Low-cost midlife crisis

Lille was great as before. Like the anti-Calais. In the morning we set off through cycling country (or at least a part of the world I only know from the names of bike races). Through Roubaix and on to Kortrijk (confusingly rendered as Courtoi by the app). Change there for the Brussels train, where we only had a 5 minute connection time, at a big station. Another advantage of the Internet is that you can find out which platform you need to get to before you get off the previous train.

The next train there though was full and that was our longest leg, just under 3 hours to Frankfurt. I managed to get a seat from Aachen so it wasn’t too bad, but the discomfort of the packed train was a reminder of some of those legs between Hamburg and Copenhagen in the dim and distant past a couple of weeks ago.

Reservations revisited

We are now headed to Italy. The fastest way to get to Italy from Lille is to go through France. French TGV trains are the fastest, it seems, in Europe and the network is really good, covering much of the country. The problem with TGV trains is that they all require reservations, but more crucially those reservations are really expensive. A typical seat reservation will set you back €22 – when you are travelling as a group of 5 that adds up fast. Lille to Nice for example (which would be at least two trains) would probably cost us getting on for €300 on reservations alone – basically the cost of the original interrail ticket.

So, instead we decided to take the slightly longer and slower route through Germany and Switzerland. A lot of this trip seems to involve decisions between the lesser of two evils. Slower trains with more changes and potentially no seat vs high cost reservations. Sleeping with the window open and getting bitten by mosquitoes or being incredibly hot. (On the other hand we do get a lot of positive choices. Shall we go to Denmark or Poland? Malmö or Roskilde for a day trip?)

One more train from Frankfurt took us to Stuttgart, a city I’d never been to before. It was incredibly lively (it was Saturday night and there did seem to be a wine festival occupying much of the middle of the city, but still). One of the richest cities in Europe (it says here) and home of both Mercedes and Porsche. Perhaps this explains the buzz about the place. The hauptbahnhof is a total mess of a construction site, though, and the woman we shared a compartment with from Frankfurt said it had been for years. Perhaps a city built on money from car manufacturers is not in a rush to make the rail travel experience a good one.