Beer-Festing and getting the edges knocked off

[medhead]

After many, many months the day has arrived. I depart this morning for my 40th birthday bash. O have been banging on about it here for months and no doubt many of you are bored by now; SWMBO certainly has had enough.

The basic plan is that I will be leaving ADL this morning to arrive in MUC sometime in the next 2 days. I then have 9 days on the ground before turning around and getting back to ADL.

The original plan was to do octoberfest for my 40th, but my brother is a long-ish term resident of Munich and he suggested in instead to come for the StarkBeirFest. This is apparently a hidden gem for Munich (there is pratically no official information on the 'net about this fest, google to see).

As of last night with the last minute skype to my brother, I find out that he plans to refine me, to knock off my rough edges. I'm not sure it was a good idea to ask me to fly half way around the world for a "strong" beer festival and then decide to refine me. Anyway, I'm sure it'll be a good 2 weeks and I'm looking forward to it.

On to the flying bit, I'm in the ADL QP, checked in ready for the short hop to SYD.

QF738 ADL-SYD 6D 9:30- 11:50

Despite linking my bookings a few days ago, the check in bloke couldn't see my SIN-FRA legs. A bit of stuffing around on that and also having to line up in the international connections line instead of the WP line it took a little while to check in. Considering I haven't lined up for 7 months I took it well. I didn't bother asking to move to 4C, even if expert flyer suggests it might be available. Overall this should be a boring flight but I'll report back from the F lounge in SYD.

 

[Voyages]

Gute Reise, medhead!

Why didn't you line up at the WP line? Because the WP guy didn't see your SIN-FRA booking?

 

[medhead]

Gute Reise, medhead!

Why didn't you line up at the WP line? Because the WP guy didn't see your SIN-FRA booking?

ADL has a separate single line for international connections. Very egalitarian here in ADL. In the past I have been directed straight to that line as a QPNB. I could just use the J/WP line but I was working on the theory that international connections would be more switched on and went straight into that line. They couldn't see the connection. I forgot that there is also QF 82 on Monday morning.

 

[Voyages]

ADL has a separate single line for international connections. Very egalitarian here in ADL. In the past I have been directed straight to that line as a QPNB. I could just use the J/WP line but I was working on the theory that international connections would be more switched on and went straight into that line. They couldn't see the connection. I forgot that there is also QF 82 on Monday morning.

WP line always worked for me for my previous o/s trips departing from ADL. I hope you're enjoying QF5 today!

 

[medhead]

WP line always worked for me for my previous o/s trips departing from ADL. I hope you're enjoying QF5 today!

The last time I was heading overseas as a QPNB I probably looked like a plebe. I certainly won't make the mistake of not using the WP line again.

 

[medhead]

Turns out QF738 was a full flight, but not as full as QF730, the 6am flight, is usually. There were a few spare seats down the back. In terms of seating, the DYKWIA comes out in me at having a NB next to me, but I was also surrounded by PS and maybe one SG. There was some guy who sat it 4B on boarding, but moved to 4C when that seat was empty. Should I have asked for the move to 4C? I think not. I still would have had someone in the middle 4B, the overhead storage options are limited in row 4 and the young lady in 6E was much more attractive than the guy in 4B.

I've now on the computer in the first lounge, as the wireless is flakey at best, having just finished a nice lunch of salt and pepper squid and the tenderloin beef with bearnasise sauce and chips. This was followed by mango sorbet and the selection of cheeses. Wines were Bolly and Chapel Hill Cab Sav. The Cab Sav was rather good, but I think I prefer the bottle of The Vicar that I cracked at home the other week. NB the Tattinger has a small bone in it following the cheese and Noble One. I'm trying to cope.

Bomber Beazley and Peter Beattie were sat at the bar when I entered the first lounge. I think they got on the flight to either LAX or SFO. I restrained my desire to say hello, having a connection via my old man. But I realised that he hated Beattie, so that decided that point.

100 minutes until flight time and I thing I might try the spa. (Highly doubt I'll have success)

 

[medhead]

It has been a busy few days since my report from the first lounge. I managed to sample all 4 champagnes on offer in the first lounge while relaxing and waiting for my flight. Even doubling up on the Tattinger. The spa was full, but the nice lady on the front desk did at least call to ask. I also managed to pop out and do my TRS refund. My brain box let me down on a couple of points as I forgot to do TRS before the lounge and I forgot to ask about the spa when I first entered the F lounge. Oh well.

