Groningen Railway Station, Northeast Corner of the Netherlands
Next day we traveled from Groningen, in northeast Holland, to London by train.
We had to change trains twice, once in Rotterdam with only a 13-minute connection, and again in Brussels on the Eurostar. We were concerned about the tight schedule and our voluminous luggage, besides the possibility that any train delay might cause us to miss the Eurostar, so we took an early train from Groningen. That train was perfectly on time and we had no trouble making our connection in Rotterdam’s brand new train station with lots of elevators.
Theoretically we now had lots of time to make our connection in Brussels. But trouble started as we crossed into Belgium. Our train went slower and slower and finally came to a halt in a small train station due to “technical problems with the locomotive”. Apparently, these things have been designed by Microsoft, because they made an announcement that the locomotive had to be rebooted, before we were on our way again, arriving in Brussels 30 minutes late.
Because we had taken an early train from our starting point in the morning, we thought we had plenty of time and had a quick lunch in the Brussels train station. Then we went to the Eurostar train in plenty of time, or so we thought.
However, once there, we had to go through British customs. No problem for me, with my European Union passport, but they made P.J stand in another line and fill out an entry form. That line came to a near complete halt because a person ahead of her apparently had an immigration problem. The EU passport line had long since dissolved, until, with only 10 to 15 minutes to spare (including having our luggage scanned and inspected), the other customs officers finally decided to help out.
We had to hurry to make it, and finally sank in our seats, sweaty and hot, shortly before the train’s departure.
200-mph Eurostar Train, Splattered with Mud
Brussels to London by train takes two hours at speeds up to 200 mph. When we were paralleling expressways, it looked like cars were going backwards.
St. Pancras Railway Station, London
Photos © 2014 P.J. Gardner. All rights reserved.