EuroTrip - Day 15

Hits and Misses

When you have to travel in 5 different but interconnected trains in a day, your biggest fear is to miss a train because you dozed off at the wrong time or could not hear the alarm at the right time. We fought with this fear the whole day today. With the first train change at 5am to the last one at 7pm, we had put more than one alarm so that we don't miss any station.

And still we missed one train. And it was the most important one. The one from Frankfurt to Paris. The mistake happened because we calculated a train schedule wrongly, and instead of getting down from a slow ferry and boarding a fast train, we continued resting our lazy bums on the ferry's deck along with 100 others oldies. Today, it was not just out day. The calculations went wrong at more than one point in time, and by different people. The result is that when our TGV was starting its super fast travel from Frankfurt station, we were waiting for a train some 65km from it. You know it is not possible to beat a TGV unless you are riding a bullet train.

So we missed one train. Poor TARDi travelled alone. He would surely curse us with all his care for our planning.

Ok! Re-winding the day a bit, it was an awesome morning in Koblenz. With mist all around, we could feel the coldness in the air. The horizon seemed to be just around the corner. It's nice to walk in such a weather when a new sight come in front of you from nowhere at every other step.

The cruise to Mainz (KD Lines has cruise running between Koblenz and Mainz that is totally free with a EuRail pass) started at 9am. The boat journey on river Rhine is supposed to be one of the most beautiful boat journey in this part of the world. Several cities with historical significance overlook the river from both side of the river. Each city has a old castle that tells the stories about the old business relations along this river. Some of the castles are on top of a small hill while many other share their boundaries with the riverside. Mist played the spoilsport in the starting when we could not see the first few castles covered in dense fog.

As the ship moved forward the mist gave way to somewhat cloudy day. More people boarded the ship on the way. Sadly all of them were oldies. With so many oldies around us, we seemed to be a bit out of place. Somehow because of the tiredness we got bored of the trip. Still to catch the right train from the right place, we remained on the ship and moved slowly mile by mile. And that's the mistake we committed. Our calculations went wrong and we reached our destination station (in cruise) at the time when we were supposed to be in Frankfurt. And thus we missed the train.

Luckily the next train to Paris was just a couple of hours later and reservations were available. So we made new reservations and boarded the train to start the final leg of journey on our way back home. To our surprise, the TT of previous train (which we had missed) accepted our absence and informed the TT in next train to give us a place without reservation. Good show by TARDi for this. As we had already made new reservations, the TT in our new train offered us to take a refund from the station when we go there next time. He wrote the instructions on the back of the ticket. These things work amazingly well here. The friendliness and sporting spirits shown by TTs and other train authorities have been the highlight of this whole trip. They made our life so simple and that too they did with a broad smile.

On the train it was another reunion, this time with people from ESCP and one old friend from IIMB. The journey got done very fast as we totally lost track of time once we started sharing our trips. Some funny moments, some tips, gyan or otherwise. Lots of chitchat and we reached Paris.

We hope to have a lavish dinner (that is if TARDi is able to enter the house somehow. The key is with us) and a nice bath. Classes start tomorrow and I am feeling bit odd from now only. :-) Anyways, as Mom says, I am here to 'study'. So let me try that for next couple of days. And then the journey will continue. Bbye till tomorrow.