Sunday 15 August 2010
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- bazza
Windsor, 17:10 UTC
- Our Munich hotel was good: comfy room, practical bathroom and light meals at the bar. We both slept well (helped by the bar's other offerings).
- We'd splashed out on the DB Bahn ICE train to Brussels, buying fairly cheap first class tickets a while ago, on offer as a Europa-Spezial Belgien. It was, in any event, a good investment for a long journey as the rest of the train was packed. Huge seats in a quiet compartment let us enjoy the views of damp Munich, followed by thick August fog. It wasn't until we got to northern Bavaria that the sun shone.
- A moment's panic set in when we realised the train called at Düsseldorf. As we'd had no chance to speak to Danny Boy, we couldn't be certain of what was there. Thankfully, we had to change at Cologne (the station before) for our onward trip to Brussels.
- DB's InterCityExpress trains are fast and comfortable but not super-quick like Eurostar or TGV and, as mentioned previously, subject to delays; this time 15 minutes in Cologne and apologies for inkonwenienzes were offered again. In our case, it was not a problem as it just shortened the wait we had in Brussels for the Eurostar to London.
- Which brings us to the longest (timewise per kilometre) journey of our trip: St Pancras International to Vauxhall/Waterloo to catch our train to Windsor. Having sampled, without problem or mishap, many forms of public transport on our holiday, run by many differing authorities and institutions, each with their own rules and regulations on how things are done, it was finally the buggers at TfL who messed up big time. Brussels to London takes two hours, the same as Cologne to Brussels; six stops on the tube took one. We just missed the train to Windsor which would have placed us in our local pub in time for for steak and chips after a frugal day on the trains. So it was just cheese-and-onion crisps in The Alma instead, washed down by some favourite plonk for her and refreshing English beer for him. Which was nice.
