Easter Holidays Part 3: Brussels to Hamburg

In our cosy compartment

Today was a train day.  Anybody know where Hamburg is?  Answer: 604km from Brussels, so it was a much longer journey than yesterday and we got a new country to take in - hurray!

First things first - breakfast, so as our hotel was just across the road from Brussels Midi Station, we went there for breakfast.  We found a place call Le Croissanterie - I thought we might be able to find one of those delicious ham and cheese croissants there - the ones with béchamel sauce inside and cheese shavings on the outside.  Alas, it wasn't to be, but we did find regular ham and cheese croissants, so Matt and I had one each and Tom had a sausage roll - well we are on holiday and whilst on holiday, anything goes!

Our ICE, with Cologne Cathedral behind

We then did a spot of trainspotting as we had an hour before our train left.  Whilst on the Eurostar we read up on onward connections from Brussels, it said that you had to check in for ICE journeys to Germany and to make sure you allow a good half hour for security etc.  We got there, asked at the ICE desk and were told you just walk on the platform and get on the train.  Great - we had time to kill...what do you do with a little boy who likes trains when you are in a massive train station with trains from all over Europe arriving and departing - oh yes, that's right, train spotting!  He was more than happy.





We got the ICE from Brussels to Cologne, very nice it was too.  We had a first class compartment - it seats 6, the 3 of us and another man got in.  We started speaking in basic English to him to find out he was from Milton Keynes!!!!!  We chatted the rest of the way, he has a little girl, 9, was on business, prefers the train to the plane etc etc.  The journey went very quickly, first class wasn't that different to standard class, wider leather seats, but no food or drink like you get in English trains, although we did get a fun size Mars bar which made Tom's day.

A light snack for the journey

We arrived in Cologne dead on time, the station was right next door to the cathedral which was very handy - I remembered it from a school exchange trip.  We didn't get to see it properly though as we had  lunch to get which was much more important.  We are in Germany, so what should we have - sausages of course!  We found a sausage stall almost immediately: bratwurst for Tom and 2 x currywursts for Matt and I - my first currywurst (I think).  Very nice, the curry sauce catches up with you so it got quite spicy towards the end.

There were loads of bakeries around as well, so I got us a very nice looking pretzel (can't remember trying one in the past) for the next train ride, whilst Matt went looking for drinks.  We then got the IC to Hamburg - this one took much longer over 4 hours.

Pretzel exhaustion

We were 1st class again in an compartment again.  When we got to it, there was a feisty old woman in one of our window seats!  Although she only spoke German and us only English, it was clear she wasn't going to budge even though we had proof of our seats.  Luckily she pulled out her ticket and we found she was in the right seat but in the wrong carriage - she had no comeback and although she didn't leave the compartment she allowed us to sit in our seats!

The train trundled through the industrial cities of the Ruhr Valley: Dusseldorf, Essen, Osnabruck (remember learning about these in history lessons), not pretty but functional and necessary.  We finally got out to the countryside around Munster which was really quite lovely, if very very very flat.  It was a gorgeous day so the countryside looked very inviting.  The feisty old woman slowly warmed towards us (I think because we were playing so nicely with Tom) in the end we were talking to each other quite happily: her in German and us in very very broken German.  She helped us with the colours (we couldn't remember yellow: gelb) and chatted to us about her grand children.  She thought Tom was about 11!!!!  She got off at Essen and a young man got on.

The Hamburg Philharmonie

Believe it or not the train wasn't great.  Our carriage had no electricity and I mean NO electricity, even the emergency lights weren't working, so we had no air conditioning meaning it got hotter and hotter as the sun heated up the train, the doors didn't work, WC didn't work, well, basically nothing worked.  Can you believe it? In Germany!!!!!!!  I was just commenting to Matt that the WCs on the train were as good as in the UK (i.e. smelly and dirty) when the young man in the carriage decided to join us in conversation - he couldn't believe I meant the toilets were good!  I explained, and then we were chatting for the rest of the trip.  Tom had by this time fallen asleep, spread out on the seats (early morning and late night yesterday).  I think it took him about 3 sentences to ask us what we thought of Brexit - it is embarrassing trying to explain to a European why people voted to leave.  He was really interested in how the vote came about and why people voted to leave and if people understood what they were voting for etc.  It got a bit political, but in a good way, he had a sense of humour.  We were stunned when he revealed he was still at school - we took him for 20 something, but he must have been 17 or 18, wow!  A very self assured young man who was able to communicate in his second language very effectively - we were stunned.

Happy boy in cool restaurant

The rest of the trip went very quickly, mainly because we were chatting away with our companion (we never asked him his name!)  We arrived in Hamburg at 5.20 - a bit late!  We headed straight to the underground to get to our Airbnb.  We are on the top floor of an old Merchant's building (1689) lots of flights of stairs to get to it and sloping floors and ceilings.  The owner is also obviously resident here when he isn't letting it out.  He is a 'cool' guy in his 20s, almost a stereotypically cool guy - complete with John Lennon glasses hanging round his neck, a cool hat worn on a jaunty angle etc etc.  He was happy enough and showed us around - it is a bachelor's pad - but will do just fine.  It is also directly opposite a restaurant we were recommended by Karen and Adam who visited earlier in the year so that was good luck.

We dumped our stuff and then headed to the end of the road where we could see old warehouses so we got lost amongst them for a while - mainly to stretch our legs, we then headed back to the restaurant that Karen and Adam recommended Kartoffel Keller - which was great.  Very moody place, tables in a cellar lit up by candlelight.  Every menu item included potatoes of some sort.  Matt had Wiener schnitzel with sauted potatoes (with loads of bacon bits which he loved), I had baked potatoes with mushroom sauce and Tom had potato pancakes with apple and cranberry compote.  We were all very happy.

Tom sort of died at the end of the meal so we headed back across the street to our apartment.  He headed straight to bed but couldn't sleep as he is so excited about visiting the model railway tomorrow...