We love riding the train in Europe so we decided to buy a first class Eurail Pass and enjoy a day looking at the landscape. Our journey stated early on a Danish train to Hamburg. We had facing seats with a table and as soon as we took off a gentleman brought us brown bread rolls with cheese, jam and butter. We enjoyed watching the morning light reveal the flat fields and little towns with detached houses.
A couple of hours in, the announcer came on to tell us that masks were required Germany. Only a specific type of mask (made in Poland) was allowed. Not the blue masks. So we purchased two, and put them on when the announcements began to be in German. Soon a smartly uniformed German lady wearing a blue mask checked our tickets. After four and a half hours, we disembarked in Hamburg.
Wow! The station was packed! I had a bathroom adventure….. The station rest rooms cost a Euro, but the €5 bill I put in the machine got sucked in and no ticket emerged. A kind lady gave me a coin and I was admitted to the spanking clean rest room.
We enjoyed a coffee then boarded our next train, the German ICE to Osnabrück. This train was very nice inside and sped through at 200 kilometers per hour. This was a shorter ride but at some point we stopped and took on a group of unscheduled passengers. This made us late for our short transfer but we made it onto the Dutch train to Amsterdam. Then the fun began.
This train had compartments, with clear doors to seal us off into railroad luxury. Off we went for the remaining 3 hours to Amsterdam. I could still hear the soccer game a few compartments away (the Netherlands beating U.S.) but it was so nice. A young Dutch woman was our only companion.
About an hour into our comfortable ride, the train stopped. The lights went on and off. The announcement was to not try to get out as you will fall on the track. The lights and announcements (technical problems in the engine) went on for a while and then we were instructed to collect our belongings and disembark at the front of the train. So hundreds of us walked through many cars and finally got off onto a sort of platform and walked across the tracks.
We were at a very small station. The doors were locked and no one seemed to be in charge. No announcements, no directions. Our Dutch companion said not to worry; all trains headed west towards Amsterdam. I found a nice looking guy in a safety vest who turned out to be the driver of a short commuter train that was parked on the platform. He told us to get on the train and ride a couple stops, then transfer to a bigger train. At this point the hundreds of not polite tourists and locals crushed into the 2 doors of the little train. Once in, we did find seats but it was crowded with luggage in the aisles, and sadly, a few crying babies.
Two stops later, we followed the crowd and disembarked again, then got on another very nice local train to the airport. I was glad to have GPS to have an idea where we were. A couple hours later this train disgorged us right into the center of the airport where Mary got us on the subway to our destination, Amsterdam Centrum. There we unloaded at the main train station and quickly walked over to our hotel.
So our first class train ride was about 15 hours and, I think, 6 trains. We were in bed by 10:30 and had the best sleep of our trip.
Katy’s Blog Trip to Europe 2019 
What a whirlwind of a train ride but you couldn’t even imagine that in the U.S. I would prefer a train to a plane now. It just seems more attune to time.
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