The SubwayNut in Europe

I’m sorry its been so long just haven’t had a chance to make an update to this Blog. I’m currently in Wien (Vienna), awaiting my train to Budapest.

I left Malmö, Sweeden on the Berlin Night Express, it was quite a fun ride, had interesting people in my cochette. So I got a lot less sleep then I was planning on due to chatting. I unforchanetely had the top Bunk, which was sweltering hot especially when we were in the cargo hold suana of a ship for 4 hours, other than that it was a fun ride to conclude my Scandanavian Adventurs.

I arrived in Berlin quite early in the morning and spent my two days there wondering around, railfanning the amazing U-bahn and S-bahn system, and visiting among other things the Checkpoint Charlie Museum (It was amazing to learn about the things people did to try and cross the Berlin wall), and the 1 Km of the wall that still exists. Unforchanatly by the end of my time in Berlin my camera broke, first the Zoom stopped working, and now the lens refuses to come out.

Saturday morning I’m on the train to Prague, sharing my compartment with three other Suburbain New Yorkers. The ride is fairly uneventful, finally get another 2 stamps in my passport at the Czech Broder (One for leaving the EU Freedom of movement zone, and one for ntering the Czech Republic.) I arrive in Prague early that evening, and take the Metro to my hotel, the Prague Metro is quite deep and the stations are fairly simple and uniform looking.

Sunday I spent camera-less (most of the stores were closed), visiting Prague Castle, wondering around, and the Jewish Museum, spread out in 4 shools that are quite close together. All survived during WWII because Hitler wanted to make them a museum of the imperfect race.

Monday Morning, I stopped at a camera store and purchased a temperary replacement for my broken Canon S2 IS, its only a Canon Powershot A460, that doesn’t seem to function that well under low light, so don’t expect the same sunning photos of Underground Stations. In sunshine the photos look quite good. Once I get back home I’m planning to finally upgrade to a digital SLR that will produce stunning, spectacular photos, especially in low light. After buying the camera and taking a few photos of the Prague trams I rushed back to the train station, bairly purchasing a ticket, and just made the train to my next destination Bratislava, The capital of the Slovak Republic.

This train ride was on a quite full train, I didnt have a reservation, but I luckily found a seat in a compartment that was full for most of the ride, and not in very good shape, with no one that new English, it was an entirely silent journey, Border pator did stop by looked at my passport but didn’t stamp it. I arrived in Brastillivia at about 4:30, after a slow 5 hour journey.

Brastillivia, the capatial of the Slovak Republic is quite a nice small city with lots of trams in downtown that I did photograph. It’s main attraction was the castle, that I missed because its closed on Mondays, oh well, other than that their not too many sights. Although I did have an excellent (and cheap, everything in the Slovak Republic seemed cheap) dinner of tradional food in a Slovak pub. It was a stop on a whim, after I decided not to take a night train from Praha to Budapest, and I enjoyed it staying in a single room in a vacant univesity dorm.

This morning I simply took the hour and a have train to Vienna (so I could get back on my Eurail pass) used its U-bahn to get to switch train stations and now await my 1:50 departure to Budapest.

I had a very pleasant day today in Copenhagen, having a nice walk through the city and visiting sites such as the ruins underneath the palace, and the National Museum, which had a very interesting exhibit and collections on Indigionus people throughout the world.

I also took the quite interesting Kopenhavn Metro for a ride. It’s a fully automatic computer controlled system, with long (4 articulated sections of car), platform edge doors in the underground stations, but amazingly enough the elevated stations don’t have them, so I got some good shots of the cars themselves running along, as well has the modern, airy stations.

I’ve spent 3 hours in the very pleasant Sweedish town of Malmö and waiting the departure of The Berlin Night Express, in 20 minutes.

I’m looking forward to coming back to Scandanavia, and will definately make another trip.

I applogize for all the typos and spelling errors in my posts, none of these non-english computers seem to have spell check!

The subject line is the insane about of taveling I’ve done since Sunday Morning.

My first day on my own in Europe was the most insane, going from London to Luxembourg. It started with an 830AM National Express bus departure from Victoria Coach Station, I took that directly to the dock in Dover (It was actually 15 minutes early arriving at 10:35A instead of 10:50). I then had quite awile to wait for my Sea France ferry, that was schedualed to depart at 12:15, at 11:40 I boarded a foot passenger bus through non-existant customs and onto the ferry. Which didn’t start moving until 12:30, so we finally arrived in Callis at 2:55 (25 minutes late). The ferry itself was pleasant, with a fairly nice deck, a cafeteria where I had overpriced fish and chips, and of course a huge shop, where things didn’t seem all that cheap. After we arrived it was onto another bus where I finally got to the ferry’s arrival hall at 3:10, missing a bus into Callis and the station, so I decide to hoof it, hoping I’d make the 3:27 train, which I do miss, though the walk wasn’t that far, and get quite lost trying ending up at the Moto Train station, a ways outside of downtown Callis, and wonder back. There I find out the next train isn’t until 5:26, and a quick glance at a SNCF ticket machine tells me I’ll arrive in Luxembourg at 23h26.

