Throughout 2018, my plan had always been to get myself doing an Interrail pass, good and proper. This was fuelled by a couple of sporadic trips onto the continent, particularly in January of that year when I’d found myself bumbling around the Netherlands and Belgium followed by the Berlin-Brandenburg region of Germany a week later. Granted, they didn’t go without hitches, as I accidentally thought I’d lost my Interrail pass, late at night, in Den Haag, and ended up going on a pointless adventure to the police station before realising it was in my other coat pocket. I also nearly bought weed from a man on the Berlin U-Bahn who I thought was a beggar. But alas, I’d ended up being bitten by the travel bug, which has been an itch that I have no doubt will need a good scratch with trips away for the rest of my life.
So, in June 2018, following months of slightly haphazard planning, I embarked upon this voyage which was set to take in 12 countries in around 26 days. Having managed to get all of my belongings into two bags, I recall a rather warm journey down to Manchester Airport with TransPennine Express. This being just a month after the infamous May 2018 timetable change debacle on the rail network, it was no surprise that my train, having lost a load of time trying to navigate the farcical Ordsall Chord (a new piece of rail line linking Manchester Victoria to Manchester Piccadilly) chucked everybody off at Piccadilly as it was running too late to keep to schedule on its return. The last 20 minutes of the journey were instead spent stood up on a minging Northern Rail service that was seemingly trying to break the land speed record as it bounced and lurched through the delights of Gatley and Heald Green.
Me, feeling particularly opulent on this trip, ended up in the Aspire Lounge and taking in the free food and alcohol (for some reason I remember piling myself up a plate of Mac n’ Cheese with a rather generously measured out JD and coke) which was all well and good until the fire alarms were activated in the terminal building. We ended up being ushered out onto the Apron and standing around, bewildered, with the sun beating down (remember how hot Summer 2018 was?) before a bit of a half-arsed message telling us that we could resume our wining and dining.
I wasn’t actually going anywhere exotic on the first day, curiosity having got the better of me as I’d paid just £20 for a flight from Manchester to London Southend. This was back when the now-defunct Flybe were in the phase of running rather pointless domestic flights to see whether they were popular. It would be an understatement to say that indeed, they really weren’t, as just a trickle of us were on that rather odd flight which was no sooner up in the air than it was doing a wee spin around the coast off Shoeburyness and giving everyone a view of the weirdly flat bit of Essex that’s full of inlets and…I’ll be honest, not a lot. I’d done the British equivalent of an Interrail when I was 17 and found nothing that really sparked joy in the vicinity. Frinton-on-Sea is seemingly where souls go to die.
I spent that night in the easyHotel off Old Street in London, positively shitting myself at the thought of flying to Sweden the next day, and struggling to sleep to any real degree. That said, was it the nerves, or the sound of the couple next door shagging? Correction, the sound of the seemingly 30 seconds of disappointing sex followed by hours of them talking? Either way, at 4am the next day I was wandering the backstreets of Finsbury into a rather windswept Liverpool Street station for the 04:40 to Stansted Airport, which was hardly well patronised. The most amusing highlight of the journey was the driver, in the absence of the usual automated multi-lingual announcements, decided to opt for mumbling “MADAMES ET MONSEWERS, STANSTED AIRPORT, GARRRRR TERMINAL” into the tannoy. If only he’d asked I’d have done a “Merci beaucoup pour votre Voyage avec Stansted Express”.
Stansted Airport is enough to evoke travel-related anxiety into even the hardiest wanderlusting being. Having spent one morning in April of that year internally screaming at the sheer chaos of security in the cursed place, I bought myself fast-track and chose to breeze past the throngs of frustrated travellers off to sunny climes. The fact is that Stansted Airport is just Ryanair Airport, and you should expect the environment to be as such. For once, getting on the flight to Stockholm Skavsta was more of a relief than anything, even though it was with O’Leary Air. Amusingly too, on arrival at Skavsta, you’ll find that it’s not only nowhere near Stockholm but it’s bloody tiny. Thankfully, the Airport coach connects with flights and there was a sense of nervous trepidation as we breezed through forest after forest before unceremoniously arriving near Stockholm Central station.
