After returning the car at Frankfurt, we would spend the rest of the day travelling from Frankfurt, Germany to Copenhagen, Denmark and finally ending at Stockholm, Sweden via train.
Taking a train through these countries was not too difficult, but it requires proper planning beforehand. We took a few days to track down exactly which trains to take, from where, timing, platform from the website Eurail. Taking advantage of their train passes, we proceed to make a booking from their website, paying a small processing fee. We also had them booking our seats, so that we had confirmed seats. Reserving seats do incur additional fee, but we felt it was worth it. The site will then get someone to come back to us on the availability of the trains we wanted, and alternatives. Once confirmed and paid for, the train passes were then mailed from a Singapore address to our home within a few days.
We would recommend using this website if there is a need to take multiple trains, like us, but if it was just for a single train trip, it is better to book directly from the train website itself.
We could have taken a flight from Frankfurt to Stockholm, but we wanted to experience taking the train through these countries. It was a fantastic experience.
So we took a train from Frankfurt to Hamburg, about 3 1/2 hours.
We waited for an hour in the Hamburg train station. Luckily, it is a huge train station so there is plenty of places to eat, and we took the time to have a quick lunch. We took another train from Hamburg to Copenhagen (or Koebenhavn) in Denmark.
The train to Copenhagen was interesting because we had to cross the Baltic Sea. This was done by getting the train to move into the ferry. We had some problems understanding this at first, and we almost alighted at the station just before the crossing, thinking we may have to go through border controls. Luckily we did not. The train entered the ferry at the bottom deck, and all passengers had to leave the train to get onto the upper deck of the ferry.
The photo above shows how nicely the train fits into the ferry. The upper decks of the ferry included duty-free shopping, cafe, and there were a lot of seats. We also had a very expensive bottle of Coke here.
It was possible to go outside and look at the Baltic Sea, however it was at night, and thus too dark to see anything. Also, it was really windy and cold outside. After almost an hour, they announced that we are reaching Denmark, and we are to make our way back to the train. Before long, the train departed the ferry and we were on our way to Copenhagen. It was really an amazing experience!
We then arrive at Copenhagen station quite late at night. The train station was quite empty. We were supposed to hop onto the next train to Hässleholm, Sweden. However looking at the train board there, there was no such train. The train was supposed to depart Copenhagen at 2152 hours, and there were a few trains scheduled during that time according to the board. In the end, we had to look at the train number (in this case, 1106) to find the correct platform. Once the train arrived, we looked for the train conductor on the platform to confirm. It seems that the destination listed on the board at the platform showed the final destination of the train, while we were to alight at one of the stops before the final destination. No wonder we could not find the train going to Hässleholm. To be honest, we were quite worried that we would miss our connecting train.
After around 1 1/2 hours, we reached Hässleholm. We waited about 1/2 an hour before taking the overnight train to Stockholm. We had secured a private cabin, where there are two beds, one on top of another, and comes with its own washroom. This allowed us to sleep all the way to Stockholm. The cabin was small, and we had some problems finding space to store our luggage. However, the bed was comfortable, and the cabin was very cosy. After spending the whole day travelling on the train, we fell asleep pretty quickly. We did wake up just before arriving at Stockholm to catch our first sighting of snow on this trip.
Before reaching Stockholm, we washed up, and took a light breakfast at the restaurant car.
We then arrived in Stockholm on the 22nd December 0616 hours.
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