The last train

Storyline: 2024 Fall trip to Europe

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(Posting just over 3 months later)

Sat, Sept 21

Last train for this trip that is. I for sure hope there will be at least a few more. In Europe. Because we can always take the trains in Canada (given that there’s not much selection here – A). Or so we think.  But as I am transcribing this from home beginning of October, I also wonder about Alex’s health and what’s next. As mentioned in another post we got some kind of virus and were not at our best in Budapest. Back home, Alex is still coughing. Just a little bit, but with his compromised immune system we have to be extra careful.

And so, our train left Budapest on time. That is huge progress since there have been no trains running across the Hungary/Austria border as a result of damage caused by Storm Boris which put much of central Europe under water. A week ago, the evening of Sept. 13 in the hotel by the train station I was scouting all the sites to see if somehow, we could avoid the storm and fly from Vienna to Amsterdam should the Budapest train not run. We’ve come a long way since then. Of course, knowing now what we didn’t know then, trying to fly out of Vienna would have been the worst. We would have been stranded in Vienna. For days; for a week or even more.

By now you may have surmised that we made it to Budapest. The day before our scheduled return to Vienna we asked a clerk at Nyugati train station if our train would run and she said “Yes”. Alex told her “This is the best news we’ve had on this trip”. And it was because an Asian young couple in front of us with tickets to Prague was told that they can’t go there due to closures. Plus, it would be up to them to deal with it and figure out what to do.

All we needed was to get to Vienna and hop on our train to Amsterdam. According to NS International (The Netherlands train booking web site) our NightJet train was running again. As of the day before our departure!

The train From Budapest Keleti arrived at Vienna Hbf with the expected (storm-related) delay, but we still had a few hours before our final train, the NightJet would depart. We spent some time gift shopping, having some meals and buying sandwiches for the train. Due to a late departure and scheduled arrival around 10am the following morning, breakfast would be provided but not dinner. So, we had our sandwiches for dinner aboard the train and then decided to call the attendant to make our beds for the night.

We weren’t impressed by the train itself. The sleeping compartment was very small with a huge table taking way more space than needed. Two people could not move around freely, let alone 3. One could pay for the full compartment and get one or two beds. But they were 3-bed compartments. There was a shower and a toilet. Yet even for one of us to go in the washroom, the other had to either get out of the compartment or get onto the bed.

All because of this huge silly table taking all the space. I guess since the seats are at one side if 3 people had to eat the table had to be across all 3 seats. This was the thinking, but in the morning, I saw many 3 people in compartment eat their breakfast in the beds. Just poor design if you ask me.

When we were ready to sleep the table was dismounted and put in the corridor. They had special lockers for the tables there.

The train attendant told us that around 11:45 we’d be stopped at the German border for passport control. Hmmm, what ever happened to Schengen?

When we took the bus from Vienna Airport to Bratislava there was no passport control. However, when we boarded the boat from Bratislava back to Vienna they scanned our passports. It was an Austrian requirement the Slovaks said. And now we are exiting Austria with all passports scanned and entering Germany and there will be another passport check?

Initially we thought we’d wait for it before going to sleep, but it was already late, we were running behind schedule and we were tired. When a guy knocked at the door, we were both fast asleep. I jumped half awake and opened it. I had the passports ready somewhere, but I didn’t even have my glasses on. This will take me sometime, my half-asleep brain warned me. Where the hell are my glasses? I was prepared to argue that I needed time to find it all. However, the guy poked his head in, looked at our faces and said “Passed”. Later I’d joke that my dangling boobs scared him off. But they were looking for migrants (not the dangling kind – A), not white faces. This is the second time in a year in Europe we’ve experienced overt white privilege. I remember in the train from Switzerland last October while crossing border the passports of all people of colour where checked. I had mine in hand, but the guy didn’t even look at us (or her boobs – A).

 

And so, with the “passed” we went back to sleep. The train, though, was stopped for a long time at the Nuremberg station. It was a cascading effect, the train attendant told me in the morning. It was Octoberfest and Munich was overcrowded.

Some trains were blocking the tracks, some could not go through because of the water (aha! Cascading effect. Love it! – A) and all this. At the end of the day, we were glad we were safely deposited to our almost final train destination – Amsterdam. And because of the delay we also managed to see some Bavarian scenery.

Lots of RV parks, right by the water. One of our dreams to ship our camper van (that we sold last year) and drive through Europe died with Covid shutdowns. But I am sure some other dreams will materialize.

Eh, it wasn’t quite the last train since we took a train from Amsterdam Central to Haarlem, where we spent a few days before our flight, but for from adventure perspective it was the last train that got us through and out of the storm’s mess.

We were very lucky on this trip to have moved from places that would soon after be overwhelmed by the storm or arrived shortly after they were reopened following clean up. Didn’t even get our feet wet.