I schlepped my way into the T-Bana (Underground) and the sense of being completely lost hit me as I was nervously following Google Maps to my hotel. I had really gone and done it. I was in a completely new foreign country on my own. I spent that afternoon wandering around in the sunshine, wondering why the hell I’d even bothered changing any cash to SEK (top tip, don’t!) and tried to soak in my surroundings. I recall being in a supermarket (this was World Cup time, remember!) and being unable to be served because everyone in the place, customers and staff alike, had their eyes fixated on the TV above the checkouts and went absolutely nuts as Sweden got one past the keeper. Thankfully self-service was available.
The next morning, I spent the first half of my day aimlessly wandering around the city again, taking the tram out to Gåshaga and walking along the Lidingöbron, before deciding that this damned Interrail pass needed some use. I didn’t really have any idea where to go, so ended up visiting Sala, which as it turns out was a fairly nondescript town with a park full of swarms of flies. It was also really fucking windy as I can remember leaving the station and having my sunglasses decide to make love to the pavement rather than my eyes. Having then made my way to Uppsala and even killed some time by having a look at Arlanda Airport, I had a late night wander around Stockholm again. I also retrieved my bag from my hotel, and the lass who got it for me was pretty stunned at the journey I was taking on. After all, in three weeks time I’d be in Madrid. Having done some people watching in Stockholm Central, including a topless bloke who was nearly arrested for letting his dog run around the concourse, repeatedly, I got on board the sleeper train to Malmö.
For me, this was a new experience altogether. I’d done sleeper trains before in the UK, but boarding the Night Riviera in Exeter at 1am, falling asleep in the fetal position on some seats then staggering off by 5 in Paddington wasn’t quite the same as an actual bed. Heck, there was even a shower. This led to the rather strange situation of me being sat, in the noddle, on my bed, as a local train drew up alongside and matched our speed, the folk on board being oblivious to me accidentally flashing them. That was my cue to turn the light out and go to sleep.
I was awoken by “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Lund” which meant that I didn’t have long until I had to be up and out. Even stranger was the breakfast arrangement which was merely to go to the Scandic Kramer Hotel. Sure enough though, having staggered off at circa 6:45am, the entire train proceeded to march towards the city centre and we all walked through the hotel reception and into the breakfast room, which had laid on a full spread with signage proclaiming “WELCOME SJ PASSENGERS”. Certainly beat my last sleeper experience of running to Maccies on Paddington Station and then running for the 05:21 to Slough, breakfast wrap in hand.
Having been fed and watered, I took the first train over the Oresund, lugging my bag into a locker and then pondering what to do with myself in Copenhagen. Once again, it was an impromptu walking tour in which I had absolutely no idea where I was going or what I was doing, yet I was pretty satisfied by the time I rocked up back at the main station in the afternoon for a flying visit to Odense before it was time to cross another border. For some reason, I’d decided to book my train to Hamburg from Næstved Station, meaning that I ended up taking a local commuter service down there and had the International service on my tail.
At the time of writing, this service is now actually consigned to history. The Copenhagen-Hamburg EuroCity train, in practice, was designed to board the ferry over the Fehmarnbelt, with passengers merely getting up on deck for a leg stretch. But alas, on arrival in Rødby Færge, the Danish side of the belt, it was decided that the driver was unable to continue and so we’d have to board ourselves. This was mightily convenient, as the ferry proceeded to naff off in the interim. During the half-hour wait for the next one, I got talking to the guy who’d been wordlessly sat opposite me for the past hour. It turns out that he was from Hamburg, and in essence, he was your stereotypical middle-aged German man with the accent to boot. We spent our time discussing the trials and tribulations of Deutsche Bahn before he encouraged me to get myself slightly drunk on the crossing, which granted, I needed, as it had been a long day.
