Travel Diaries: Germany and Denmark (Part 2)

Bombardier Twindexx train on a DB Regio Schleswig-Holstein service (via Regionalbahn 77)

After a few days spent checking out Hamburg, I was off to Denmark. I ended up with a First Class ticket on a cheap deal for the first leg of my trip, on a double-decker DB Regio train to Flensburg, right on the Danish border. 

About an hour north of Hamburg, the train reaches the huge Rendsburg High Bridge, which soars nearly 70m above the Kiel Canal, to allow its huge volume of maritime shipping to pass beneath unhindered. Because Rendsburg Station is so close to the bridge, trains do a huge spiral through the town to get down to ground level again - built in the 1910s, it's an immense feat of engineering, and offers incredible views from the train window. 

The view from the Rendsburg High Bridge

We were about four minutes late arriving into Flensburg, which made me very nervous as I only had a six-minute connection to my Danish train. This was becoming a bit of a theme, as the German railways don't seem to live up to their efficient, punctual reputation. But thankfully they do know how to set these things up, so I didn't have to dash around to the other side of the station or even pass through a ticket gate - it was a cross-platform interchange to the Danish train, which literally took under ten seconds. Similar to when I crossed from Spain into France, the train was boarded by police for a walk-through at Padborg, the first station over the border - after which it was a pleasant ride through the autumnal Danish countryside to Fredericia. 

The view from the Danish train

After a quick lunch break in Fredericia it was a short train ride to Vejle, for my connecting bus to Legoland Billund. (It is frankly bewildering to me that Legoland has its own airport, but no railway line.) I've wanted to visit Legoland since I was a little kid, and I'm glad I went, but to be honest I was a little disappointed. There were some pretty great Lego models around the place, but a surprisingly large percentage of the place was the kind of rides you'd find at any theme park, which isn't really my thing. 

When I got back to Vejle, I had some time to kill before my train to Copenhagen, so I went for a bit of a wander, and stumbled upon the town's Halloween festivities, with a pretty impressive costume parade down the main street - then when the sun went down, I had a nice view of their fireworks display from the station platform before my train left. 

Living portraits in the parade, and fireworks over Vejle

Copenhagen Station is a pretty impressive building, and does feel very distinctly Danish. The concourse area is particularly nice; its roof is supported by huge wooden beams, like the hull of an upturned Viking longboat. 

The concourse of Copenhagen Station

I spent a few days touristing around Copenhagen, visiting places like the Carlsberg Glyptotek, the Rundetaarn (Round Tower), and Rosenborg Castle - all of which I'd highly recommend. Overall the city reminded me a lot of Amsterdam, only with a lot more verdigris. As always when travelling, I got around by foot and by train, and one key difference is that the Danish make a lot of space on their trains for you to bring your bike, whereas the Dutch mostly require you to park your bike at the station. By coincidence, Mr Not Just Bikes was there at exactly the same time as me, and he made a video on its cycling prowess when he returned - which pretty much tracks with what I saw. 

Copenhagen's S-Train network has plenty of space for bikes

When it came time to head home, I took the more direct route from Copenhagen to Hamburg. The train sped through the Danish islands of Zealand, Falster and Lolland, to arrive at Rødby harbour...where the train rolled onto the ferry. Once aboard, we all got off the train and walked up to the passenger decks, which have a bunch of facilities like shops, restaurants, and so on. I bought myself a can of Carlsberg from the supermarket and went out onto the top viewing deck to drink it in the freezing cold wind, looking out over the Fehmarn Belt at the windfarms in the distance, with a grizzled old sea captain with a white beard smoking a pipe next to me. Good times. 

Crossing the Fehmarn Belt on the train ferry

Somewhat sadly, the trip I took is no longer possible - about seven weeks later, on 14 December 2019, the train ferry was withdrawn, so that construction could start on the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link, an 18km road and rail tunnel under the strait. Ultimately the tunnel, along with electrification and higher speeds on adjacent railways in both countries, will result in a substantially quicker trip from Copenhagen to Hamburg, Berlin and destinations beyond. But in the meantime, trains between Copenhagen and Hamburg will go the long way around - which due to higher train speeds (and the fact that the whole ferry thing is pretty time-consuming) is actually 20 minutes faster than the trip I took. 

The Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link will be the world's longest submerged tunnel (via Femern)

As the ferry pulled into Puttgarden, we all trooped downstairs again to re-board the train, which slowly advanced forward before pausing at Puttgarden station - which was lucky for one poor chap who stayed upstairs for too long, and had to make a mad dash to catch up with the train before it left. From Puttgarden, the train ran quickly to Lubeck before terminating at Hamburg. 

Re-boarding the train as the ferry pulled into port

My trip from Hamburg back to Amsterdam was again a two-leg journey, but a different way than I'd come a week earlier - I would start off on a packed intercity train heading for Koblenz, and would change onto the Berlin-Amsterdam train. When I'd been planning the trip, Google Maps had suggested I make a 13 minute interchange at Osnabruck, but when I booked the tickets the system automatically gave me a 7 minute transfer one station further on, at Rheine. Given that my train was already 6 minutes late when it left Hamburg, this made me very worried that I wouldn't make the connection - so when I got to Osnabruck I made the call and jumped off. 

The right-angled station building at Osnabruck (via A.Savin)

Osnabruck has quite a weird layout; several lines meet there, and it has low-level platforms going in one direction and high-level platforms running perpendicular to them. I jumped off my first train on the low-level platforms and made a mad dash for the high-level platforms to meet the Amsterdam train (though as it turned out I still had a few minutes to spare). When I got on the train, my reserved seat was already empty so I didn't have any issues there. The transfer at Rheine would have been a cross-platform one, like at Flensburg - but the Koblenz train was about ten minutes late by that point, and it hadn't arrived by the time the Amsterdam train left. So I'm very glad I went with my gut - if I hadn't, I'd have been spending the night in Rheine! 

Another cross-platform interchange at Rheine, but with one train conspicuously absent

After a long wait at Bad Bentheim, which I gather was to change from a German loco to a Dutch one, we sailed slowly through the Netherlands to arrive at Amsterdam at 11pm, after a very long day spent reading books and watching the world go by out the train window...something I very much missed in 2020. 

The German rail network may not be as efficient and punctual as I expected, but it certainly is comprehensive. The German and Danish countryside out the train window were gorgeous, as was Copenhagen - and while the Fehmarn fixed link is an incredibly cool project, I'm glad I had the chance to ride the train ferry before it disappeared. All in all, an amazing trip, and I hope I can go back one day and see more of this part of the world.