BillnPat Europe 2025

Sunday, April 13 Lonnnnggg train ride from Berlin to Krakow. 8 and a half hours. It started pretty hopefully with a 6 person first class compartment all to ourselves, but about halfway through it began getting crowded, and some people already had reserved the seats we were in. We hadn't understood it was important to reserve ahead. So we moved to another compartment.... pretty soon more people came to claim their seats. With 3 hours to go, the train was so crowded people were sitting in the aisles. Luckily there was one unclaimed seat that Pat was able to keep, while I stood in the aisle for about 90 minutes. A gentleman offered me his seat with an hour to go, claiming that he had a sore back and needed to stand... though I think he was just being sympathetic. I didn't really mind the standing that much... better view of the countryside. Arriving in Krakow about 6 pm, we had a good 25 minute trudge to our hotel. It is called the Old Time Hotel, with good reason, as it is more l...

 Our train trip from Amsterdam was about 8.5 hours, with 4 transfers. All went well... one of the legs was in a compartment all to ourselves, which was lovely, but the last leg of about 3 hours was quite crowded... though still in 1st class carriage. Our hotel, the NH Berlin City Ost, turned out to be quite far out to the east of town, along a busy boulevard in the Lichtenburg area, but also along a fairly quick and convenient U-Bahn (subway) line. It is modern and comfortable, and as we walked away from the boulevard, we found a much more relaxed residential area, with treed parks and boulevards, and a very good Italian restaurant. The busy boulevard is lined with large block apartments of the East German (GDR) era, and it was a bit eye opening to realise that really all of our explorations over the two days were in the GDR region. Berlin Day 1: We caught the U-Bahn back in to the "Mitte" (downtown) and began our exploration by foot. First we wandered the Alexanderplatz, whi...

Monday, April 7: A long bus, tube and train ride across London in the morning to London City Airport, then a quick hop over to Amsterdam, Schiphol airport... all uneventful and fairly comfortable.  We were met by granddaughter, Nyah, her boyfriend Jasper, and her mom, Michelle, and a quick drive to their lovely home in Uithoorn for lunch and settle in. In the afternoon Pat and I hopped in Jasper's car to Rotterdam, where he is student of economics at Erasmus University. We had a nice stroll and look around downtown, and afternoon beer, and dinner at Happy Italy, then to Jasper's little apartment. It was tiny, and shared with two others, but had great views of the downtown, especially at sunset. Not exactly Long Beach, but more reliable waves! Tuesday, April 9 A relaxed "catch up" morning at the house, organising our Eurail passes, and some campaign business for Bill. After lunch, Pat and I hopped on bikes to ride into the riverside village of Uithoorn, a bit of a ride...