Low-cost midlife crisis

In which we

• Get very little sleep
• Encounter our first grumpy railway employee
• Make some tight connections, but arrive as expected
• Encountered some more curiosities of the app

The train we left Copenhagen on was due to leave at 23.54, but apparently without warning this was shifted to 00.01 – that 7 minute shift was ostensibly meaningless but seemed to have some kind of weird knock on effect on the app. As it happened neither the original time nor the revised one showed up on the app even though we actually had reservations (sold to us specifically as being interrail reservations). This didn’t really matter hugely but because of the fact that the train left on August 10th rather than the 9th and because we had to manually enter our trip, it vanished from the 10/08 “show your ticket” function, which in theory is quite important as that function, which generates a QR code is in effect your actual ticket. However, the ticket collector in Denmark didn’t seem to care, presumably being used to interrailers who haven’t done everything to the letter. Less importantly it meant that the “stats” the app gives you about the number of kilometres you’ve travelled and so on are no longer accurate.

It was difficult to sleep. The whole sleeping in chairs thing is hard for me, and it doesn’t help when an announcement comes over the tannoy every 20 minutes letting you know about the next station. Once we got to Germany the volume got turned up even louder for these nuggets of info (either that or the woman making the announcements was shouting). We got woken up for a passport check too (well, some people got woken up, I was, in keeping with most of the night, not sleeping anyway).

I’m not really sure and where you get your passport checked within the Schengen zone. Are there some countries that insist and then others reciprocate? Over the years I’ve crossed into Germany from a number of different Schengen area countries and barely even noticed the border. But when we went from Germany to Denmark we were checked and then likewise the other way. Since we crossed from Romania into Hungary all those aeons ago, it is only that border at Flensburg that has apparently needed a check. Even going into Sweden there was an announcement that we were going to get checked but then nobody bothered. Are there covid era differences?

Speaking of Covid, Germany is the only country we’ve been in so far that insists on masks on trains (and other public transport). Not only that but they have to be FFP2 masks (which, fortunately, we bought a largish box of before we left home last Monday).

We had a bit of time for some breakfast in Hamburg station served by a woman who, let’s say, didn’t want to waste time on pleasantries. It was good to have a slight break though because afterwards we were about to go on one of those journeys that involved multiple changes all of which were not dawdleable.

The first of those trains – which turned out to be going all the way to Munich – was incredibly long. Our reservations turned out to be in one of the front carriages so far away from the station concourse that I wondered if they could lay on a separate train to take us there. As we trekked along the infinite platform we passed the restaurant car approximately halfway along. The idea of walking that far back within the train was too daunting to contemplate so I mentally checked off the possibility of having another coffee.

It left late, dashing a stereotype about German trains, but luckily our next change in Osnabrück was also a bit late (two late trains in Germany in a row – though only by a few minutes). That one involved a bit more of a hike between platforms but then we were soon on our way into the Netherlands (obviously no passport check). It was here that I encountered my first rude railway employee in the whole 9 days of travelling. About 15 minutes after the border, I decided to get a coffee, and headed for the relevant carriage. It was closed. I asked the guy who seemed to be the guy, when it would open and he got all annoyed with this apparently ridiculous question. We’ll be pootling about on Dutch railways for the next few days so hopefully he’s just a one off.

Anyway, we made it to our friend’s house in suburban Rotterdam, tired, hungry and somewhat unwashed. But we’ll stop here for a few days now, on the day trip system.

OK so I’ve explained the benefit of the day trip. In some ways today we had little choice because our train out of Copenhagen was at midnight. We used today to go to Roskilde, which turned out to be a very cute place with it’s own fjord – and on a sunny day like today* that was perfect

(*probably yesterday by the time I finish typing this)

Those late night trains can be a killer – wondering what to do between about 9.30 and midnight (the obvious option is to go to a bar, but that holds its own set of problems – from accidentally missing the train, to catching the train but spending half the night queuing for the bog, and of course not forgetting that this time I do have to be vaguely responsible for others) so having a day out beforehand is quite appealing.

Anyway, won’t go into the tedious holiday talk but if you are at all interested here are some photos of Roskilde. Tonight’s trains promise to be potentially rich in blog material, so I’ll shut up now.

An interrail ticket allows you to roam Europe, visiting far flung places, and getting far from home. But, as some of the days of this trip have shown, it’s not necessarily as easy as it might be. However, there are other ways you can use the ticket – once you get somewhere.

The 8th day of our holiday was a good example ( since day 1 started at 9pm, this was effectively the end of the first week. I have to tell you that it feels like we’ve been away a lot longer than a week. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?). Rather than lug our backpacks off to a new destination, dealing with finding new accommodation and so on, we went on a day trip from our current base in Copenhagen. No need for luggage, just hop on a train, any train and go.