When we arrived on the German side in Puttgarden, there was another train waiting, and in a very German way, we all took the seats that we’d had on the Danish end. It was now time to get to know our compartment friends, which were two Finnish guys and a rather drunk German. While they were a good laugh, this didn’t give our middle-aged German much pleasure, as he would rant “Dieses ist nicht ein PARTYZUG!” when the Jack Daniels started getting necked. Apparently though, the Finnish guys were rather bitter about the mandatory military service they’d just done, and they needed an escape. I managed to part ways amicably with everyone, being the mediator between the partygoers and the librarian, and made my way out of Hamburg Hbf towards the Ibis Budget hotel. Highlights included watching someone snort coke off of the pavement!
Even weirder was the receptionist saying to me: “Oh weird, you’re the second guy to say you’ve travelled from Stockholm through Copenhagen and the ferry this evening”. Seemingly I had a stalker.
The next morning, I was set to eat up the miles as I was set to dart through all of Germany and reach Prague by sunset. The 06:50 ICE to Garmisch-Partenkirchen (nestled deep in Bavaria) whisked me away towards Berlin, with me being pleasantly surprised by the host asking if I wanted a coffee, plonking a mug down in front of me. I was less pleasantly surprised by the rather gruff “four euro” that followed. I forgot that not every country did free First Class goodies. Still, it was good coffee.
As we arrived in Lutherstadt Wittenberg Hbf, about 45 minutes south of Berlin, an Australian couple commented to me, “ah yes, Dessau, that’s famous for a university, isn’t it?”, as I told them of my next connection. I was fucking clueless. All I knew was that it was a connecting station for the train to Leipzig. It was here that I realised that my sunglasses, having tried to escape my grasp in sunny Sala, had slid off my head as I had bent under my seat on the ICE to pick something up. They had lasted a whole 96 hours. But alas, I made my way to Leipzig where I embarked upon something like a 45 minute walking tour, concluding in McDonald’s, followed by a sprint to Leipzig Hbf, which, helpfully, is the largest railway station in Europe by square footage. I collapsed in the compartment of the train to Chemitz as it rolled away, pulling the window down to my waist and letting the breeze cool me off.
Chemitz, previously known as Karl-Marx-Stadt, is…well, from what I know, a bit of shithole. But I can’t be sure of that, because I sprinted across the concourse onto the train to Dresden. I can’t say I was exactly amused by the reception I received on this service, as I headed into the First Class area and was greeted by a buggy blocking my way. The mother, ever polite, looked me up and down and just said: “1e Klasse?”. My response of “Ja, und?” seemed to rattle her a little as I resorted to vaulting over the blasted thing and trying to take in the beautiful Black Forest-esque scenery on the way while also tolerating the sound of her viciously making out with her partner for the entire journey.
Thankfully, Dresden was worth the pain as it is, truly, a gorgeous city. I’ve been back twice since and considering the damage it took during the war, it’s now a fine destination and one that I’d seriously recommend. Particularly in the summer, the place takes on a very jovial atmosphere with a variety of public events, performances and plenty of excuses to get the steins of beer flowing. I however settled for a couple of cheap cans from the Lidl situated under the platforms at Dresden Hbf before boarding the S-Bahn along the Elbe Valley, which is another must-visit destination. Königstein, Kurort Rathen and Stadt Wehlen, as well as Bad Schandau, are all completely valid places to stop off, though it took me another two months to come back and revisit, as this time it was a swift connection at Bad Schandau into the “Nationalparksbahn” which connected Rumburk with Děčín, both ends of the line being in the Czech Republic, but taking a long sweeping visit through Germany in the middle.
This was when things started to seem a little more, informal, shall we say, as well as suddenly seeming rather unfamiliar. As we left the last station in Germany, the friendly auto-announcer was replaced by a rather stern sounding Czech voice, proclaiming “Příští stanice, Dolní Žleb” as we pulled up at a suddenly more ramshackle looking stop. When I arrived in Děčín, I suddenly felt like I was winging it as I didn’t know a word of Czech and many people here didn’t speak a word of English either. This wasn’t helped by the fact that when I arrived in Prague, I was straight away confronted by a random man screaming in my face as I tried to leave the platform. He tried to headbutt me before then running off onto the concourse, which was my cue to head to my hotel and run to the familiarity of Tesco.
To be continued.
The Lone Bon Voyager 