It was a mostly dreary ride from Lauffen to Berlin.
I had to work yesterday so my day was filled with a lack of tourism, but I was left unattended in a flat with a pack of googly eyes which, through the day, found themselves stuck onto a variety of objects which will provide weeks, if not months, of amusement as they are found.
It was Mr Host’s idea, in my defence, and I therefore decline all responsibility.
Hostess got me to the station in plenty of time for me to get on a regional service to Stuttgart. We had on Monday discussed the benefits of having a small first class compartment on the regional services and concluded that it was probably only useful when the trains were full. Which this was, of course, because it was the 07:03 service was an early-morning commuter service which was rammed. In first, there were eight places, and I had one of them for the 37 comfortable minutes to Stuttgart, where I had a change onto a normal Intercity service to Nürmberg.
This, too, was a mostly uneventful journey although there was much excitement in Stuttgart when a locomotive in old DB colours celebrating fifty years of Intercity travel in Germany pulled into platform 15. I suspect it was some kind of trainspotter porn-moment, because even the DB staff were so excited I felt compelled to take a photo myself just in case it was indeed a historic moment.
My train eventually pulled in alongside it and before long I was enjoying my morning coffee in a compartment on the top deck which I had to myself for most of the journey.
I took a risk when booking as I chose a non-quiet zone compartment to be able to have a decent window seat as there were no decent window seats in the quiet zone, but the windows were much bigger than the booking system suggested and I would have had a wonderful view from either, had it not been raining. It was quiet anyway, until Nürmberg where more people joined my compartment and made a little too much noise for my liking. This was eventually tempered by their art of conversation which demanded they don headphones and watch something on Netflix which stopped the loud conversation and replaced it with occasional giggles and snorts. This was more acceptable.
In Nürmberg I had time to change and locate my slightly delayed ICE to Berlin on its freshly-reassigned platform and realise that I’d left my hat on the luggage rack above my seat on the previous train. Much to my relief this hadn’t left the station and was still on its assigned platform, so I I had a fun rush back to my seat to recover my hat and managed to leap from the train back onto the platform just as the doors were closing. I wouldn’t have minded an impromptu trip to Leipzig, but I was happier that I continued to Berlin on an ICE in the twelve-seat quiet compartment which I had to myself all the way.
I wore my train slippers to make the most of it.
About this time, somewhere near Halle, the weather started to clear and the final hour or so to Berlin was a sunny affair which seemed the perfect for eating lunch. I grabbed myself a seat in the dining car and ordered the vegan currywürst with a bread roll and a Bitburger, all served to me, of course, on real plates with real cutlery and with a real glass for the beer. And all for less than a tenner (just). The more I travel on trains outside France, the more I realise the SNCF are taking the piss when it comes to the quality of their food offering; standing up and clinging on for dear life to a soggy croque-monsieur in a TGV buffet car is an experience not imbued with the same level of romance.
The ICE eventually pulled into Berlin Hauptbahnhof with an acceptably small delay. Host met me and ushered me to his, whereupon I sadly had work to do until the evening. After that, we we experienced the U4, Berlin’s shortest underground line, had many yums in a vegetarian restaurant much-recommended, and then accidentally consumed cocktails until the small hours.
The Eldorado is now a supermarket.
