ensemble Despite setting the alarm, we both had a fitful night sleep – afraid we would oversleep and miss our train from Landstuhl. Â Up early, before the alarm went off, showered and ready to conquer a day of train travel in Germany, with our limited knowledge of the German language. Â We were scheduled for the 9:00 am regional commuter train from Landstuhl to Kaiserslauten, but we actually arrived early and caught an earlier train.
buy priligy online in india Our second step on this adventure was catching the train from Kaiserslauten to Frankfurt, finding our correct car and assigned seats. You can usually find a diagram somewhere on the platform that correlates the cars and access points on the platform. For example, car 21, can be boarded at access point D. Â The car to which we were assigned was scheduled to stop at point C and was the third car in the series. Bingo, we quickly found our car and our seats. The ride on the ICE, the inter-city express was smooth and comfortable and we arrived in Frankfurt on time at 10:58 AM.
That was the the end of smooth and uneventful. Our train to Amsterdam was scheduled to leave from platform 20 at at 11:29 AM. At precisely 11:30 AM they announced our train to Amsterdam was cancelled due to technical difficulties. Here comes a new experience – navigating a change in tickets and seat assignments in German! A little bit of tension here.
We got in line at an information desk/service point behind a whole lot of other folks. Our choices were take a train to Oberhausen and take a bus from there to Amsterdam or take the train at 1:31 pm with an arrival around 5:30 PM. Needless to say, we took the later train without the bus transfer. However, since we had seat assignments, we had to go to the travel center to get new seat assignments and wait in another line! Once all the paperwork was completed, we had about an hour and fifteen minutes left. Â We found a frankfurter stand and had a frankfurter mit brochen (on a roll with mustard) and a bottle of water. Next stop the WC. 1 euro got you in to the Rail and Fresh WC, probably the cleanest WC in a train station I have ever seen.
Now, remember what I said about the diagram and the access points and car assignments on the platform? The diagram indicated that our car was the first car in line and accessed at point D. Train stopped and that car was not our car. We had to jog back to point A to get to our car, board, find our seats – before the train left the station. Luckily the train was almost 5 minutes late leaving.
We left Frankfurt, passing through Koln, Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Oberhausen, Arnhem, and Utrecht Centraal. The ride to Amsterdam through beautiful countryside on a mostly sunny day was gorgeous. The train, though, moved too fast for photos of the fields, cows, sheep, Â horses, architecture, and picturesque towns. We crossed over the Rhine at Koln on a bridge with pedestrian and bike paths adjacent to the railroad bridge. The paths were safeguarded from the train tracks by a chainlink fence. The fence on both sides was covered in padlocks, just like those we found in Paris.
The bed, minuscule chest, and window make up the entire square footage of our room! It’s tiny – but clean as a pin! I’ll take clean over spacious any day.
We found the Hotel Bellevue, across from the train station and checked in. Since we made our original reservation, the hotel had been purchased by IBIS – but, luckily they kept the Bellevue sign!  Our room is very clean and tiny. There is not enough square footage to do a push up or a plank! Where ont earth should we put the suitcases? But, at least we have free wi-fi access!
teeny tiny but clean!
We ventured out to explore, walking along canals and visiting Dam Square. Mike was thrilled by the red light win.dows and was not tempted by anything he saw! We searched a few menus to find a place to have dinner. We chose Cafe Van Zuylen at 4-8 Torensteeg. Several glasses of merlot, calamari, salad and Black Angus steak prepared medium rare fit the bill.
Out comes our sight-seeing kit for strolling Amsterdam’s city center
Amsterdam is known for its intriguing architecture
I loved the bright color!
On our stroll we found this solitary rose in bloom in front of a beautiful home overlooking the canal
