I've been to Europe more times than I can count, but always I just fly from point A to point B, so six weeks ago I decided to (just for fun) take a train.
Me and my friends wake up early morning at 04:00, after a quick shower and fruit we get a cab from Slussen to Stockholm's central Järnvagstation off Vasagatan. Just our luck we get there before it even opens, so we wait around outside until 05:00, then go in and head to our train.
After a brief wait we board our train and wait for it to depart. Within a few minutes we're off, headed south west to our first of four destionations, Malmö. Along the way we make stops in the towns of Jonköpping, Norköpping (Where my ex is from, but that's another story), and Linköpping.
The four hour train ride goes by fairly fast, and with the aid of a few coffee's and a small breakfast we all felt a lot better quite fast. For the first part of the trip it was still dark out obviously, but even still we could see a lot of the Swedish countryside, which is pretty nice tbh.
We arrive in Malmö a little after 09:00, and have about 45 mins to kill for our next train, so we go outside and walk around the station just so we can say we did, then head back in and grab a coffee.
Our next train is to Copenhagen, and is fairly short. We leave the Swedish boarder, and soon after pass through the subway tunnel of Copenhagens airport, and soon after arrive at the central station. Here we have a little more time to kill, so we go across the street and get a proper meal at a small café. Back at the train station we split up a bit to do a bit of shopping while we kill the last bit of our wait. I picked up a copy of "Underworld" in Danish (I'm trying to see how many languages I can collect this movie in, so far I'm at English, German, Swedish, Danish, and Hungarian) for 199DKK.
Back on our train we head for the ship yard, as we are to take a ferry to Hamburg. We get held up momentarily at the yard due to construction as our train waits to board the ferry. On the ferry, we wait until the boat starts to move, then exit our train and head upstairs to the deck. My best friend, and clan mate Eicca makes a quick stop at a foreign exchange counter to turn his left over Estonian Krooni (He was in Tallinn for a few days before he met up with us in Stockholm, but again that's another story) for a little over 600 Euro.
After he's done that we grab a sandwhich, and a few rounds of Beck's (We're in German waters now hehe :D). Once we see the land come into view we head back to our train, and wait to disembark. We then continue on through northern Germany to Hamburg, where we have a small layover. Just enough time to use the WC, and grab a cola and a copy of "Der Welt", before we board our final train to Frankfurt. By this time we are all fairly exhausted, and don't do much of anything, except sit in the bar of the ICE (Inter City Express) train drinking Warsteiner, and König Ludwig for the entire trip.
So Finally after 19 hours we get off the train at Frankfurt's airport, pay a visit to Junker's Zweiundfünfzig for one last round, then head to our hotel, and passout immidieatly after checking in :)
So that's my story. Net cost to me 7,006 Swedish Kronor (about 930$ USD, or about 750 EUR) Sure I could have saved a bunch of money if I had flown, but all I'd have seen would have been two airports. I wouldn't have had near as much fun, and I wouldn't got to see and experience all that I did.
So I say to you, anyone still reading this, next time you go somewhere, instead of flying, take a train. You may spend a bit more, and take a bit longer, but if you don't mind the cost and time, you're bound to have way more fun :)
PS- This blog doesn't really have a point, I just felt like writing it. :)