while discussing travel arrangements for next years vacation in england (london & the isle of wight) we wondered whether it would be possible to get from the isle of wight (ryde, to be precise) to erlangen in one day…by train! to make it more interesting, we didn’t want to get up in the middle of the night, so a decent departure time, like 9 o’clock was desired…
so, off we go and ask the european train timetable oracle…which to our immense surprise returns the following schedule:
| Station/Stop | Date | Time | Products | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryde Pier Head | 01.06.06 | dep | 09:45 | Schiff |
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| Portsmouth Harbour | 01.06.06 | arr | 10:03 | ||||
| Portsmouth Harbour | 01.06.06 | dep | 10:15 | Zug Snacks and beverages available |
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| London Waterloo | 01.06.06 | arr | 11:51 | ||||
| London Waterloo | 01.06.06 | dep | 11:51 | 35 min. | |||
| London Waterloo Int. | 01.06.06 | arr | 12:26 | ||||
| London Waterloo Int. | 01.06.06 | dep | 12:40 | EUROSTAR |
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| Bruxelles-Midi EST | 01.06.06 | arr | 16:10 | ||||
| Bruxelles-Midi EST | 01.06.06 | dep | 16:10 | 18 min. | |||
| Bruxelles-Midi | 01.06.06 | arr | 16:28 | ||||
| Bruxelles-Midi | 01.06.06 | dep | 16:28 | InterCityExpress BordBistro |
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| Frankfurt(M) Flughafen Fernbf | 01.06.06 | arr | 19:41 | ||||
| Frankfurt(M) Flughafen Fernbf | 01.06.06 | dep | 20:01 | |
InterCityExpress |
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| Nürnberg Hbf | 01.06.06 | arr | 22:29 | ||||
| Nürnberg Hbf | 01.06.06 | dep | 22:45 | RegionalExpress | |||
| Erlangen | 01.06.06 | arr | 23:01 | ||||
| Duration: 12:16; runs not every day, Days of operation Border crossing: Aachen Süd(Gr) |
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which is not really that bad. were we to take a rental car, we’d have to drive all the way from southampton to heathrow, drop of the car, get to the terminal at least one hour early, endure the customary delays (pilot got locked in in the WC, co-pilot lost his key to the cockpit, & whatever else they’ll come up with…more inventive regarding excuses than we were back in high school those airline people, that’s for sure), the fly over (with nasty turbulences over the channel, over france, just after the start…”oh, look, there’s a thunderstorm that just popped up all of a sudden, sorry about that really, but we hope you enjoy the flight with us today”), then we’d have to change planes in frankfurt or munich or zurich (alternatively we could fly from luton but then we’d have to cross london and that would easily take us 12 hours alone ;-), then wait some more (fog in beijing causing delays in frankfurt or munich or zurich), then fly to nuremberg airport, get a taxi and be home probably around the same time — just completely knackered and unnerved.
so, take the train or take the plane? hmm….tough decision…LOL
p.s.: yes, clarkson would do that trip in a 1001 breakhorsepower lamburghini-mazda-aston-martin in a little under 5 hours (and could have done better if it hadn’t been for that tractor near the french border…)
[...] after a rather late breakfast (some people have lunch at that time, not us ) it is time to go “downtown” to the station and try and get the train tickets for our UK vacations in may & june. suprisingly enough we don’t see any sign of a tingeley sculpture being assembled from old bikes — perhaps they had a similarly slow start to the day as we did? — but we are “rewarded” with a rather long queue for the ticket counters inside. we patiently wait our time and just hope that we’ll get one of the more intelligent customer service people — which we do. and he really is good at his job (although deutsche bahn apparently just “upgraded” their software and everything was changed again [they seem to do these “upgrades” every couple of months…almost as bad as i am with my constant “fine tuning” of our linux thinkpads]) and we get the best deal for our tickets to london! [...]
pingback by d2h.net: flotsam, jetsam & lagan » tickets to london! — Saturday, 1 April 2006 @ 22:31