Day Two - Cologne to Copenhagen
Edinburgh to Stockholm - a Journey
There is going to be a lot of train action today. I’m due to leave Cologne at just after 12, head to Hamburg to switch trains and then onward on a 4 hour + journey north, then east, to Copenhagen in Denmark. I’ll be in transit for around 9 hours.
My intention is, therefore, to get up early, get out and walk or cycle to make the most of the morning. My body has other plans. I haven’t trained or walked around with a heavy pack prior to this trip. It hadn’t occurred to me. I didn’t need to train in my 20’s… the realisation that my body needs more care these days is a stark one. My bones, tendons and muscles took up the weight challenge with aplomb yesterday - surprised, but remarkably up for it - this morning, however it’s time to pay the Ferryman. My lower back, right knee and hips all object at different moments to different movements. The deep sleep I had seems to have led to some sort of calcification. I am all rock and rigidity.
So I work slowly and carefully. Unfurling myself. Stretching out lightly, then tentatively going further. Holding the stretches for longer, breathing and checking my way through the extent – or lack of - of my movements. Willing everything to warm up and be supple. Paying attention to where it all might go wrong. My lower back yields fairly well and allows me to feel the joy in the stretch. My hips are grumbling, throwing aching sensations down my quads in complaint. Fair enough. My right knee stubbornly refuses to give me anything more than clicks and pain. It’s not swollen. It’s just pissed off. As I move gingerly around, packing up and getting ready, it seems to understand that I’ve got the message and will respect its objections. When I re-stretch it, 15 minutes later, it is silent and pain free.
I make a mental note to build in stretches throughout the day and pay more attention to what the rucksack might be doing to my body. Some stuff will help. Keeping the pack balanced – put heavy weight in the middle and check the straps are at equal tension. Try not to take it off and on too many times, to avoid swinging everything about and inadvertently pulling something.
All of this has extended out my morning. Once more, it is boiling hot outside This beautiful Sunday in Cologne is already cranked up to 25 degrees and it’s nearing 10 am. I have two hours before my train. One option is to walk with the pack, find breakfast near the station and rest up. The other is ditch the big pack and have a go on a bike. It’s Sunday morning, the traffic is light. German bike paths are clearly labelled….When I get to reception and mingle with the gathered, hot guests, all checking out and hovering, my decision is made. Bike. To the river. Find breakfast somewhere open and breezy.
I find another e-bike with the app and gently peddle, testing knees and quads. All seem to be agreeable and I figure if I just go steady, all of me will get what is needed – namely stretched, cool air, coffee and sustenance.
I point Google maps to the Old Town to the east of the hotel, but set off a little north, on a route I walked last night, along quiet streets to settle myself in. I give myself just over an hour – for the journey, breakfast and return. I’m in the market for sharp strong coffee and a German bakery – carbs, cheese, ham – bring it.
The roads are Sunday-quiet, but the churches are noisy. Competing bells call people to worship. Thankfully this means the bike lanes are pretty occupied. One of my cycling-in-cities tactics is: follow the person ahead of you, watch which lane they choose. My psyche is wired to travel on the left. This will not serve me well here. So rather than consciously figuring out each step ahead, I tend to find someone who is vaguely heading in the direction I need – especially at large intersections – and follow them. I suspect the local bikers think me very polite as I wave them through at the lights. (I actually suspect I have tourist written all over me.)
I make it to Eigelstein-Torburg, and find coffee shops galore around the medieval gates. From there, it’s a short way ( with a detour around a big intersection – the follow-the-person in front theory isn’t perfect) to the banks of the mighty Rhine and a lovely ride along the river, back into the city. My loop is short. I will come back for more someday.
Heat rises, freckles are out, I collect my pack from the hotel and slowly walk the 15 minutes back to the Hauptbahnhof, saying goodbye to the Dom as I leave. I purchase a fresh boxed salad – trying (and failing) not to unfavourably compare the UK equivalent - a big bottle of water and have 25 minutes to fill. I fill it with coffee & delicious apfelküchen – a sweet, salty must whenever I am in Germany – ordering, as I try to do, in German and being replied to in English. Rumbled.