Getting cought for two hours in Callis wasn’t all that bad. I spent the time wondering through the plesant French town, and watching a large parade of Marching bands that was happening, the residents were definately out in full force. So the time went quickly, I finally board my double decker electric TER regional train to Lille and were off on time at 5:26. I arrived in Lille at 18h38, and wondered around the train station for a train to my third contry of the day Namur, Belgium. I eventually ask a very nice lady at information that tells me, and I get on a three car (B)-Belgian train #442 at 19h02 with two minutes to spare. It’s an uneventful ride through the Belgian Countryside and I arrive there at 9:18. I rush around the station trying to find something for dinner, and eventually find and buy a take out hamburger that I eat on the train for Luxembourg that was a (B) Bi-level and left at 21h42, and got me to Luxembourg at 11:35P.

Now comes the most interesting part of my long day, I meet a fellow traveler, from LA, who’s also just arrived and we set off to find the HI hostel together, spending 45 mintues and getting completely lost in the town. Eventually he flags down a patorling police car to find out where the hostel is, and they end up giving us a lift for the very short distance I’ll never forget one of there comments “We have nothing better to do”. I check in at the fairly new modern hostel, finally at 0h45A and get in bed.

It’s an 8:15 wake-up the next morning for the encluded breakfast, bread and meat aren’t quite my tastes for breakfast, oh well, but I eat some. After breakfast I’m off to explore Luxembourgh and have quite a nice wlalk up and down along the Casemates, although none of them seem open for entry. Luxembourg is definately a place I would visit for a little more time, it’s quite a beutiful city.

At 11:15 I’m off on the rails again, for Koln and later onto Hamburg. I’ve missed the direct train, so its another ride of transferring twice in Traer, and Koblenz. The first two trains are quite slow local DB trains, but it’s quite an interesting ride as we fallow the Rhine, I eventually arrive in Koln at 3:15, and dump my luggage at a luggage storage place, and take a walk. I visit the Cathedral, which is as beutiful as I’ve scene all trip, and walk around the boring post WWII downtown ending up with a little railfanning of the Koln U-bahn wich is basically the Tram (Like an American Light Rail) network where some of the lines go underground in the city center, reminds me a bit of MUNI but I don’t find it all that interesing.

I end up back at Koln Bhf (Central Station), and board the 6:10 ICE-Intercity Express, to Hamburg. The ICE trains are extremely comfortable and seem fairly fast, I’m amazed it’s fully (no reservation charge required) on my Eurail pass, and enjoy it even having a half decent spegetti and meat sauce dinner in the resturant car, I eventually arrive in Hamburg at 22.14 (a little late), and take the Hamburg U-bahn to my Hostel. The Hamburg U-bahn quite interesting with 60s looking stations, and a very coloful decor, I even find an elevated section of it. The S-bahn is also interesting, it’s like a third rail system for Hamburg, running on its own sperate third rail electric tracks. (Regular DB trains use cantenary).

I awake the next morning to a similar breakfast to LUX, and spend my time before my train, walking around a large lake near the train station and poking about. As well as a bit of a railfan trip. I end up on my Denmark National Railways train at 13.25, sitting in a seat I had to reserve for 3,50€. It’s a fairly eventful ride, we pull out on time, get a bit out of the city, before its annouced that due to an accident we will be going streight back to Hamburg Bhf, and taking a different route, which we do stopping in the station, and leaving for good at 14.12. The train I don’t realize is sent on a 45 minute ferry ride (I assumed it would take the overland route I see on my Eurail) map. It doesn’t and the train pulls directly onto the ferry, where were invited to get off, I do, the ferry’s is almost exactly the same as the Sea France Ferry except on a smaller scale. The train pulls off and I arrive over an hour late into Copenhagen C at 19h15 (schedualed for 18h05), I check into the hostel, where I am now.

Tomorrow I’m off to explore Køpenhavn, and then it’s a night train from Malmo, Sweeden to Berlin.

I apologize for the lack of updates to this website – I’ve had major issues finding internet access in the various places I’ve been, through the British Countryside, so here I will give a recount of my whereabouts and adventures over the past week in a more brief form then I was planning for this blog. I plan to elaborate more on this entry at a later date.

Our final night in Canterbury was unto itself, its own adventure there was horrendous rain, just like we’ve had a fair amount of the trip, so we ordered take-away to the hosels, and had to eat it in the common room and not the dining room. The dining room was flooded with puddles forming from a crack between the glass roof and stonewall. It was amazing how much rain there was that night, and how much it has rained my entire time in England.
We left Canterbury and activated are BritRail passes, for the trains we used throughout our visit, riding a Southeastern EMU train to Waterloo East. It was my first time riding the national rails since when I lived in London for four months between ’99 and 2000, and its very strange that all the slam door stock is gone. We transferred at Waterloo to a South West Train Service to Salisbury. Where we spend two days stupidly over the summer solstice and never got to Stonehenge. (It closed at 3 the day we arrived and there were no buses the day of the solstice, unless we wanted to camp out and spend the night which we didn’t want to do.) So we spent the time visiting the Salisbury Cathedral (probably the most beautiful cathedral I’ve scene my entire trip), and a memorable two hour bus ride on a regular 30-foot low floor city bus to Avebury to see stone circles like at Stonehenge.