Boarding was called just as I was contemplating a second Veuve. A quick stroll down to Gate 9, through the priority boarding line and I was into my seat.

QF005 SYD-SIN Y 38C VH-OJB

This was always going to be an interesting leg, with the following leg being in business. I had a quick look at the IFE and picked a few movies that looked interesting. I was going to be staying awake for this leg as I was travelling with CPAP and had decide to reject 58A, the only seat that could be provided with suitable power. Staying awake was important not only for my health but also for the hearing of those around me. There was no welcome on board for this platinum. The seat was a standard bulkhead row seat with a cut out for feet. It was comfortable enough with plenty of leg room. There was a slight kink in the aisle to accommodate the transition to PE seating layout. The bulkhead also had a little cut out that was at just the right height to use as a foot rest.

View attachment 1963

38C leg shot, note the footrest cut out. Also imagine the curtain being closed.

The meal service started pretty quickly. I had the Slow braised lamb in a tomato and anchovy sauce with spring onion potato puree, over the fish in laska broth. It was a basic Y meal, IMO and nothing that special. But still a step up from Domestic Y meals. I had a red wine with the meal, I can't be more specific than I think it was a Cab Sav. A non-descript Y wine to go with a non-descript meal. The timing for tray collection was perfect, as there was enough delay to allow a relaxed and slow meal. However, there was no offer of a second drink when the meal tray was collected. Rather annoying, in fact I then had to get up an chase a rum and coke twice. Instead they were more interested in offering peppermint tea, or some such.

I watched True Grit on the IFE while enjoying my meal and rumbos. But by the end of the movie, the champagne caught up with me, I think I might have nodded off for a bit, I also think I was a bit dehydrated.

The second meal appeared after some time (approx 5 or so hours ). It was a melon salad, with OJ and a Grilled vegetable and horseradish cheese melt on toasted panini. This was a breakfast sort of meal; honestly we landed in SIN about about 10pm, in what way is breakfast appropriate? The panini made me question my will to live.

We landed about on time and I was quickly on my way to the F lounge. I visited the Qantas F lounge and went straight to the shower. An interesting experience with a round theme and multiple shower heads, which might have been enjoyable if not for the lack of pressure.

View attachment 1964

After the shower I had time for a few spring rolls and my fifth Champagne for the day Joseph Perrier. Overall, I was underwhelmed by this lounge as the food choices were limited. I'll have to find a better lounge for the return trip. Any tips? CX lounge?

 

[medhead]

I just had time following my shower to down the champagne before the flight was called to board. I headed out pretty much straight away and got to the gate to find no apparent priority boarding lane. So I lined up in the general line, after a few step a nice lady came along checking boarding passes and directing business passenger to the front. As my first international business flight, this was welcome and I was glad that the singapore ground staff were on the case.

I got on board without too many hassles, and was welcome by the crew who recognised that I was the person with the medical power.

QF005 SIN-FRA J (ASA) 4A VH-OJB - re-qualify Gold with this flight once QF post the points correctly, First 0 points and SC, now sitting on discount Y points and SC after an email.

I was into my seat after a bit of a kerfuffle sort my cough out. Being my first flight up front I wasn't sure of the deal, so I unpacked a few things and stuffed around climbing over the bloke in 4C. One of the cabin crew (team) removed their bag from the overhead to give me room. I eventually sat down and enjoyed my sixth type of champagne for the day. Of course, I still wasn't feeling that crash hot. I'm not exactly sure what I ordered for breakfast - croissant, tea and a hot meal with salmon.

Foot shot for 4A.

I stuck with the Charles Heidsieck champagne with my dinner of Sea bass with chilli and caper sauce, sugar snaps and potatoes. This was followed by the cheese selection with a noble one sticky. I then attempted to watch Tron Legacy, but was quickly asleep.

I slept well considering that I had an ache in my left calf that just wouldn't go away. After about 4 hours of sleep, I had to get up and I climbed over 4C. This was rather funny given the pain in my leg. I had my walk and refresh and found that 4C was up getting a coffee on my return. I decided to join him for a coffee and downed it pretty quickly. I then decided to get back to sleep. After a few more hours, I woke up with a pain free leg and feeling refreshed. Business was wonderful in this regard. I didn't indulge greatly in the business offerings, but I certainly needed the sleep as it let me hit the ground running.

