Coburg, Germany From Prague, I took the night train to Krakow, Poland. My ticket was for a 4-person sleeper. A train conductor checked it and told me to take a different compartment. I looked questioningly at him. ‘You are alone,’ he said. The guy was Czech; he struggled to find English words to explain what
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Sunday, the 13th of May was the International Museum Day. Admission to the museums was free. We used this opportunity to see Coburg, a small town with a big place in the European history. The same day, Coburg also happened to host an Old Timers show. Vintage car enthusiasts from all over the area drove
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Getting from Koblenz to Coburg by public transport was somewhat cumbersome. It was not a great distance, but the fact that I had to take 4 trains. Some connection times were very tight. I bet on German punctuality and bought a ticket to Coburg where my friend and a fellow translator Oksana was going to
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I left Luxembourg at 9.33 am and 2.5 hours later was in Koblenz. It was easy to find accommodation near the train station. The hotel National had a high-sounding name. In reality, it was a small cozy place, the kind that I like. A single room was $77 per night with breakfast. After a few
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Let me state upfront that my first impression of Luxembourg was disappointment. Maybe it was because the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg sounded so grand and romantic and it did not look that way; or maybe because I only saw Luxembourg City and no other parts of this tiny country. I left the train from Reims
That night in Reims, I had a nightmare. I was fighting with an evil witch. She turned my friends into rag dolls one by one. I was losing, feeling hopeless; my end was near. Birds signing in the inner courtyard woke me up. Where did that dream come from? Yesterday was a perfect day, I
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Laon Reims was going to be my seventh and last city in France to visit. By then, I gained some experience and developed a certain strategy for exploring new places. When the train rolls into a city I, first of all, try to determine on which side of it the city center is. In Europe,
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Amiens I had 3 hours in Laon until the train to Reims. A stopover in Laon was unplanned; I knew nothing about this city and initially was going to have lunch there, then to hang around the station. My modest intentions instantly changed to ambitious when the train approached Laon. Visible from the distance, a
Getting from Rouen to Amiens was easy. There are frequent direct trains between these 2 cities. French trains ran almost empty; I saw 2-3 passengers per car. It’s no wonder that the railway operator SNCF, France’s national state-owned company, does not make enough profit to offset its debt. Earlier this year the current government announced
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The train left Cherbourg at 10.35 am and after a quick transfer in Caen, I arrived in Rouen at 2 pm. The hotel Astrid, shabby from the outside and quite nice inside, was right next to the train station. A single room was €50, breakfast not included, and I did not hesitate to take it.
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