Originally posted to Posterous on 9 May 2011
On Friday afternoon, we left Berlin by train, catching a very crowded InterCity train to Hamburg, then changing to an even more crowded Regional Express train to Kiel. (Note to self - best not to catch trains in Germany on a lovely Spring Friday afternoon. Everyone else decides to do the same!). Despite the crowding, both trains were very fast and accessible, including on board accessible loos. The ease of travelling from absolute central Paris or Berlin, without the need to check in an hour or more in advance, or take off shoes and belts through security screening, or be swabbed for explosives, or any of the other indignities that go with air travel, cannot be understated.
Berlin to Hamburg is approximately 290 kilometres (i.e. roughly the same distance as Canberra to Sydney), but took only about 100 minutes by express train. And when you arrive, you can either walk to your destination or catch a local train or bus. It must be time for Australia to think seriously about fast trains between Sydney and Canberra or Brisbane or Melbourne.
Our final destination on Friday was Kiel though - paradise for a ferry fetishist like myself, with Color Line (http://www.colorline.com) sailing to Oslo in Norway and Stena Line (http://www.stenaline.nl/en/ferry) sailing to Göteborg in Sweden from the inner port. Check out pictures of beautiful big ferries we saw in port at Kiel at http://gallery.me.com/honningbi67/100300.
Ferries were the main attraction of Kiel, unless we missed its other charms. Tova ventured out early on Saturday morning to buy coffee and encountered police in full riot gear, anticipating an influx of fans for a local football match. Looking like characters from Tom of Finland artwork, complete with carefully groomed handlebar moustaches, but without the improbably large appendages, both German police and football fans mean business.
Likewise our hotel in Kiel, which had the charm and personality of a multiple-storey car park. Normally hotels like this make up for a lack of charm with a comfy bed, but the bed was terribly uncomfortable. However, it was right behind the railway station, and an easy walk to our ferry, plus we could watch our ferry dock (stern-first without aid of tugs) from the breakfast room, and this made up somewhat for the hotel's lack of personality.
On Saturday, we boarded Color Line's ferry MS Color Fantasy just after 1pm for the overnight sailing to Oslo. This ship is part roll-on, roll-off ferry, and part cruise ship. You can put your car on the ferry and it carries freight, like the Spirit of Tasmania ferries, but the ship has multiple restaurants and bars like a cruise ship. Our cabin was cosy, and the sailing was extremely smooth, not surprising given that we were in sight of land (Denmark or Norway) for much of the trip. The highlight of the journey was buffet dinner on Saturday night. It was very expensive, but for 268 NOK per person (it's too painful to convert this to Australian dollars), we were able to select from mussels, crawfish (yabbies), caviar, smoked salmon, marinated salmon, steamed salmon, cod, beef, lamb, pork, chicken, salad, potatoes in two or three styles, vegetables, desserts and cheese. The smoked salmon was delicious, as was the roast pork. To top it all off, we could see Denmark's Storebælt Bridge as we sailed underneath it around 6pm from the restaurant.
This morning, we watched the ferry glide through fjords into Oslo from the sun deck and our cabin, docking at a very civilised 10am It was very beautiful, and somewhat reminiscent of sailing on the InterIsland ferry from Wellington on New Zealand's north island to Picton on the south island.
For the rest of today, we explored Oslo a bit, taking advantage of free entry on Sundays to the National Museum to see one of Edvard Munch's paintings of "The Scream". Oslo is very expensive, and quite a shock after the comparative cheap eating in Berlin and Paris. Who would have thought that Paris would be considered a comparatively cheap city?