We landed in Frankfurt a little bit late - 30 odd minutes. After some confusion I made it to the baggage claim area. There were a number of non-priority tagged bags out first, at least 25. In that time, everyone crowded to the very edge of the baggage carousel, such that when I bag did appear I missed it. In trying to get my bag, I politely excused myself to get past another WP. The big, fat, W(P) was slow getting out of the way, and then pushed into me (and almost over me) to rush to his bag that came out 2 after mine. Needless to say, I was terse and used a few colourful words to all and sundry.

After eventually collecting my bag I was quickly out and on my way to the FernBahnhof - The train station - to catch the ICE to Munich. This requires catching the automatic train to T1, negotiating a number of escalators and then walking out to the train station, past the regional Bahnhof. One tip is to not get confused with the directions to the train station as the directions from T2 (I think that's correct) do send you out onto the street, which would require crossing the road. I find the interterminal train to be best as you basically stay in the terminal and there is a overhead walkway from T1. You also need to be carefully about which train station you need to use, as there are 2 of them.

Sorry for the general lack of photos. I was feeling rather poorly. Next up some words on the ICE.

 

[markis10]

After the shower I had time for a few spring rolls and my fifth Champagne for the day Joseph Perrier. Overall, I was underwhelmed by this lounge as the food choices were limited. I'll have to find a better lounge for the return trip. Any tips? CX lounge?

In SIN you wont get better with One World, CX is the Skyview lounge which I like because it does not get as busy as the QP does. The QF F lounge is due for a revamp, not much change at all in the last 10 years.

 

[medhead]

In SIN you wont get better with One World, CX is the Skyview lounge which I like because it does not get as busy as the QP does. The QF F lounge is due for a revamp, not much change at all in the last 10 years.

Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a try, but it also sounds like I might have to do shopping.
The qantas f lounge seemed a lot small than in 2007 when I used the business lounge. I recall the f entry being basically opposite the J lounge entry. Also have a wall at the top of the escalator, now that area is all open.

 

[medhead]

ICE 527 8:37 am FRA to Munich, 2nd class, Wagon 24 Seat 43

I booked this ticket on line and it was a painless process, via DB-Konzern | Startseite. 35 euro (about $50) for a 2nd class ticket and seat reservation from Frankfurt Fernbahnhof to Mucich HauptBahnhof. This was all done on line and involves printing out my ticket/boarding pass from a pdf. I was required to also carry the card that I used to pay for the ticket as proof of identification.

View attachment 1966

I arrived about an hour early in time to catch an earlier train. I had a non flexible train ticket and seat reservation but I asked about getting an earlier train - cost 64 euro extra and also I would lose my seat reservation. Needless to say I decide to enjoy the view for an hour. Once the train arrived, I boarded without problem and last in the 3 minutes available. It was then a matter of finding my seat and putting my luggage onto the overhead storage.

I found my seat and sat in it until we got to the Frankfurt town station. Once we left that station, I went an got myself a coffee and decided to sit in the seat one row in front of my reserved seat, as this had a table. This is the great thing about the trains, I reserved my seat for about 3 or 4 euro, I paid this extra on top of the train fare. Now I could of not paid that extra reservation fee, but then I would have just had a ticket to ride with no seat. I decided on the reserved seat in case the train was full, but having reserved the seat, I was still free to move into any non-reserved seat. Each seat has a display that tell you if it is reserved and when it is reserved. Once tickets were checked and they saw that I was not in my reserved seat the reservation disappeared from the display. For mine, this is a pretty good system.

I enjoyed my coffee slowly and decided against dragging out the Macbook to write this trip report. The train trip was something like FRA, Frankfurt town, Ausfanberg, Wurzberg, Nurnberg and Munich. Hence there are a number of reservation combinations. I later got chatting to a german dude on the train and it turns out he works in an area very similar to what I work in. We got chatting because I noticed that the seat reservation were changing all over the place. That helped to kill the time before arriving in Munich on time at 12:04 pm. My family were waiting and it was photos all around, I ended up having about 10 minutes to exit the train before the doors were shut, normal as this was the end of the line.

And so I arrived in Munich after about 34 hours.

 

[medhead]

Once I reached Munich we grabbed some pies for lunch and then pretty much headed to my brother's place to dump my stuff.

I did read on AFF that compression socks were good for jetlag, so I gave it a go. It was a relief to remove them after all that time. It's hard to know if I felt good because of travelling in J or because of the socks. Either way I'll use them again.

