Our journey to Copenhagen was uneventful and we were pleased to discover our hotel was just a few minutes walk from the station. We checked in and then headed for the bar for a beer and to make a plan for dinner.
Continue reading Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen.
…our journey to Hamburg was slightly disrupted. We had to change trains unexpectedly at the Dutch/German border (we think there was an engine issue), and our connection at Osnabruck was about 50 minutes late so we didn’t arrive in Hamburg until about 7pm.
Continue reading Hamburg.
The sleeper train was a great experience. It was comfortable enough for us both to get some sleep, breakfast arrived as promised with our wake-up call, the showers in the GWR lounge at Paddington were very welcome and soon after 7am we were on the tube on our way to St Pancras.
Terry and Jenny arrived bang on schedule and we had time to enjoy breakfast together while checking our mobile travel passes and making sure we’d all loaded the right journey’s in the app.
Most of the train journeys en route to Bergen are quite long so we have treated ourselves to 1st Class tickets. On Eurostar to Amsterdam that meant Standard Premier (?!), the seats were comfy and we were served a very acceptable light lunch with wine, and coffee/tea and cake later in the afternoon. The journey flew by as we caught up with 5 years of news from Australia.
It must be 30 years since we were last in Amsterdam and Terry and Jenny have never been to mainland Europe so the taxi ride from the station was a first glimpse of the beautiful canals and tall town houses. We were booked into the Hotel Notting Hill situated on the edge of the Singelgracht canal.
Terry and Jenny were interested to try Rijstafel, the Indonesian buffet meal popular in Amsterdam so that night we walked to a restaurant 10 minutes from the hotel and enjoyed a feast of spicey chicken, meat and vegetable dishes, salads and rice. After a walk back to the hotel we were all ready for an early-ish night.
We had one full day in Amsterdam so we took a city tour by boat and spent the afternoon at the Rijksmuseum which felt like a good introduction to the city. Dinner at a restaurant on the bank of the Amstel river rounded off the first of our mini city breaks.
We are now on the train heading for Hamburg, I’d better sign off so I don’t miss the change at Osnabruck. More soon.
Sunrise on our first morning in London. Looks like a nice day out there. Time to find a nice, not so large, coffee.
Welcome back to the UK.
The last destination of our trip! We arrived in Cologne mid-afternoon to grey skies and pouring rain. Our hotel, the Art’otel on the river bank was a pleasant surprise, a bright modern hotel and a big airy room. Despite the weather we decided to head into town for dinner, we needed some fresh air and a chance to stretch our legs after a day travelling. Some online research suggested we try the Brauerei zur Malzmuehle, a local brewery restaurant serving traditional German cuisine, best of all it was only 400m away, we put up our hoods and headed out in to the rain. When we reached the restaurant, we pushed through a big wooden revolving door, and then through some heavy woollen curtains emerging into a dining room with scrubbed wooden tables and waiters in long blue aprons, it looked like it hadn’t changed since it opened 150 years ago. Having found a table, the waiter asked how many beers we wanted, not whether we wanted beer, or which beer we wanted just how many, as it was a brewery pub we decided to go with it and asked for two. The beers, a local brew called Kolsch, exclusive to Cologne, arrived in small glasses which seems to be how it is served here, just as well because it is quite strong. Using the weather as a good excuse to indulge in some hearty German cooking we ordered potato soup to start, I had meatloaf with fried potatoes and red cabbage to follow and Mark had spicy polish sausage with potatoes and sauerkraut, it was all delicious but very filling so we had to pass on the applestreudel. Continue reading Koln
Mark And Kim's Adventures 