Nordrhein-Westfalen

The day that will forever be remembered as train (failure) day! We were supposed to end up in Amsterdam around 10pm after 3 trains (and 12 hours) but only managed to make it about 3/4 of the way after 4 trains (in around 15 hours)!!

Train 1 - Copenhagen to Flensburg:
We arrived at the station 30min before our supposed train time at 9:30am, only to find that our train had departed 30min early for no apparent reason! Thankfully, we were able to get on the next train 2 hours later which would have got us to Amsterdam around midnight with the right connections - that’s when the real problems started!! We were supposed to go to Hamburg in Germany but as we approached the Denmark/Germany border about 2 hours in, we were told that the train staff weren’t trained to drive the train in Germany so we had to get off at Flensburg, just inside the German border (very strange excuse!!)

Train 2 - Flensburg to Neumunster:
We were slightly late into Flensburg and so had to wait approx 40min for the next train. This train actually did come on time, however, the schedule showed the train going through to Hamburg but it terminated mid-way and we had to get off and change trains. We stood for this whole 2 hour train squashed up against the doors with our bags.

Train 3 - Neumunster to Hamburg:
The train from Neumunster arrived on time, however due to the backlog of people throughout the German train system, each stop took much longer as people were getting on and off. There were a number of reasons stated for the delays such as medical emergencies, people being on the tracks and repair work. We had to stand for this whole hour train and got separated so we were sending each other strange WhatsApps trying to figure out what was going on. We ended up arriving into Hamburg late and so we needed to catch a later train towards Amsterdam.

Train 4 - Hamburg to Munster:
This is where we knew we were doomed. We actually got on a train and then got off the train before it departed once it started showing we wouldn’t be in Amsterdam until 6am tomorrow! We jumped on another train, and at this point we were just aiming to get as close to Amsterdam as we possibly could before finding accommodation for the night. The 2 hour train journey was fine as we actually had a seat on this one - which was a relief after running around with our backpacks on across stations all day (and sometimes wearing them on trains)! We watched some Netflix and, as there was a cafe on board, we decided to reward our efforts of the day with our first German beer on the train!

We made it to the German city of Munster (1hr 30min after the train was supposed to arrive), went to the rail information desk to get tickets for the next day and managed to get accommodation at the Ibis Budget around midnight, so we could have a quick nap before needing to be up to catch our 5am train to finish our journey to Amsterdam.

This definitely wasn’t the way we intended to spend our first night in Germany on the trip but all part of the fun of travelling!Läs mer