From Köln HBF to Hamburg is a steady 3 hours 40. The train is modern and well equipped, with a restaurant, clean loos and a whole kids carriage. I write, using the excellent wifi and listen to audiobooks whilst watching northern Germany unfold around me. It is pleasant and the time goes fast.
Hamburg HBF is another shock of heat. I have an hour to kill and I figure it’s after 4pm, so I order a small beer and sit, writing, perched at the bar in an air-conned foodhall. I manage a passable conversation with the grey-mohawked barman, “Ich versuche mein Deutsch zu üben” (I’m trying to practice my German – a phrase memorised from Google Translate a few days earlier). He laughs and responds: “But why? We all speak English” I shrug. My vocab doesn’t cover existential questions. “Es macht mich glücklich” – It makes me happy.
I don’t top up my water bottle, but German trains are well equipped, so I know I can buy whatever I need onboard…This assumption subsequently scuppers me. The Hamburg- Copenhagen train is neither modern, nor equipped with any means of buying food or drink. I do not know this. I have had beer. It is high 20 degrees. I am thirsty. This problem will not be solved for another 2 hours, by which time I’ll be grumpy.
I have an allocated seat and when I find it, I’m not in one of the expected wide chaired German carriages, but in a cabin, like something out of an Agatha Christie film. 6 seats, 3 facing 3, in a little glass box. A little hot glass box. A kindly looking middle aged couple, both with good skin and an air of fitness about them, sit opposite each other, corridor side. A woman with a dishevelled bob and a frantic air sits in the window, already typing. Her laptop has a sellotaped picture of a renaissance-style fainting woman, with the sentence “another change request from the client” in almost incomprehensible script at the bottom (trust me, I got to study this picture many times). The numbers on the outside of the cabin suggest I’m sitting in the middle seat. Between the two women. In a sweltering confined space. A small part of me shrivels and shudders as I calculate… 4 and half hours.
I push the rucksack into the rack, already eyeing the other window seat. I already know I will wander the train, see what else lies beyond this goldfish box…always know where your exits are. But for now, I sit like a good citizen, well socialised to be unwilling to show my “hell no” immediately.
Then the Danes arrive.
He is -of course – well over 6 ft. Slim, still handsome, perhaps in his late 70’s. With a deep tan and an impressively clipped moustache. He is running Big 30-something backpacker energy.
Hallo! He bellows, stepping into the confined space without regard for bags or limbs.
He points at Frantic Bob Lady.
You are in our seat, I think.
Our? Ah. His travelling companion. An immaculate 70-something doll of a woman. Perfect snow white hair, clipped neatly back, dressed in subtly branded leisure wear, all in black, apart from gold earrings and rings. Everything about her is groomed and wealthy. She stands behind Bellow, keen, sharp eyed and not-quite smiling.
Their arrival causes an upset I could not have anticipated. Frantic Bob Lady had asked for the window seat, which meant the Kindly Couple could sit opposite each other with some space. I later learn they fully intended to leave the hot box once their tickets were checked, in any case. He – Tomas – is a consummate traveller and ends up being my co-conspirator and the source of good information. Frantic Bob Lady’s actual seat is corridor side… where there is no table.
She clearly needs to work and a table…
Bellow has booked his window seats with a table.
It would be an impasse, but he will have his way.
He is not unkind.
He is not rude.
He is just sure.
I stand and he seems surprised at how much space I take up (yeh, me too love!) I say I’ll wait in the corridor until everyone is sorted. I make him move back and I stand out of all the manoeuvring. I’m relatively relaxed, watching Frantic Bob resentfully gather her stuff and Well Groomed Wife slip into the window seat. The tension is almost laughable... and none of it is particularly mine, until Bellow grabs my rucksack and hoists it, without ask or care – and with surprising strength - onto the opposite luggage rack, on top of suitcases, where it rocks perilously, straps in the air. He is too busy shoving his suitcase in the space my rucksack was in to notice me flinch.