After lunch and a bit of a reorganisation we went out to Maximillian strasse to attend to my shopping duties. If you don't know Munich, we saw a few Porsche, a Jaguar, an R8 and a Maserati while shopping. But she must be obeyed.

From the shopping we then made our way to Augstiner Brau for dinner. The reservation was somehow lost, so we ended up sitting near the toilet. This wasn't so bad as we could have ended up with no table. There was some discussion about my brother using a German name for reservations in the future.

Augustiner basically make the best beer in Munich. All of the breweries make a starkbier during this time, including Augustiner. So this was the start of my starkbier fest - btw stark means strong. The Augustiner starkbeir is called Maximator and is 7.5%. I had 2 and that set me off nicely, no jetlag issues for me with sleeping. I also had a wiener schnitzel and kartoffelsalad for dinner.

View attachment 1967
Trying to decide if I bring back a case of Maximator or the Paulaner starkbier.

 

[medhead]

Gee, thought I'd better finish this report off. Very slack of me. I started writing up on the train Munich to FRA, but then realisedI was missing scenery during daylight. Then I had some weird jetlag problems back in Oz, kind of self inflicted but also due to Qantas stuff up (more on that later). Then there was work and a wedding and much driving around Brisbane/SEQ/FNNSW. Anyway, enough excuses back to normal programming:

Where was I? It has been a very busy week. I think I left off at the Augustiner Brau. Based on my school boy, half German, that is the Augustiner Brewery where we had dinner. Traditional the StarkBierFest is associated with Lent, so it is a time of fasting. The beer being the substitute for food while fasting. The stark beer that I had at Augustiner was definitely a meal in a glass. However, I did also have food – in case I forgot to mention it. Again more Traditional German fare, Weiner Schnitzel with potato salad and sauerkraut. After 2 strong beers (1 L) and a decent feed I slept well that night.

Opps, that was written on the train so I couldn't refer back to the report

 

[medhead]

Wednesday 30 March 2011 Andechs Monastery

My nephew got us up nice and early the next morning. While my sister in law was at work, and the nephew was at kindergruppen (I have a different name of this, but that would break the advice of Basil – don’t mention the war), my brother and I set out for the Andechs Monastery. Just by chance the monks have been brewing beer at the Monastery for an extremely long time. At least 500 years according to Wikipedia, my brother said they invented brewing at Andechs. All I know is they’ve had a lot of practice and it shows. My brother rates Augustiner as the best beer in Munich and only Andechs being better (it is just outside of Munich). I’d have to agree.

We had a nice day for our trip to the countryside. This involves taking the S-bahn out past Wessing to Herrsching – the [-]S8[/-] S5 actually. We had a short wait at Wessing as the [-]S8[/-] S5 doesn’t always go the full distance to Herrsching. We got chatting on the train, and at Wessing train station, to 2 blokes one of whom turned out to be an English speaker. In fact, an English ex-pat who came to Munich 37 years ago with 15 marks in his pocket. I didn’t get the full story but at one stage he was an executive at an airline and travelled extensively in the days when they seemed to have great staff travel. Anyway, from those 15 marks he has done very well being retired and now travelling on cruise ships, including taking Queen Mary around the world. They were also on their way to Herrsching for lunch; one of the guys gets daily emails telling him about the specials at the various beer gardens. Herrsching is located on a lake and they were going to a beer garden on the edge of the lake for a 3 euro lunch and Andechs beers as well, I think. They would have come up to the monastery but weren’t keen on the walk.

Once we arrived at the train station it was a short, 1 hour 20 minute, walk to the top of the hill to the monastery. This was an enjoyable walk and I had plenty of time to chat with my brother on the way. The monastery itself is set in a beautiful location. It is also the resting place of Carl Orff, composer of Carmina Burana, someone who I enjoyed learning about when I was studying music at school. We had a good look around the church and monastery, in general. After which we decided we’d earned our lunch.

View attachment 2096

View attachment 2095

Lunch consisted of the Andechs Stark Beer (2 actually) and rollenbraten with potato salad and sauerkraut (for a change). Rollenbraten is basically pork roast, but my brother was explaining something about how it is a de-boned, rolled up and roasted. I didn’t really get it as it looked a lot like schwienerbraten.

