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Published: September 20th 2013
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Double Deck train
A "146" heading a semi fast at Osnabrück Osnabrück - Hamburg - Bargteheide We were going on to Bargetehide, a plaseant little town half way between Hamburg and Lübeck to stay with Christof, an old family friend of Kasia's. On the itenerary was a visit to Lübeck, and a trip to the biggest model railway exhibition in the world in Hamburg. However, our thus far easy going journey was not going to be quite so relaxing!
But first....German Railways & Hamburg Hassle-bahnhof
We left Amersfoort for Osnabrück and my image of Deutsche Bahn (Germany Railways) being the epitomy of self assured efficiency took a bit of a wobble after the air conditioning refused to work on a quite hot day. Then, in Osnabrück our train to Hamburg was running 40 minutes late and when it did arrive, I had my first encounter with a Type 1 Battle-axe (German class) variety of grandmother. Suffice to say it involved a pushchair, my way being blocked by an immovable Type 1 Battle-axe (German class), with seconds to go before late running booked train was leaving. With a slight air of panic I zipped to the far carriage door as the guard whistled for the train to leave.
Onboard I was faced with teenagers carrying a holdall bag the size of a filing cabinet (
what kind of a klutz invented this? A cheap bag that is great to get all your things in - let's make it really cheap... so why not just adapt a builder's 1/2 ton plastic sack and colour it black?) So on they came, squeezing their way at glacial speed in between the crowded seats and other people with very large suitcases and er... rucksacks: my progress down the carriage involved going through states of compression, contortions, impediment and general irritability. It was a full 5 minutes before I was reunited with Kasia who had her own encounter with the same Type 1 Battle-axe (German class) grandmother who had blocked the other carriage door (and was not even travelling).
We sped up to Hamburg, waited outside for our connecting train to leave, and finally pulled into the Hauptbahnhof (Main station). I headed for the ticket machines for a ticket to Bargteheide and was instantly flummoxed by the rigmarole in getting a couple of single tickets for a 30 minute ride. Our progress was thus: We laboriously typed in the destination on
the touch screen (Bargtehide not being offered), then our card was refused, mistakenly tried to buy 2 tickets at the same time, typed in the Bargteheide again, different card refused, mistakenly tried to buy two tickets again (...you get the picture). New tactic in ticket purchase strategy! human interaction: we searched for the distant booking hall*...gave up... returned to the ticket machines watch five German lads in front try to get a ticket, waver, give up, come back and try again, and then we commenced step again of this whole hideous cycle. Then we saw the utter futility of this exercise in terms of actually catching our train.
So we skiddadled to the Lübeck train, texted our friend Christof who replied shortly after "Get off! You're on the train that does not stop! Get the Bad Oldesloe train! I hadn't been
so daft, though, because the guard on the previous train announced that
this Lübeck train was a slow train, in English! So we ran out again (this is how you get fit with rucksacks) with 90 seconds to spare, staggered up the steps to the next platform and found
the right train which stopped at Bargetehide. Just before we pulled into Bargetheide the guard wandered up and asked us for a ticket. I got out €10 and asked to pay for two singles - but he told us that it is not possible to buy a ticket from the guard - only from those lovely ticket machines, *thus proving step was, in fact, impossible. So he said we should get a ticket at Bargteheide station, which, of course, just has a ticket machine.
So Christof met us at the station and I have to admit, it did slip my mind to go through steps to again.
Lübeck:
That evening we started our tri-linugual discussions in a mish-mash of Polish, German and a bit of English. Christof is unusual in that he has no family links but has studied Polish to a very high level, and consequently has had frequent trips to Poland, and writes for the Polish community in Bargteheide.
We went with Christof to Lübeck, and he was an excellent guide to this fascinating old town. We went by one of the main gates, and
Lübeck
Main square and old town hall. The wall with holes in is to stop it being blown down by gales! had a trip up one of the high church towers with a magnificent view across the town and surrounding countryside. To the east you could tell the old East German border (which was heavily fortified) was near because of the lack of development in that direction, just a large forest.
We went to the famous marzipan shop in town (of which Lübeck claims some fame for) and as Kasia is partial to the stuff, made some purchases and found some ideal presents.
We then made our way to the old main square, before a fine lunch and a trip through the narrow alleyways of older parts of Lubeck. The little courtyards are connected by narrow, low alleyways and we did out best to be discrete and not peer in – the local can get a bit fed up of large parties trundling through and treating it like a museum.
We then looked at a real museum an old sanatorium attached to another church and I was shocked a how little space the elderly residents had – a mere box of a couple of square metres to live in. Then we had a quick
turn around the Willy Brandt museum, home of the well respected former Chancellor of Germany in the 70s and 80s who had made great diplomatic progress in opening up channels with the communist East Germany which had closed itself off from the West.
We headed back for to the station and were caught in a massive downpour of rain. Back in Bargteheide it was dry, and we then visited Christof’s parents who had acted as hosts for Kasia back in the 1980s.
Chrsitof then took us on a tour of the town, a nostalgic memory trip for Kasia who had stayed in Bargteheide. We passed the school, much changed and developed since she spent a few weeks there - due to the school’s increasing reputation and Bargteheide’s popularity. As we passed the town centre again, Christof drew my attention to a little metal sign, we were exactly on the watershed between the North and Baltic Seas. This is it, in the flattish rolling country of Schleswig Holstein there’s no clue, no big range of hills, though I now know that Christof probably lives on the North Sea side and his parents tend towards the Baltic. Though
Bargteheide is a thriving commuter town with its fair share of historic villas it has frustrations to face in terms of the incessant force of centralisation. The Post Office has been closed (in a town of 16,000), and the railway station has no ticket office or waiting room, just a crap machine and a shop – once run successfully by a business until someone in Deutsche Bahn’s infastructure’s section got jealous and closed them down. Bargteheide also is served by Germany’s least reliable railway (Christof reckons) due to the bottleneck at Hamburg, and capacity problems – and dodgy railway points. We were late a few times on this line, but nothing too worrisome.
Hamburg: The biggest of the small worlds Next day we took ourselves off to Hamburg, armed with detailed instructions of how to get there, and vitally still, how to get the correct ticket from the infernal ticket machines that Deutsche Bahn provides.
A few stops on the Hamburg Underground railway that then goes abruptly well above ground, and we were at the docklands. We made our way to the model railway exhibition and had a great time looking
Welcome
in the old town of Lübeck at the fabulous exhibits – not just the trains and railways meticulously modelled, but towns, people, roads, and airport and even a Scandinavian fjord complete with a ship in real water! For extra effect, a 15 minute “day”, was followed by a dimming of the lights, twilight, and the lights all came on the models in the trains, buildings and streets. Re-creations of Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the USA and Scandinavia were on offer and the attention to detail was brilliant, sometimes very witty.
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