I take a beat.
Debate the next step.
Tomas is watching me. I get the impression of a man who misses little.
Fuck it.
I step back into the box.
My rucksack isn’t safe there.
Bellow looks at me.
If the train brakes hard, it will fall. On someone. Probably me.
He makes an excellent Scandi scoffing noise -a mixture of Naw and Nein.
Naw, but it is heavy and will be fine, I think.
I look at him steadily. My heart rate is rising, but I don’t feel threatened.
Yeh – maybe. But I’m not willing to risk it.
He tells me he thinks the train will move in the other direction (it won’t) and will not brake hard (it might)
I’m not budging.
Again. Maybe. And I’m not willing to risk it.
I aim to defuse. I flash a smile.
I like my eyes. I don’t want bruised ones
This makes him laugh and he grabs the rucksack, hoists it up onto his suitcase and jams it hard between the roof and his case. Thank Christ I’ve taken the laptop out.
You happy? He asks, again – not unkindly, just checking.
Delighted, I deadpan.
You English? He asks. I try not to imagine what the subtext of this is.
Scottish. From Edinburgh.
Ah – we go there in August.
I can’t remember if the Danish do sarcasm, so I smile and say Excellent.
We all settle tightly, in the sweltering configuration. There is low-level polite chat. Everyone speaks English. Kindly Couple are Swiss. Frantic Bob offers nothing of her status, just types viciously into that sellotaped laptop. The Danes are returning from Switzerland – Basel and Milano before that. They have been on a month-long journey by train, dropping city names I can’t keep up with. Now, they are returning home. Cue what feels like a well-known Euro-conversation about German trains versus Swiss (worse) or Italian (better).
We survive together for about 20 minutes. Tomas reads, his wife crochets, Well Groomed Wife plays solitaire on her massive ipad, Bellow has a Newsweek-type journal. I try to write, but it feels weird. I’m thirsty and tense. Immediately after the train guard comes round and takes tickets, Tomas leaves the carriage. I know a tracker when I see one and I shoot after him, leaving an ask of Bellow to keep an eye on my laptop.
In the following few minutes I learn from Tomas 1) there is no catering on board – no food or water until Denmark at 7pm. 2) That the Hot Boxes extend for a chunk of the train - and are mostly filled with stressed looking strangers (he didn’t tell me that bit) - but if you keep going, you get to the unbooked seats. So it is that I find a magical carriage that is not configured like a 1930’s Whodunnit scene. (As an aside - If I were to return to find anyone off-ed in the hot box, my money is on Bellow, by Frantic Bob.)
I find a single seat, blissfully beside a window. No charger, but I’ll cope.
10 minutes later, I return to collect my laptop and day pack – asking Bellow to keep an eye on the big bag. Then I head far away from all potentially murderous scenes. As I make my way to my new seat, I see that Tomas and his wife have found a little box all to themselves - both with their feet up, chatting as she crochets.
The rest of the trip is uneventful. By the time we cross into Denmark, I am – predictably- grumpy with hunger and thirst, but this is cheerfully sorted by a man wearing a mobile 7/11 shop, shortly after passports are checked. I don’t have the opportunity to settle into my usual travel-zen, so the journey feels long, with minutes being marked until we arrive. I return to the box at one point to charge my phone and laptop and have a good conversation with Bellow and Doll. They are fond of Scotland. It’s a nice exchange… until Bellow gleefully informs me I have picked the wrong time to be in Copenhagen, as it will rain all day the next day.
We arrive in Copenhagen a little after 9:30 at night. My hotel is 15 minutes walk from central station. The city is blissfully cool and still surprisingly busy – Tivoli Gardens are still in full flow with rides and the smell of popcorn and candyfloss filling the air. I drop my bags gratefully, get hotel bar snacks and a glass of wine. Before I fall into bed, I unpack my rain gear, jumper and hat. My plan to cycle to a north beach for a swim tomorrow is now in tatters.
I guess you always take the weather with you.