A much more relaxing day today, and my legs need it after
the 20 odd Kms I walked yesterday!
I had a pleasant morning with another repack; I wrote down
on a piece of paper where I’d put all the major bits to see if that would be
helpful. Normally I wouldn’t really need that but it’s been so long since I
last went touring…
After that I lolled, read and watched some TV. They have a
TV series here like Escape to the Country, but it is where they are looking for
somewhere for vacation. Funnily enough the episode I saw was where a Dutch
couple wanted a characterful house in England!
Just as I checked out Tony SMSd that he was already here! So
I finalised everything rode to the station, only about 4K’s. There was this
annoying older guy I passed who was smoking a cigar (yuck L), I’d pass him then
he’d sail through the next red light and he’d be in front of us again; I did
eventually drop him. The only hard part of the ride in was in the square where
the palace was I needed to turn left; in the end I did a U-turn after the
lights and then straight down to the station. All in all surprisingly easy.
Tony was waiting out the front, we chatted for a bit and then headed back the
way I’d come to look for somewhere to eat. I had suggested grabbing some stuff
and eating in Vondelpark but there was a reasonable looking brasserie along the
way where we could lean the bikes so we stopped there. One of the nice things
about Amsterdam is that you can sit outside on the main street and not be
bothered by traffic noise, as there’s hardly any.
After lunch we rode back to the station and sat to wait
until it was closer to the departure time. We both went and got ourselves a
drink and nice piece of chocolate. I ate mine straight away J After getting to the
platform and working out where the bike carriage would be I popped back down
stairs to a vending machine. I wanted a croquet, but alas they didn’t have any.
Shocking!
The train arrived about 10 minutes early so there was plenty
of time to get the bikes in and set up. We both used ceiling hooks so we could
just leave the panniers on the bikes! The bike area was huge and could easily
take 20 bikes, and as it turned out did. A surprising number of people got on
and off with their bikes en route as well. A rather good system really.
We settled in for the rather long (6 ½ hour) ride to Berlin.
There was a British couple behind us who Tony talked to for quite a bit, they
were cycling a different route to us, but also heading north. When the ticker
collectors came I realised that being the last carriage it is also the sob
story carriage. Oh I didn’t realise I couldn’t take a different train, oh I
thought I could use my XXX student card, oh no I don’t have any money I just
need to get home to my mummy in Poland. The last one the Dutch gave a free
ticket to the German border, the German’s kicked him off the train!
Tony had a couple of beers during the trip and I had warm
baguette with Coke which was pretty good for a train. We arrived in Berlin on
time (naturlich) at 9:30, went down 4 levels to the train back to Spandau only
to discover it was an ICE which doesn’t take bikes. So we went back up 4 levels
to buy tickets on the next RE train and then back down 4 levels to catch the
train. Phew!
Uneventful from there to Spandau, lights on, ride to hotel,
Tony checked us in, bikes down stairs and then upstairs to the rooms. The room
is quite spacious, a bit old but perfectly serviceable. I had a shower, lay
down and at 11:15 was out like a light!
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