Berlin here we come!

The Euro Star leaves every hour(ish) from London St Pancras for Paris and Brussels, so your guess is as good as ours as to why we decided that the 06.19hrs departure was the best option!

A little bleary eyed, we were delighted at the ease and speed of our check in – flash of a ticket, bags through a scanner, show of a passport, up an escalator, and 12 minutes later we were sat in large, comfy chairs with our small picnic breakfast unpacked.

We sedately changed trains at Brussels and Koln, the leg room and squishiness of the headrests increasing with each move.

At each change over we had time to stretch, buy coffee, lunch, European plug adapters (least we remembered before actually running out of battery) and for Suzie to do a spot of recycling - she just can’t help herself and actually rummaged through her bag to find something to place in the right, colour coded bin at Brussels Station.

We had bought a pack of cards, books and magazines to keep ourselves occupied, I think we read about 5 pages between us; there was too much distraction outside the window...

Our distractions:

• Sunrise over the frosty south east of England.
• Church spires watching protectively over surrounding houses and the French countryside.
• Weak, wintery sun creating shadows in the furrows of pale green and yellow fields.
• Claire, camera at the ready, waiting for something stereotypically French, such as a man wearing a beret and a string of onions cycling on his bike, to appear.
• Wind turbines adding movement and height to the otherwise vast and flat landscape.
• Rivers meandering, slow and steady.
• The pitched roofs of so many red brick houses being covered with solar panels.
• If honest – we did also watch the insides of our eye lids for a short while!
• The everyday-ness of life: canal boats with curls of smoke lingering on chimney pots, tractors in far off fields being chased by clouds of birds, people in towns and villages shopping for groceries, 4 railway workers having a break with sandwiches and hot drinks, 2 boys racing bikes, cars glinting in the sun waiting at level crossings as we rush on by, small children outside their school at playtime, a paraglider dipping on the thermals above an ancient hill side monument, other passengers (on their way to work? on holiday? visiting friends?) waiting at stations we whizzed through, an old man leaning on his bike watching his dog forage in a hedge row, two women walking arm in arm whiling away the afternoon, people on their balconies drinking coffee, watching us watching the world (well, France, Belgium and Germany) go by.

We arrived in Berlin on time, feeling relaxed and like the journey had gone by quickly.

Just wish we would have included a little stop over in Brussels or Koln to add to the adventure – but we can always do that next time...