Travel on Søren's Blog

Visting EU Capitals

Wed, 07 Aug 2024 14:00:00 +0100

I know it’s not perfect, but I am a fan of the European Union. Bringing people from different cultures closer together and working on solving the everyday and the bigger challenges together is a big achievement for a continent that has been at war with each other for centuries.

United in diversity. (EU)

Experiencing this diversity is great, but it’s impossible to visit the whole union. To get at least a taste of this diversity, it has been on our bucket list for a very long time to visit all capitals within the European Union.

We never actively pursued this, but writing about it, may increase pressure a bit. 🙃

From now on, I will use this page to track where we stand. Some of the cities we’ve been to, of course, but for the sake of this list, I’ll restart. Kind of. We were in Vienna at the beginning of the year. I’ll count that, so I don’t have to start with an empty list.

Fingers crossed, I’ll also find time to write short articles about those visits and link them here.

Update 1: I marked the cities we have been visiting before.

We visited 1 capital as of August 2024

Vienna, Austria | January 2024

The remaining capitals are (in alphabetical order):

Amsterdam, Netherlands
Athens, Greece
Berlin, Germany
Bratislava, Slovakia
Brussels, Belgium
Bucharest, Romania
Budapest, Hungary
Copenhagen, Denmark
Dublin, Ireland
Helsinki, Finland
Lisbon, Portugal
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Madrid, Spain
Nicosia, Cyprus
Paris, France
Prague, Czechia
Riga, Latvia
Rome, Italy
Sofia, Bulgaria
Stockholm, Sweden
Tallinn, Estonia
Valletta, Malta
Vilnius, Lithuania
Warsaw, Poland
Zagreb, Croatia

The ones marked in bold, we already visited before.

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I went to winter wonderland, and all I got was ...

Sun, 17 Dec 2023 11:00:00 +0100

… heavy snow fall, a week spent in the apartment, a Corona infection, but still nice family time.

I was really looking forward to this type. We went to the alps for a week (read here about the adventures train journey) with the intention to spend some quality time surrounded by snow.

I was so full of anticipation that I prepared a few paragraphs in advance that I wanted to use in the type. How we hiked through the snowy forest, how we went sledging, how we enjoyed the breathtaking views, and overall how beautiful everything was. But …

On the day we arrived, I got cold symptoms but didn’t think too much about it, because I did a Corona test before we left. The result was negative. The first few days passed by quickly, because there was heavy snow fall, causing the danger of avalanches to be „high“ (rank 4 out of 5) - and slopes to be closed for security. Looking out of the window you couldn’t see further than 10 meters. It was not what I expected but as I was having the cold symptoms it was a good excuse to stay in the apartment, drink a hot beverage and just relax.

Then one night, the baby got a fever. I tested again and this time, the result was positive. I brought the plague to my family ☹️ Luckily, the fever went down after one day and her mood increased - but this definitely was not how I imagined our first “skiing trip” to be. We thought about going back early, but since we came by train, this was not an option. My conscience wouldn’t allow to sit on a full train - knowing that you could spread viruses. We stayed …

… and were rewarded, at least a bit. On the last day, we were feeling much better, the sun came out and we could enjoy winter wonderland. Nevertheless, I hope that next time we will have more sun and less viruses around 🌞

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Holiday Travels - Part 3

Sun, 17 Dec 2023 10:30:00 +0100

Good news needs to be shared, too. This is a short one.

The second part of our Christmas Travels went like a charm. We boarded the first train at 08:47, made all connecting trains without any rush and arrived at 16:45 with just 15 minutes delay in Stuttgart. Thank you SBB & DB. 🚃🚋🚂

After the chaotic first trip, this was a blessing.

Two more train-days planned. Fingers crossed there will also be short typeings about them 🤞

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Holiday Travels - Part 2

Sun, 10 Dec 2023 17:30:00 +0100

Yesterday marked the first day of our Christmas Travels. And unfortunately, the strike - which I mentioned in the first type - hit us. Not directly, but it’s after-effects. 👷‍♂️🪧

This is how our travels went

Luckily, my wife was awake at night and saw that our train was cancelled. She immediately booked seats in an alternative connection. The new connection started half an hour earlier - thus our morning routine had to be accelerated.

Funny thing though, the Deutsche Bahn only send a push notification for the cancellation about 30min before departure.

We entered the alternative train and for the first two hours everything went fine. Then the train ended, because of „Ice and Snow“ two stops before we wanted to exit. ❄️☃️

Luckily we could change trains to a local train operated by the Swiss Railway Company. They didn’t care about Ice and Snow. Ar least, the train took the exact same route that was impassable due to the German Railway Company.

A fellow passenger put it like this: „You cannot rely on the German Railway Company. But luckily we‘re in a Swiss Train now. From now on, everything will work just fine.“ He was right. We had to change trains more often than planned but in the end we arrived as booked.

Overall, this was a mixed experience. We arrived on time, but started half an hour earlier. And communication by the German team could have been better (why not send the push notification when it’s clear that the train is cancelled but only 30min before departure?)

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🎄 Holiday Travels Booked

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 08:00:00 +0100

Only a few more weeks until the Christmas Holidays. As our family lives in various parts of the country, it takes some effort to organize that we can all see each other. The holidays are travel times.

This week, I booked the train tickets for our travels. It will be the first time, we‘re doing this with a baby and I am not sure if we can carry all the luggage, but - I like train rides, especially in winter. No worries about icy roads, just looking out of the window and enjoying the winter wonderland, or reading a book. The little one also does not have to sit fastened all the time, but can crawl and play.

Unfortunately, the German Railway Company „Deutsche Bahn“ and the train drivers’ union couldn’t agree on a new tariff, meaning that strikes are on the horizon. As an optimist, I still hope that we don’t have to switch to the car on short notice. 🚂🚗

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