Everything went like clockwork on arrival in Holland, from the trademark Stena Line chirpy bird wake-up call to the blue exercise deck for Lottie’s comfort break.
Train geek alert: they’re doing some work on the train station at Hoek van Holland, so I had to walk 450 m to the temporary stop, only to find out there was a shuttle bus. The metro ticket to Schiedam, where I changed for Amsterdam, was 4 eur and lasts 2 hours. Lottie’s dog day pass purchased back in Cardiff was 3 eur. I added the Schiedam Centrum to Amsterdam leg to my Interrail pass and the app automatically combined it with the Amsterdam-Berlin leg. Very neat. I could probably have added Hoek van Holland to Schiedam to the ticket too. Never mind.
Got to Amsterdam with no bother and then had a couple of hours to kill with an excellent Illy cappuccino and croissant.
Then the train from Amsterdam to Berlin took 7 hours, including a 30 minute delay at the German border. I was flagging by the time we got off and Lottie wasn’t best pleased with being made to put on a muzzle by an officious train guard. I had to top up her Dutch dog day ticket with a half-price child ticket for the German leg of the trip – then no one even checked it.
Berlin is cold and wet so I’m glad the hotel is just round the corner from the station. I’m heading out to get some food and then I’ll have an early night. There’ll be some time to look around tomorrow morning before my train to Prague mid-morning.
2022 and all that 