The Wanderings of busman7

While the rail service from Copenhagen to Amsterdam was a disappointment from what I believed it would be from reading about it there were a couple bright spots; the ticket agent in Copenhagen turned out to be one of those people who warmed a seat but only did 1/2 a job & messed up & issued me a reservation from Hamburg onward but not the ticket, which I didn’t catch due to the language + it was my 1st time on a Euro rail train. However a friendly conductor ( who went way past his job description for me)  at the 1st stop arranged with the crew to explain the problem to the German crew who would be taking over at the border & I got a free trip from the border to Hamburg where I purchased my onward ticket to Amsterdam.

The hostel/hotel Ann Marie in Amsterdam was fair value for the money considering it’s in Amsterdam & only a 2 minute walk from the Concert Hall tram stop, that said the breakfast left a lot to be desired but typical for Amsterdam.

Took a countryside tour which included a wooden shoe maker in a small tourist park, a farm where cheese was made, a stop in a fishing village (where their annual 4 day festival was wrapping up—-interesting!!!) with a ferry ride to another fishing village on the other side of the lake then return to the city. This trip was fairly interesting but seemed based more on selling products than information. Trivia the area we visited was reclaimed land (in the 1600’s) & was 3-5 feet below sea level.

The whole countryside from leaving Copenhagen to Amsterdam was FLAT, FLAT, not my favorite. While the trip wasn’t without some redeeming factors on the whole it was overpriced & the people on the whole less than friendly with their hand in pocket the whole time.

The ferry trip while being an interesting change with a major couple hour party at the outside bar on deck 11 & IMO good value for the money it would be wise to stock up on a jungle lunch before departure as food on board is super expensive!

Now the biggest surprise was Birmingham which turned out to be a great little city of a million with a great revitalized down town based around New St station & the Bullring with a fair sized market just down the hill near the new bus terminal & the Moor St station of Chilten railways who offer an off-peak fare 19.5 GBP to London’s Marylebone station (be aware that the name is pronounced differently in London than Birmingham!

Thanks to an internet forum acquaintance I got an insider tour, including the closed down Rover plant (Oshawa in a couple years) in Longbridge, the Cadbury plant fighting a take over bid by Kraft + a stop at a couple downtown pubs for a pint. Most importantly was the trivia fact that Birmingham has more miles of canals than Venice!!

Decided to spend an extra day in Birmingham as the nice hotel I was staying at was reasonably priced with good food & a 10 minute bus ride from downtown + there was a cheap bus to the Heathrow airport which connected with the hotel shuttles so took the discount train into the city to pick up my Russian train tickets.

All in all great trip from boarding the ferry outside Amsterdam until arriving at Heathrow airport.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 at 07:08 and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.