Normality. Class 156 Sprinter to take us home. Hope you've enjoyed our trip from Marske, North Yorks, to Krakow via Brussels and Berlin, and home again. Thanks to @seatsixtyone.bsky.social for tips, @flightfreeuk.bsky.social for fighting the good fight and @show-me-magic.bsky.social for joining me x
This remarkable place, the youngest child of England's enterprise, is an infant, but if an infant, an infant Hercules!
Finish as we mean to go on ...
Our penultimate rail trip. An LNER Class 800 IEP, one of my absolute favourites. An expensive, but simply gorgeous train.
Back in London, just enough time to sneak in a pint at the lovely Queen's Head near KGX. Worth the 8-10 minute walk
A quick stop in Brussels for a coffee and shop shopping, and we're back on the Eurostar.
The beds are already made up, sweet!
Here's the ES452 pulling into Berlin Hauptbahnhof. It's a loco pulling 10 sleeper carriages, that started in Prague and will take us all the way to Brussels. The start of our journey home ...
Just been corrected in the Misfit Bar in Berlin about saying "Danke" when paying for drinks. It means "keep the change". Awkward when you're handing over a €50 😅 Just pay and don't say anything.
It didn't take us 3 days, but we are in Berlin, having arrived at the €1bn Hauptbahnhof. Fun fact, completed in 2006 for the world cup, the platform coverings for long distance train are 80m short of plans, so first class passengers aren't protected from the rain 🤭
Back to the main station in Krakow to head back to Germany. Left on time at 07:59 on EC56
Back on a train, for the 18 minutes from Krakow Grzegorzki to the Wieliczka salt mine on board the rather lovely EN78A EMU
Arrived in Krakow. Some pierogi and piwo is our reward
A nice 6 seat compartment, so far just to ourselves
Sweet sweet yellow stripe
Where this bad boy, the EC59 Galicja, picked us up from platform 8
The sleeper dropped us off in Berlin Gesundbrunnen, platform 7 ...
It's ok, they're light switches
I'm a bit worried that these might be like the three shells IYKYK
The whole thing
Cute little bathroom
Shutting out the rest of the world. Just me and my wife in this whole cabin. Try doing that when flying
Complementary breakfast and drinks on arrival (we disembark at 06.22 so we get breakfast now)
Ours is the premium American sleeper unit. It's gorgeous
The train itself it a mixture of different sleeper carriages
We're back. The 19.22 sleeper from Brussels Midi to Prague via Berlin. What. An. Experience..
With some obligatory trains, this time the very reasonable Brussels metro
Stop off to today in Brussels, to hang out inside some iron atoms
Well, when you're travelling premium, it seems rude not to ...
... (bro tip, never skim and not book at least Eurostar Plus, if you can afford to go to Europe pay the extra for a decent seat).
For the avoidance of doubt
