the Grand Tour blog

Exploring North-Eastern Germany

The Grand Tour Blog is a record of my occasional ventures from the UK into mainland Europe. Such trips are invariably to do with art or photography or music, and the blog takes its name from a five-week music-themed rail tour I made back in 2008, which is documented in its own website. Subsequent trips, described here, have included return visits to some of my favourite Grand Tour cities in eastern Germany, and my first journey by rail down through Italy, as far as Rome.

Now I'm a few days away from a return to Germany, this time following an almost straight line from Köln to Lübeck, and taking in Wuppertal, Hannover and Hamburg. In the 13th century Lübeck was birthplace of the Hanseatic League, a kind of trade-based forerunner of the EU that finally fell apart when it got too big for its boots. If all goes well I'll take a look at the Baltic from the island of Rügen – the most north-easterly point in Germany – before an overnight stop in Berlin, one of my favourite cities, and a fast train back to Köln.

Booked Italy to Germany

I'd thought that yesterday was the start of Deutsche Bahn's booking window for the beginning of the journey home from Verona, but the site wouldn’t let me book (I could book for the day before, and it's interesting that prices are €20 or so higher then, being a Sunday). I guessed there was a faint chance that with Teutonic efficiency DB might switch to allow booking from midnight – 11:00pm UK time – and so it was. But even a few minutes after booking opened all the really cheap fares were 'sold out'.

My seat (Verona-Munich) and overnight couchette (Munich-Cologne) were still the expected €89.00 total, a pretty good deal. Some confusion as the site said it couldn't make the reservation on Verona-Munich – "What do you want to do?". Well, I dunno. I have to guess the outcomes of the two options on offer: book only what they can reserve, or "book the entire journey without reservation". So I booked without, which as expected reserved my couchette but not a seat on the first train.

Called the UK booking number this morning, where the operator (who I think was probably sitting in Germany) was surprised that I could book the sleeper on-line, but said not to worry about Verona-Munich. It's a EuroCity train and reservation is not compulsory – but I ought to be able to reserve at the ticket office in Milan anyway, or at any other Italian station. I hope so: I don’t fancy standing for 5.5 hours.

Wondering at what time I want the next train – from Cologne to Brussels – I had another look at the entry for Cologne Cathedral [the Dom] in the Rough Guide. It's rewritten and much improved in my new [June 2009] edition, and I'm pleased to see that the Dom opens at 6:00am; I’m due to arrive at the Hauptbahnhof next door at 5:40. Also that its construction was triggered by the arrival of the relics of the Three Magi from Milan – taken by Holy Roman Emperor Fredrick Barbarossa and given to the Archbishop of Cologne, Rainald von Dassel, in 1164 – a neat closure of my tour, which starts (if you've been following) in Milan.