Denied Stockholm, and the chance to visit my mate Aidan, by the rigid “you must have a seat” edicts of Swedish railways, we still had the chance to go to Sweden, even if it was not exactly as far as we’d wanted. After nearly a week of north/westward travel it felt good to not be planning the next move or worrying about whether we needed reservations, or thinking about accommodation. It’s all been enjoyable so far, and the day in Berlin especially was excellent, but I’m beginning to think this day-trips-from-a-hub approach is more my thing. Though obviously if you’re starting from deepest Transylvania, you do need to put the miles in, before you get somewhere with decent railways…

We started off in Lund. Lund is noted for (a) some kind of religious significance that, to be honest, made me fall asleep when trying to understand that bit of the Wikipedia page; (b) being the home of a very old and very famous University ; and (c) being the home of tetrapak, one of those Swedish companies that are rapidly taking over the world (see also Spotify, IKEA, H&M, Electrolux, etc). Tetrapak is, coincidentally, who my older daughter indirectly works for. Anyway, it seemed like a nice small town. Apologies for the lukewarm and uninformative review

Off to Malmö. Much bigger than Lund. Apparently Malmö has a bit of a bad reputation among Swedes and Danes. And is one of those places that out-and-out fascist scum like Farage cite as proof that immigration doesn’t work – though as it turns out, Malmö has one of the most vibrant and innovative economies in the world. So, in your face Farage, you vile racist bag of shit.

It felt like a really vibrant and cool place. It has that buzz and energy that is tangible. And we were only there for a few hours. I’d be happy to go back.

Malmö, we also discovered, is the home of the “Disgusting Foods Museum” which we visited. There was a lot of cheese in the Disgusting Foods Museum. And meat. I’m just saying. I think the most disgusting by far, even outdisgusting the schnapps made from beaver urine and the little auks stitched into sealskin and left to rot, were the ortolans. A small bird, fed until practically bursting and then drowned in brandy and eaten whole, a method of production that is so evidently cruel that people eat them with a napkin over their heads so God doesn’t see them doing so. You could just NOT EAT THEM, French people. Then you wouldn’t have to hide from God.

My recommendations as a result of the day are:

• Using interrail tickets as day trips to wherever you fancy
• Malmö
• Crossing the bridge off of The Bridge
• Listening to the way Swedish people pronounce Copenhagen

I feel like I should note that we’re actually having a great time. We’ll, the two old people are anyway. Can’t really tell whether the kids feel the same.

Anyway, nothing much interraily happened on Sunday so here are a few random shots of a rainy day in Copenhagen

Once again the young uns went off to their youth hostel and we old folk went back to the station to check out reservations for our next leg. This felt even more important than previously.

The guy in Copenhagen station was, in common with every other railway employee we’ve encountered on this trip, helpful, friendly, informative and apologetic. When our number came up on the board we headed over to his window. He had that look on his face which said “I really want to help you but I have a nasty feeling you’re about to ask me something I can’t help with”. I started off “I’m hoping you can help us, we want to go to Stockholm…” his face fell. “I was really hoping you weren’t going to ask me that” he said, genuinely apologetic sounding, “This year getting a reservation to Stockholm is basically impossible, I already know that the direct trains are fully booked up until about February but I might have a plan B or a plan C. It’s just the 2 of you? Oh… 5? OK let’s see”

He engrossed himself in his computer, his increasingly forlorn expression telling the story. Eventually he emerged – “OK plan B and plan C are out, plan D fell through but I have come up with a plan E” he turned to retrieve a couple of printouts from the machine behind him, before launching into an explanation of a complex route, with 5 changes in places I’d never heard of, and involving a bus journey at some point along the way. A journey that would have taken all day. And of course we’d still need to get back. Possibly on another day and if it had just been the two of us, we might have considered it. But as it was we turned to each other and said almost as one “I think we need to skip Stockholm”

The plan after Stockholm (in those far off days, a week earlier, when I was perusing the app and imagining possibilities) was to take a long but apparently doable journey to Rotterdam. It would have been about 18 hours, but we would (in my mind) have a sleeping car on it, and get a good 6 or 7 hour sleep. Those days of innocence…

We used the opportunity to book seats from Copenhagen to Holland (which miraculously were available) for a few days hence, so at least we had that as a trophy from our otherwise thwarted expedition to the reservation office. Our new friend also said that he could still show us some possibilities to Gothenburg if we wanted “I’m afraid Swedish trains require a reservation, but you can get to Gothenburg without one, because you can do it on a Danish train”. We said we’d think about it.

Later on, from the woman we are staying with, we learned that this apparently ridiculous “February” comment, which I had taken to be a joke, was probably very accurate. A couple of weeks ago she had tried to book a train reservation in November or December to go up to Stockholm for the Christmas market. And there was nothing available.