The only trial getting home
Let’s start with the adventure, albeit a moderate one. We are on a four hour, night rail journey home from Nuremberg on a train scheduled to stop at Dusseldorf. It stops at a suburban station at Cologne, but it is soon apparent we are the only people left in the carriage. Only the front half of the train, it appears, goes to Dusseldorf, the rest somewhere else. While we got off in time to avoid going somewhere else, we failed to make the dash up the platform to the front half of the train we needed to be on and watched it pulling out of the station without us. Stranded in the dark of night, without any sense of where we were or how to get to where we needed to be, and with the booking office and shops all closed for the evening, it illustrated just what a problem it is not being able to understand simple passenger announcements.
But to Nuremberg, what a city? We decided not to let persistent rain stop us literally soaking in the atmosphere - exploring and prowling through the Christmas markets (the ornaments are to die for, although generally quite expensive), shops and buildings, and the Imperial Palace at the top of the town.
A few interesting observations include that Germans have allotments, but much more ordered than their UK equivalents and the countryside quite similar to much in New Zealand and the UK. Must be the weather.
Let’s start with the adventure, albeit a moderate one. We are on a four hour, night rail journey home from Nuremberg on a train scheduled to stop at Dusseldorf. It stops at a suburban station at Cologne, but it is soon apparent we are the only people left in the carriage. Only the front half of the train, it appears, goes to Dusseldorf, the rest somewhere else. While we got off in time to avoid going somewhere else, we failed to make the dash up the platform to the front half of the train we needed to be on and watched it pulling out of the station without us. Stranded in the dark of night, without any sense of where we were or how to get to where we needed to be, and with the booking office and shops all closed for the evening, it illustrated just what a problem it is not being able to understand simple passenger announcements.
But to Nuremberg, what a city? We decided not to let persistent rain stop us literally soaking in the atmosphere - exploring and prowling through the Christmas markets (the ornaments are to die for, although generally quite expensive), shops and buildings, and the Imperial Palace at the top of the town.
A few interesting observations include that Germans have allotments, but much more ordered than their UK equivalents and the countryside quite similar to much in New Zealand and the UK. Must be the weather.
Photo: Dog Christmas busking with his father, Nuremberg
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