set to go again. Although, upon leaving Frankfurt, our seats were now in the rear facing position, not ideal for Steph. About half an hour later & full of nausea, a group of people left the train & Steph pulled Bevan from his nap & pounced on he newly available seats, forward facing, against the back wall of the carriage, big window view and close to the opening door for cool air-conditioned air every time someone passed. And even better, these seats had no reservations on them all the way to Berlin. From here we spent the next 4.5hrs snacking, reading, snoozing & staring out the window at the German countryside.
We were sleepy & feeling very lazy but still happy to be alighting at our final destination for the day, Berlin.
