Copenhagen to Berlin with a Ferry Delay

28 Oct.

 

Woke up early, had breakfast, grabbed a cab for a 2 minute drive to the train station to catch the 07:45 train to Berlin. Problems at the ferry meant we had to be shuttled to the ferry terminal, where we walked onto a ferry suitcases in tow. Took a 45 minute ferry ride to Germany, then walked to the train platform where our train had not arrived. 5 minutes later the train arrived and we climbed on board. Not being familiar with the trains in Europe we sat in the wrong seats- I knew they were pre-booked but the train from Copenhagen was scramble seating. We found our seats eventually, squeezing by people going in the opposite direction. We sat in our comfy first class seats and utilized the power outlet to charge the iphone and ipods. and write this. We are delayed by 20 minutes to Berlin where upon arrival we shall find a hotel.

 

So far this trip has been great. We are all a bit tired- jetlag and lack of sleep do not help, but we are getting into the swing of things.

 

The Train Engineer let us look in his driving booth and gave us an explanation of the controls we are now travelling at 200 kph.

 

Travelling by train you notice the several hundred year old buildings and churches in the foreground with wind generators in the background… Quite the juxtaposition.

 

 

Disembarked in Berlin’s main train station… … And proceeded to get our eurail passes stamped/validated – the person at the counter in Copenhagen did not know what to do.

 

We used the train station service to find a wonderful Hostel. A&O Berlin Hauptbahnhoff on Lehrter Strasse. The price quoted at the train station was €74. When we got to the Hostel they charged us €44 for 2 rooms with inter-room door. The Hostel was so nice I booked rooms with the chain in Prague and Wien (Vienna). Total cost for all of us for 4 nights was € 120 with a late check out in Wien.

 

Berlin- well we wandered around all day taking in the sights and found a wonderful restaurant called Traube. We walked into this restaurant, looked quite nice, and were greeted with attractive, soft jazz playing in the background…lunch was spanish ok…the server asked if we had reservations- oops, wrong place?-  I replied no, we were just looking for a good German meal. She replied “Ok you are the last booking for the night, we are fully booked”. -Whew! We sat at a table with linen table cloths, linen serviettes folded into little boats, the boys tried them on their head’s. Yes, the table had wine glasses and 3 sets of knives and forks per setting. We ordered the daily special and an appetizer … The wine was paired with the meal, a special 2007 Bordeaux. We were given a small appetizer consisting of a thinly sliced piece of roast beef curled onto the plate with succulent gently marinated cucumber and…. The daily special was a large rondelle of pork tenderloin served with small potatoes, thinly sliced curls of beet fried and a mild sauerkraut. The meal was delicious, the service exquisite and I would highly recommend this restaurant, a good idea would be to make a reservation- so it seems.

 

We had lunch at a Spanish restaurant where the food seemed very salty and the premises had seen better days.