Tuesday 11 February 2014

By train to Frankfurt

I was a bit concerned about how we would manage to carry all our belongings and the things we had bought over the weekend in Amsterdam but we managed to pack them all well.  So after a last breakfast in our hotel room we checked out and walked to the central station for our train to Frankfurt airport.

On Saturday they told us the train would be leaving from platform 2 so when it finally appeared on the screen showing platform 4 I decided to double check with the information desk,  over cautious perhaps but thank goodness I did! When I showed the fellow my ticket he said "oh, you need to take a train to Utrecht and get the high speed train from there". The train to Utrecht left at 10.22 and our high speed train was for 10.34. If I hadn't gone to ask him we would have missed the train! When I pointed out the electronic board was incorrect he yelled out urgently for someone to fix it. Phew.

We shared a carriage to Utrecht with a large group of 60 something Dutch women travelling together. There had been a comical moment when Mick held the door for the first one who was struggling through between carriages with her luggage. When he went to let the door go I told him to wait as there was another lady right behind.... and then another... and another.... and another 4 or 5 after that. The other passengers on the train were all grinning to themselves.  At Utrecht our train was still a while in coming. It turned out to be about half an hour late.

It was an excellent journey otherwise.  Mick was enthusiastically watching the train speed on the electronic board above the door. He kept nudging me to take a photo of 200km/hr, then 250 and then 290. I went for a walk down the carriage and he was horrified that we missed a photo of 302kms/hr but he assures me we reached that speed.

On reaching Frankfurt we had a short wait as Claudia was caught in traffic on her way to collect us.  We first visited Susanne, Claudia's friend. She and Tim are living in a new house since Mick was last in Germany so it was good for Mick to get to see it.  They have a fabulous backyard! We enjoyed coffee and cupcakes offered in lovely English by Kara Sina.  There was also a bit of excitement as the family are proud new owners of a pair of horses. Perhaps we will get to meet them later in the week.

We had a quiet evening catching up over dinner of venison and dumplings.

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