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Have you ever thought about going to Germany? Wonderful Berlin, Hamburg (home of Qype and Xing), the pretty Rhineland, boisterous Bavaria, the magical Black Forest
I have and it's quite a spiffing place. I lived there for over 12 years in fact.
The natives are quite affable and jolly, many speak passable English, the food is good, many of the wines are severely potable and the cost and quality of life are really rather acceptable. The lavatories are generally very clean, they build good cars and have been very successful in exporting royal families throughout Europe. You can get away with eccentric behaviour as long as you remember not to mention the war, (as I was reminded by an eminent German Qype professor last week). I rather fancy that few people here in fact realise that the Germans are actually quite fond of us and I can certainly testify that their sense of humour is the closest you can get to ours, even although they are foreigners.
On a more serious note, German culture over the ages is something that you can spend a long time studying. Land of thinkers, poets, musicians and efficient machine builders.
The public transport system there is 'somewhat' better than here, ranging from a serious network of amazing high-speed trains to environmentally-friendly trams in most cities. Their various packages can cover anything from the whole country to a region or locality and often if not always include tram/bus tickets. The prices are staggeringly good value.
After St. Pancras had opened its portals last year I happened to be lurking in the Black Forest. One day in Freiburg, I nipped into the main station to go to the Deutsche Bahn information centre, where they are always very friendly and go to great trouble, insisting on digging out the best deal for you from their computer.
I asked for a 'quote' to St. Pancras. The guy needed to know when I intended to travel so I came clean and explained that I was just being nosey. How about a price for tomorrow? He typed, muttered, clicked and moused about and eventually came up with a price which was pretty good. He pointed that if you are over 60, you travel for half price on Eurostar.
Fascinated, I bore it all in mind and buggered off home by air via Switzerland as planned.
So: recently I was intending to find out doing this the other way round and going from here.
I needed a Eurostar ticket to Brussels, from where I wanted to go on the German ICE high speeder through to Duesseldorf and on further south. I called Eurostar who explained that this was not really on, but they could book me through to either Cologne or Aachen via Brussels (which was not what I wanted). However, they told me to contact another company called Eurotravel or similar, who could book me through to anywhere I bloody well felt like.
Fine, I called these guys who explained that they could do anything I wanted. Except book me on Eurostar. For that, I must contact Eurostar.
Bugger and damnation! Since the Deutsche Bahn in Deutschland had told me they could me get me from Germany in one fell swoop, I wondered whether they could get me to Germany as well. In a moment of inspiration, I Googled Deutsche Bahn UK and CRUNCH!
Calling the number, I asked whether they could book me from London right through to wherever I wanted to sodding well go in Germany and they said Yes sir, of course!
They searched for deals and came up with a package which took me from St. Pancras, delivering me in a relaxed mood at Duesseldorf at 15:00 the same day. 52 Euros, including 1st class travel on the amazing ICE trains from Brussels to Duesseldorf.
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