The next day was our longest train day of the England portion of the trip. Taking the train from Salisbury to York, amazingly we only had to transfer once, and took a Virgin Super Voyager (5 car DMU) service all the way up to York, a 4 hour ride that managed to change its direction of travel three times, going through a number of the large British cities like Birmingham, and Leeds. We spent one night in York visiting the Viking Museum and York Cathedral before a quick hour long GNER ride (the train was bound for Northern Scotland in Aberdeen) to Newcastle for the Tyne and Where Metro to our location for the next two days in South Shields.

From South Shields we visited Beede’s World (a recreated 8th century Anglo-Saxon Village), and one end of Hadrian’s Wall, travelling via Metro although I only scrounged a few photos after being yelled at after taking only a couple at Central Station.

Our first big BritRail adventure came the next day (25 June), our travel day to London, we got into Central Station wanting the 11 o’clock Great North Eastern Railway train to London, but saw at 10:20, the 7:39 train to London had yet to arrive. We didn’t board that one, which came in shortly after (it was too crowded), but the one behind it. Leaving at 1050 (it was scheduled for 936). Once we were one it was a total adventure due to flooding, and took us 6 hours instead of three arriving Kings Cross, and London at 16:00, my current location.

I’ve temporarily left France for the next couple of weeks and am now in Canterbury, England.

My short stay in France was quite eventful as my other post didn’t already say. We arrived 3 hours late on Air France. The flight once Airborne was fine, although they could have gone better during the delay, by at least activating the in flight entertainment-The dinner was actually half decent. We first sat at the gate due to aircraft holding delays of an hour, and then had to wait on the taxiway with thirty planes in front of us. We took off at 9:54P, after a 7:05 scheduled departure.

We finally arrived the next day touching down at 10:54A (Central Europe Time), taxied for 15 minutes to the remote stand, finally getting off the plane at 11:28 for a TEN minute bus ride/tour of the new terminals at Charles de Gual. Immigration and customs were swift, we finally boarded a AIR FRANCE les cars bus for Gar de Lyon. (12:15-1:15), boarding a train for our first destination Auxcere (Dp. 1:47 Ar. 4:23). Riding an electric double decker push-pull set for the beginning of the journey, transferring at LaRoche to a single car diesel DMU for the last couple of stops to Auxcere.

The remainder of the tiring day was spent in this ancient city seeing the Cathedral St. Allene, having issues finding a place to eat do to being closed, and a nice long sleep.

The next day was more DMU train travel to Atun. This was first on a five car DMU (BR811569) , transferring to a one car DMU X-something in Avallon. (Dp. 8:47, Ar. Avallon-10:00 Dp. 10:15 Ar. Atun 12:04), taxing taxis to our hotel on the outskirts of town.

We spent that afternoon exploring the cathedral, and the two sections of Roman gates that still exist, eating lunch from a supermarket in a historic ampotheter.

The day was another one Car DMU ride to Avallon and later Velezqueze (Dp. 8:27 on X730707 Ar. 10:16), taxied to Velezqueze, to see the amazing Bastil.

Spent the next two nights exploring the very interesting medieval town, before yesterday (Monday) which was are first long travel day. Taking us 12 hours to get from England to Caterbury.

I am currently in Bergondy France and realize that their are going to be typos in this post AZERTY keyboards are impossible:

Ive spent the past three days visiting various Romanesque castles in the region. Travel as been entirely by train mostly amazing DMUs with a couple of taxis. Will do a full tripLog on a better keyboard and Internet that is less than 2 euro per ten minutes.

The flight over over was uneventful Air France had decent food even-except for a 3 hour air traffic delay at JFK.

Welcome to my SubwayNut in Europe Blog. I’ve created this blog to be able to write articles about my current whereabouts in the European Sub continent. I’m off tonight (7:05) for Paris, for what I hope is an amazing six week journey through most of Europe. I’m spending two weeks on an organized trip with some friends, to see mostly architecture in England and France. After that I’ve purchased a Eurail Pass and am planning to pass through: Luxembourg, Germany, Denmark, Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, France, and Belgium. I hoping for some amazing rail fanning opportunities as well as seeing the European sights.

I am not bringing a computer so it is unlikely that I will be able to upload any photos while I’m away (my iPod providing me with all the memory card space I need). But I plan to update this blog whenever I can in Hostels and Internet Cafes, with detailed descriptions of all my railfan and non-railfan adventures alike.