Europe Day 5: Berlin to Mannheim

Losing orientation

The Berlin Hauptbahnhof was as confusing as a shopping mall. The country trains (inter-city) are in the basement and the (intra-) city ones on the top level, with shops and restaurants in between. I got lost in this middle section just before my train departed because I couldn’t find the luggage lockers. I had taken a photo of the locker I had put my suitcase in when I arrived in Berlin, and made a mental map of where the lockers were. But that map had flipped the station in my head, so I spent too much time looking for them on the opposite side (like not finding your car in the Gardens Centre parking lot). Those 10 minutes were more panicky than the unnecessary train change adventure in Villach.

I did make it onto the platform of my next train-ship in time (with suitcase), and this one had all its carriages and plenty of space. My seat was literally in the first cabin, with the driver/engineer just on the other side of the partition. Halfway into the trip, we stopped in Leipzig (or was it Eisenach?) and the train driver left his partition got off the train. Minutes passed and no-one else came to replace him. I thought we were stuck here and was ready to say “That’s German Railways for you” when the train started moving and it took me a moment to realise that our travel direction had changed and the train had flipped, I was now in the last carriage of the train, and the driver had moved to the other end.

We continued crossing Germany (forever flat) at speed, with frequent towns and trains flashing past. I sat back, chewing on the very reasonable baguette from the dining car, in awe of the network of rails that linked this continent together and fearing for my inner compass.