Onwards to Mannheim

In Brussels we had 50 minutes to wait before our Deutsche Bahn InterCity Express (ICE) train left for Koeln (Cologne).



The DB ICE train was a lot shorter than the Eurostar, with only about 8 coaches including the two end coaches. The two end coaches are favoured with seats that allow the passengers to watch over the driver's shoulder out the front, or rear, windows and see the track ahead, or flowing away behind. Our seats were farther back so we weren't able to watch while the train was moving.


After leaving Brussels we passed through Leuven, the home city for Stella Artois beer. One of the Stella Artois plants is close to the Leuven station as you can see from the photo above.



Most of the High Speed rail network in Europe is built on new track-lines, with many new stations. There was a lot of competition to build these stations and some of the designs were rather spectacular. I was particularly impressed by the one above.



At Koeln we had a short stop to change to another DB ICE train. The station is right next-door to the awesome Koeln Cathedral. We visited there in 2002 on a previous holiday. It is well worth a visit and very accessible from the train station. There are many good pictures of it on the internet.



Shortly after leaving Koeln station we crossed over the River Rhine. It is very broad considering the city lies about 400km inland from the North Sea. As well as the barge visible in the photo, there were many other barges and passenger craft moored to the river banks.



At one of our stops enroute to Mannheim I was surprised to discover that we were in Frankfurt Airport! We weren't planning to change to air travel, but it would have been easy to get off the train and jump on to a plane instead!

At last, some four hours after leaving Brussels, and seven hours after leaving London, we arrived in Mannheim. It was great to see our friends waiting for us on the platform. We tired but glad to have reached our destination.