Low-cost midlife crisis

I feel like we are beginning to deal with real interrailing, warts and all. Saturday, I got more flashbacks.

As mentioned, we had been intending to go to Copenhagen, and the woman in Berlin Station had given us some routing options, which eventually we decided to follow. As the fast compulsory reservation trains were full, we had to do it bit by bit.

After checking out of the hostel, we got to the station and leaving everyone on the platform, I went to get us some breakfast. There was a long queue at the bakery place, but after an increasingly nervous last few minutes during which I considered giving up on at least 3 occasions, I managed to score some bready goodness (pretzels and croissants, since you ask, very Euro) and got back to my party just as our train was pulling in. It turned out this tense breakfast wait was much more important than I thought it would be.

Train 1 – Berlin to Hamburg. Nice train. Few minutes late. We all sat together. There was even a restaurant car where I got a coffee. B was with me and saw a kid getting an ice cream so asked me to get her one too. The woman behind the counter asked me “is it for you?” – “no, for my daughter” I gestured. She turned to B, smiled and asked “how old are you?” “22” “the thing is, that the ice creams are free for under 14s… But you were under 14 once…” and she handed her the ice cream. So, that was nice.

Train 2 – Hamburg to Flensburg. Much more of a regional train rather than an intercity. The first train being late, and Hamburg station being very large, meant that it was quite a rush. Not like I worried we’d miss it, more that there was no time to stop and think “I’m in Hamburg”. Busy train but again we all got seats, though not together. Not even in the same carriages. Some nice scenery, though a bit flat for my taste. It was a big train, double decker, and every seat was taken. I began to realise that probably at least 80% of the passengers were doing the trip we were doing. I sent word to my people that they should be close to the doors, bags ready, when we arrived in Flensburg.

While we were trying to work out whether we had options a couple of days earlier, I looked at pictures of Flensburg. It seems like a really pretty town (with very high priced hotels) at the tip of a fjord. We saw none of that. Just one platform of frenzied chaos as hundreds of travellers dashed from one train across to the waiting other, to Aarhus (in the middle of Aarstreet)

Train 3 – Flensburg to Fredericia. Packed. People, luggage, bicycles. I think most, if not all, the seats were reserved, but I’m not sure how you’d get to your seat if you had one. After a couple of stops one became free near where I was standing so I sat down, assuming it would only be for a few minutes before it was claimed by its rightful owner. As an aside seats on Danish trains are huge, like thrones. Big and comfortable and occupying lots of space.

All through the day the various train staff had been great – cheerful, helpful, informative and good humoured. It can’t be easy dealing with these numbers of potentially fractious people, tired, probably hungry and thirsty. Even the Danish passport control bloke who came on and squeezed his way through the throng to check everyone, was friendly enough.

I’d like to be able to report on the scenery of southern Jutland but I didn’t really see any of it. We pulled into places with extremely Danish sounding names like Rødekro and Lunderskov, but I don’t really have any memories – even though I’m writing this less than 24 hours later.

I think in the end I held onto the seat I had found for about half of the 90 minute journey. But that was luckier than most. And then of course – we did the same thing all over again at Fredericia. Like one of those videos of the Tokyo subway at rush hour. Only with backpacks.

Train 4 – Fredericia to Kobenhavn. Of course packed. An announcement came over the address system from the guard in another carriage “I’m standing in carriage 18 near the back of the train and there’s quite a lot of standing room” she said, “so those of you in the really packed ones like 71 and 72 might want to come here.” I was in 61 and I couldn’t really imagine what a “really packed” one would look like. Nor how in hell one would set out on such an expedition through the train. I was about 5m from the toilet and even that looked like a journey fraught with difficulties. The good news was that this train only stopped once between where we got on and Copenhagen, so the reshuffling and complexity of people getting on and off was not going to be endlessly repeated. Also, after that stop in Odense, I realised I could sit on the steps to the door, knowing that I wasn’t going to be in anybody’s way.

Still, we made it. We got to Copenhagen at just after 4pm. It was around this time that I realised that we’d not eaten after the Franco-German baked products about 7 hours earlier and we were all probably a bit hungry. I checked and it turned out that I was right. So we went off for lunch? Tea? Dunch? Whatever.

Oh and then of course it was back to the station for some more reservation/planning action, of which more later…