Saturday, November 27, 2010

Fast train to Munich

With a 4am start, we were well positioned for a long day on the train!
Our 7am train from Centraal Station, had us loitering around for nearly an hour waiting on our platform  announcement.  Amsterdam Centraal Station is probably not the sort of place you want to loiter around, mind!  Not unlike Prague, the station is very unappealing, cold and full of undesirables, particularly those sheltering from the cold after a big night!
Our train from Amsterdam to Munich had a changeover in Frankfurt.  This was our opportunity to try out the ICE – the super fast Inter City Express.  The ICE, whilst comfortable and modern, was nowhere near as good as our other trains in terms of child friendly space.  It did however,  get up to speeds of 302 km per hour!
It was clearly evident at Frankfurt and Munich stations that security measures had been ramped up considerably in light of the latest security advices on terrorism threats in Germany.  Police were a very visible presence, all sporting extra large machine guns.  Despite being confronting, it did present one with a sense of increased confidence – particularly the two police officers travelling on our train, who snored most of the way.

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