We left the hotel not too long after breakfast. It was good that it was so close to Le Midi Station. We bought some food at a small supermarket at the railway station before making our way to the Thalys platform. The journey to Cologne takes less than two hours, and the train is very comfortable. You hardly realise just how fast the train is going. There is a digital display of the speed between the carriages. I think the fastest we went was around 170kph.
The first photo is taken on the way into Liege - the track was quite high above the streets at one point, as you can see. At the railway station was a large globe, apparently there as part of an ecological expo.
We were rather surprised when the train ground to a halt some time before we were due to arrive in Cologne. An announcement came over the loudspeakers saying that there was a problem with a train ahead of us on the line. A little while later, we were told that the track was closed to Cologne due to a demonstration. They first told us we might be delayed by up to half an hour – as there was 40 minutes between our trains, I thought we might just get there on time. But then they started saying that it could take 3/4 hour to get moving again! Oh dear, what to do? I sent our son Jeremy a text to say that we were delayed by a demonstration and that I might need him to phone our friend Ingrid who was going to meet us in Ulm if we missed our train. I only had enough money left on the phone for another text or two.
We started up again 35 minutes after stopping and soon arrived at a small platform (Stoltz Rheinland) that was covered with people – a huge collection of police in bright yellow jackets surrounding a mob of protesters. Apparently they had interfered with a previous train and so the railway company refused to let any more trains proceed until the police had got the demonstrators off the tracks. There were a few announcements about onward connections to various trains, and eventually they came to ours – they said it was being held at Platform 6.
Unfortunately we were one of the last off our train, and by the time we reached our platform, the train had already gone. On looking at the timetable, we found out that the next to Ulm was a whole 2 hours away. I sent Jeremy another text and he agreed to phone Ingrid to let her know.
We had some books to read so that kept us occupied. It wasn’t a very warm day but it was OK. The photos include one at Siegburg/Bonn station, a country town on the way to Frankfurt and two photos in Mannheim. One town before we reached Mannheim was called Waldhof and had some interesting brown and white churches. Further south we passed through some more rugged terrain – in fact it later turned out to be the Swabian Alps. Geislingen was quite a large and attractive town up in narrow valley in the mountains, with plenty of traditional houses with brown roofs and up to 3 rows of dormer windows.
We arrived in Ulm just after 5 to be met by a smiling Ingrid, her husband Bernhard and youngest daughter Friedericke. We decided that, owing to the lateness of our arrival, that we’d just go straight to their home in Horgenzell.
Unfortunately they had already left home by the time Jeremy was able to try to contact them, and the daughter Veronika who’d been left behind to take care of things tried sending them a text – but they had the cell phone switched off! Eventually, after waiting at the station without seeing us, they’d switched it on to phone home to see if there were any messages, and found out that we’d been delayed. So they decided to do a bit more shopping, much to Friedericke’s delight!
We eventually arrived around 6.30, and had a lovely meal. Afterwards, we walked to Kapel, another portion of the little village where their church is. The population of Horgenzell is around 300.
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