View attachment 2094

 

[medhead]

We took the quick walk about to the train station, 45 minutes mainly along a creek, in a tree lined valley. Very nice, It was a very pleasant walk and Herrsching is a very nice sleepy kind of town. We did notice the beer garden on the way out the monastery. It looked great, excellent location in the sun and a kids playground right there next to it (if you look closely). Beer gardens are something that I'd love to see in Australia. Shame they could never work here because the yobbos/bogans would just wreck it. the security bill would be out of control and even having security would defeat the idea in the first place. (more on that thought later)

View attachment 2097

Once we got back to Herrsching, the problems started. There were train problems. Not sure of the issue but we had to wait at least 30 minutes of a train. Not a real problem, except we would be late returning to home and my brother's family. This required a phone call and some apologies etc. Otherwise we had an uneventful return via S-bahn, U-bahn and tram to my brother's place. We got home not to late and it was then present time for my nephew (kids DVD, toys and thongs) and brother and sister in law, (vegemite, tim tams, aussie BBQ gear, thongs).

All this travel for the day was rather cheap as we had a partner day card that allowed unlimited travel all day, for 5 people travelling together. That was for a total of about 20 euro, and we also used it to drop off mum and friend at the central train station in the morning to get their train to Venice. So overall we got at least 30 euro of travel out of the card between the 4 of us. If using public transport in Munich look out for the Tages-card and partner Tages-card and do your sums.

 

[munitalP]

ICE 527 8:37 am FRA to Munich, 2nd class, Wagon 24 Seat 43

I booked this ticket on line and it was a painless process, via DB-Konzern | Startseite. 35 euro (about $50) for a 2nd class ticket and seat reservation from Frankfurt Fernbahnhof to Mucich HauptBahnhof. This was all done on line and involves printing out my ticket/boarding pass from a pdf. I was required to also carry the card that I used to pay for the ticket as proof of identification.

View attachment 1966

I arrived about an hour early in time to catch an earlier train. I had a non flexible train ticket and seat reservation but I asked about getting an earlier train - cost 64 euro extra and also I would lose my seat reservation. Needless to say I decide to enjoy the view for an hour. Once the train arrived, I boarded without problem and last in the 3 minutes available. It was then a matter of finding my seat and putting my luggage onto the overhead storage.

I found my seat and sat in it until we got to the Frankfurt town station. Once we left that station, I went an got myself a coffee and decided to sit in the seat one row in front of my reserved seat, as this had a table. This is the great thing about the trains, I reserved my seat for about 3 or 4 euro, I paid this extra on top of the train fare. Now I could of not paid that extra reservation fee, but then I would have just had a ticket to ride with no seat. I decided on the reserved seat in case the train was full, but having reserved the seat, I was still free to move into any non-reserved seat. Each seat has a display that tell you if it is reserved and when it is reserved. Once tickets were checked and they saw that I was not in my reserved seat the reservation disappeared from the display. For mine, this is a pretty good system.

I enjoyed my coffee slowly and decided against dragging out the Macbook to write this trip report. The train trip was something like FRA, Frankfurt town, Ausfanberg, Wurzberg, Nurnberg and Munich. Hence there are a number of reservation combinations. I later got chatting to a german dude on the train and it turns out he works in an area very similar to what I work in. We got chatting because I noticed that the seat reservation were changing all over the place. That helped to kill the time before arriving in Munich on time at 12:04 pm. My family were waiting and it was photos all around, I ended up having about 10 minutes to exit the train before the doors were shut, normal as this was the end of the line.

And so I arrived in Munich after about 34 hours.

I've travelled that route a couple of times in the opposite direction, however always boarding at Linz rather than Vienna. Next time consider first class, from memory first class Linz to Frankfurt was about 120 Euros - well worth the price IMHO.

Great trip report - looking forward to the next instalments!

 

[medhead]

I've travelled that route a couple of times in the opposite direction, however always boarding at Linz rather than Vienna. Next time consider first class, from memory first class Linz to Frankfurt was about 120 Euros - well worth the price IMHO.

Great trip report - looking forward to the next instalments!

I've done FRA to Munich a couple of times in first on a eurail pass. First is definitely worth while. From memory, I could have got this trip for 70 to 90 euro (and the return for 120 euro). But I was going for minimum cost of this trip and I just couldn't pass up a 35 euro price. I did think of Flashware's Bavaria pass option, but I did want to get there and see my brother and mum.

