When we decided to celebrate my wife's (64F) birthday in London, we also decided to go by train - partly to save carbondioxode and partly to have a new experience :-) Since we are both retired, we are not restricted to 6 measly weeks of vacation, but can go when we want (and have the money)
We used the route described by The Man in Seat 61, going Copenhagen, Hamburg, Kõln, Bruxelles/Brussels, London.
Wednesday
We left home at 06:00 by S-train (the Copenhagen commuter train) and arrived at Copenhagen Central station around 07:00. I had planned for time to buy some breakfast, but we had enough bread and hardboiled eggs for breakfast and lunch, so we just bought a cup of coffee each.
07:26 Copenhagen - 12:04 Hamburg
The train arrived 10 minutes before departure (since Copenhagen is the origin station for this route) and left at the planned time. It turned out we hadn't needed to buy coffee, since there was a sales person on board, who carried a container of coffee and hot water on her back and a tray with danish (which we call Wienerbrød) and snacks in front. In Denmark we could travel bare face, but as soon as we crossed the border after Padborg, we had to put on face masks. They announced that we needed FFP2 masks, but we only had the "normal" masks and nobody complained.
We were 20 minutes late in Hamburg, but the plan allowed for that, and we still had ample time to buy two beers for our lunch - especially as the next train was 15 mintes late.
12:46 Hamburg - 16:50 Köln
As mentioned, the train arrived at 13:01. It was a bit difficult to find the correct waggon, but then it was easy enough to find our seats :-) The trip was uneventful. It started 15 minutes late and arrived 15 minutes late - apparently they did not try to catch up.
17:41 Kõln - 19:35 Bruxelles
We had booked two seats facing each other as in the other trains, but both seats faced in the same direction, so we were placed behind each other. Fortunately the seat next to my wife was vacant, so I moved. The train started 15 minutes late and arrived 15 minutes late - apparently they did not try to catch up.
We spent the night in Ibis Hotel Bruxelles Centre Gare du Midi.
Thursday
07:52 Bruxelles Midi - 09:57 London St. Pancras (note that the last time is in GMT)
Eurostar asks you to check-in 90 - 120 minutes before departure, so we were in the station around 05:40 :-)
We found a cafe without deafening music and had a nice breakfast. The hotel breakfast would have been 14 EUR per person, but the cafe brekfast was 11,50 EUR for both.
The check-in was fast and efficient, mainly - I think - because more experienced Eurostar passengers arrived an hour later. The train left 5 minutes late and arrived 5 minutes late. Our seats almost didn't allow us to look out of the window, but there was a free seat with fine window view and even looking in the direction of travel, so we moved. The trip was fast and without events.
General remarks:
- It is annoying to wear a face mask for over nine hours (except on platforms)
- All stations in Denmark and Germany prohibit smoking. German stations have dedicated smoking areas, which I think is a good idea. Unfortunately most smokers either don't know or don't care. They smoke all over the platforms, so we had to move around to avoid the smoke.
It's a long trip and I don't know if we will do it again. At least
not until the face mask issue is cleared up and hopefully the
smoking problem as well.