A Mini Jaunt…Berlin to Paris.

Never got my Currywurst mit Pommes but did have a very agreeable double cheeseburger….left the May Day shenanigans as dusk approached,didn’t see any trouble although there was an attempted phone grab outside the bar where I was sitting,luckily it was thwarted but even though I don’t like victim blaming with that amount of people around coupled with large amounts of drink & drugs having your phone sitting on a table is naive…the atmosphere was certainly getting a bit towards the belligerent side when I left…

Well I am on the train to Cologne then hopefully to Paris from there.I have allowed plenty of time between trains so if there is a mad delay I will be able to absorb it…I will be missing the Man City v Wolves game though as I’ll ( hopefully) be racing towards Paris at the time,ah well I could miss and absolute humping or a (yet another) surprise win v Citeh of which we have had a few over the years…

Grabbed an early coffee at WittenbergPlatz U-Bahn and the young lady who runs the kiosk has put a sign up stating that she sells coffee & associated items,she does not have any transport information at all and will not give out any…as I was the only customer we had a bit of a laugh about it and she gave me an extra little biscuit with my coffee so I’m definitely on her side…

If you take away all the dicking about with DB and the wait time at Cologne between trains the actual running time from Paris to Berlin is about 7hr-30 which is pretty impressive considering it’s over 1,000 km…

I have a bit of a weird situation when I get to Paris in that over the three nights I’m staying there I’m in two hotels…obviously when I originally booked this trip Paris was just a stay over stop before going to Berlin and then back to London a week later,but things changed however,I  couldn’t book up the hotel I was staying in on Sunday night so had to book another.Sunday I will be checking out then arsing around with my bags for half the day before checking in again…

As expected we are running late,just over half hour at the moment.I have learned to give yourself some wriggle room when you need to make a connection with DB.A couple of days either side should do it…

Got to Cologne albeit half hour late,after a smoke & a bite to eat figured as I have a two hour wait I’d check out my train via the information desk.It’s running ok and he even gave me the platform so I can sit up here away from the madding crowd downstairs.Hopefully get in to Paris about 10pm local time.I sort of know where my hotel is situatited.Pretty much next to Saint Lazare train station.It’s just a case of getting from Gare du Nord to there.And now we wait…

Cologne station is pretty amazing.One side is the magnificent cathedral and on the other the equally magnificent Hohenzollern bridge,then there’s some sort of futuristic concert hall next door coupled with the river Rhine a few yards away oh and the platforms rattle & shake when a train is moving through it,granted they tend to be pretty heavy but it’s still disconcerting…

Laters peeps…