 

[munitalP]

I've done FRA to Munich a couple of times in first on a eurail pass. First is definitely worth while. From memory, I could have got this trip for 70 to 90 euro (and the return for 120 euro). But I was going for minimum cost of this trip and I just couldn't pass up a 35 euro price. I did think of Flashware's Bavaria pass option, but I did want to get there and see my brother and mum.

Even in classes other than First, isn't the ICE a wonderful way to travel. I enjoy train travel, been on trains in China, X2000 in Sweden, ICE and one through France, so relaxing and stress free..

Hurry up with the next installment!

munitalP

 

[medhead]

Thursday 31 March BMW World

Once again my nephew got us up early. No complaints as the accommodation was the right price. The nephew was off to Kindergruppen and my sister in law to work by about 6:30 or 7 am. Leaving us to a slow breakfast and casual getting ready for the day. This was going to be a quiet day. Once ready we were off to the U-bahn towards BMW World, using the U2 switching to the U3 to get to OlympiaZentrum station. This is right next to BMW World and also right next to the Olympic Park, as the name suggests.

View attachment 2102
BMW World, Olympic tower in the background

We arrived at BMW world just in time to get the 11:30am english language factory tour. There were even spaces available on the tour. After buying tickets, we had a quick look at the cars and the displays. Even if you don't do the tour, for the price of the U bahn ticket, it is worth visiting BMW world just for a look. The tour costs about 10 euro, but otherwise it is free. BMW world also has an upstairs area were people come to pick up their new cars. Pretty amazing with the cars being driven straight out of the factory and into the collect area. It has a special lounge for the customers to wait in and they get a full run down on their new car. BMW World is separate from the BMW museum, which I didn't visit.

View attachment 2100
This is on the second level and note the lounge windows center top of the picture. The car collection area would be just to the right (inside the building) of the external picture above

The factory tour involved a walk across the road and unfortunately no photos in the factory. The final assembly area was also not open for the tour, due to expansion building works. I will say that even without final assembly (or photos ) it was well worth the tour. The level of automation was amazing, with upto something like 5 or 6 steps for put together various pieces (e.g. the side body panels) with 20 to 30 robots involved through those steps. The robots were also able to switch between body types on the fly as the cars came through - that is sedan, estate, sedan type progression. It took an hour or so (maybe 2) to get through the tour.

After the tour we had a better look at the show room and did the obligatory sit in a convertible, 320 or 325. The 640 convertible was well guarded and locked so there was no sitting in that one, otherwise I would have got a photo.

After we had our fill of cars it was time to find lunch, and we agreed that it was time for more beer. This time we when to the Paulaner's Nockerberg Beer Hall. This was the main game, so to speak, for the stark beer fest. Lunch was a small beer, half a chook each and a pretzel to share. It was interesting to see the beer hall, which was massive rough estimate that it would seat 1000 IIRC. We got there at about 2:30pm to find that most of the table we reserved. Luckily the reservations kicked in at 4pm. The other thing was a 1.50 euro cover charge, which jumped to 10 euro (including 1 beer) at 5pm. Which explains all the reservations starting at 4pm. All of this scouting was useful as we still had to visit and do the beer fest proper. The trick would be to get there early enough to score an unreserved seat but also not too early such that we would be written off too soon. (the stark beer here being 8% or so)

View attachment 2101

The beer hall was filling up nicely when we left at about 4pm (I think we might have had a second one) and there were pretty long queues to get into the place. I was also definitely looking forward to getting into the beer hall when it was packed. After lunch it was a short walk to my brother's place, dinner and an early night.

 

[medhead]

Even in classes other than First, isn't the ICE a wonderful way to travel. I enjoy train travel, been on trains in China, X2000 in Sweden, ICE and one through France, so relaxing and stress free..

Hurry up with the next installment!

munitalP

Yep the ICE is wonderful, my first Munich Frankfurt trip in 2005 was extended to Koln as they went 300 kph between FRA and Koln. That was great and it was even possible to go in and stand next to the driver. I've got some film somewhere from that position, at 300 kph. In fact, we were standing outside the driver's cabin watching when someone told us we could go in. The train had slowed to 250 by the time we went in, but the driver sped up for us. :shock:

Since then I've had a few train adventures around europe, including TGV in France and the RENFE trains, which are amazing in first class as they include a meal and drinks service that is at least equal to the QF domestic business service (possibly better).

Next trip will involve eurostar.