So for our wedding
anniversary me and my wife planned to go to Cologne. We got a good
deal on train travel so it was a Eurostar to Brussels and then DB ICE
to Cologne. A winning pair of 373s and then my first ever ICE train.
The journey was trouble free and all was good.
The return wasn't quite so
straightforward! We were diverted on the way back but we still made
the connection for London. However things we not right at Lille. We
were soon informed that due to a high security incident we all
(including luggage) needed to get off the train! Apparently two men
who had forced themselves onto the train. They had been arrested but
we still had to get off at the French police insistance.
2 hours 20 minutes later we
were back on the move! The wait was longer than the journey itself
should have taken! I didn't think we would make the return to London.
I had given a nice 3 hour window (meant to get a leisurely meal
somewhere) and when we got to Paddington I discovered our train was
in the platform we dropped in on and was due to leave in 5 minutes!
We made it!
But someone was in our
reserved seats! When I asked them to move the usual guff about the
train companies double booking the seats was spouted by people all
around (I have never known this in all the time I have travelled).
The bloke showed me his tickets and I pointed out that his ticket was
for travel on 24th March not February! He duly moved and
the rest of the journey was trouble free!
The best thing about all
this was we are now entitled to a free return journey on Eurostar!
So the two days travel
bagged me another 903 miles of travel by train. And Cologne was a
great city! It was cold and snowing but the Beer was great and we had
a great time!
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