Slower Travel: How to Buy Cheap European Train Tickets (Plus: Travel Itinerary from Germany to Sweden)

train-germany-sweden

Back in January I showed you how Christian and I travel Europe in my article on train travel from the UK to Germany via Belgium. This time, let me share a trip I am taking as a solo traveller!

Vineyards and Scandi Forests

As I am writing this, I am sitting on a train to Stockholm Central, typing on my laptop. I am on day 2 of travelling by train and have come a long way from the South! My summer trip started out with a flight from Manchester to Cologne (best flight option currently by Germanwings) for a family event. But as I was preparing to book my normal return flight, a Facebook post caught my eye:

“Need someone to look after our cat while we travel. Would any of our friends be interested?"

This came from a friend who lives in Stockholm! A new cat to hang out with and accommodation in an apartment in Stockholm? I was excited, and after some planning we matched up the dates and I decided to make my summer trip home to Germany into a big train adventure.

Here’s how the trip breaks down:

Day 1: Travel by plane from Manchester to Cologne, then by train to Wittlich Hbf

Img ©Christian

Img ©Christian

The first destination in Germany is always the Mosel valley to me. I was there to visit my family, but don’t think that this wouldn’t be a beautiful place for you. The Mittelmosel can be reached by train to Wittlich Hbf with a bus connection to any of the small villages. It’s focused on winemaking, with lush green vineyards on the hills and a stunning river winding its way through the valley.

Language Tip: Hbf stands for Hauptbahnhof, the central station of any city.

The Mosel region is world famous for its wines and amazing scenery. Visit a local wine estate and enjoy a wine tasting with the original producers - guys who know what a vineyard, wine cellar and tractor look like. There are over 15 wineries in my home village alone, and of course I recommend Weingut Hammes (tell them I sent you!). The biggest wine festival of the region is called the Weinfest der Mittelmosel and takes place in Bernkastel/Kues in early September. If you are in town, don’t miss out on the parades, funfair, fireworks and the wine street.

The temperatures during my visit regularly reached 35 degrees, with nighttime temperatures around 20. Some of my favourite things to do include getting amazing gelato at Venezia, swimming outdoors and camping by the river.

Day 7: Travel from Wittlich to Hamburg, via Koblenz.

This is a 7 hour journey including one change and features the lovely rivers Mosel and Rhine as its backdrop up until Cologne. On the trip you will get to see German landscapes changing to the flat and the nautical. Hamburg makes a very beautiful overnight destination, as everything is close by and the city’s sights are within easy reach. It also allowed me time to catch up with a long-time-no-see school friend, Verena who is chief blogger at Hamburg von Innen. She has kindly put a few tips together for you so you can get the most out of Hamburg:

Start at the Landungsbrücken and get set for your day with a Fischbrötchen, the classic Northern German snack. While you're there, take the lift to the old Elbtunnel and cross the river to admire the new Elbphilarmonie building (set to complete in 2017). The views in this part of town are fabulous.
Walk through the Portugiesenviertel to the Michel, Hamburg's iconic church which offers the best views in town from its tower. On the way there, stop at Milch for an excellent coffee break. You shouldn't miss Jungfernstieg and Binnenalster, with a visit to Warnecke for some ice cream.
Take a stroll around the Speicherstadt and admire this UNESCO-listed cultural treasure. The best Hamburg-style food is Labskaus or Hamburger Pannfisch with an Alsterwasser (shandy).

My accommodation in Hamburg was a friendly little Airbnb apartment in Altona.

Day 8: Travel from Hamburg to Stockholm, via Copenhagen

There’s currently no direct train running between Hamburg and Stockholm, but the trip via Copenhagen is fun and adds little time in total. For this journey, I was on the tracks for 12 hours in total, with a 2 hour changeover. Hamburg to Denmark offers views of picturesque Friesland and a crossing of the Baltic Sea to get to the island of Fehmarn.

Evernote Camera Roll 20150720 155633.jpg

The journey features a truly exciting extra: Your train drives ONTO A BOAT. I was absolutely amazed by this. The ScandLines crossing between Fehmarn, a German island in the Baltic Sea, and Roedby in Denmark takes 45 minutes and gives everyone a chance to stretch their legs. 

The Swedish part of the train journey is all trees and meadows and water, a wealth of things to look at. The SJ train was comfortable and fast, offered free wi-fi, plugs and a little bistro so that you couldn’t be more comfortable.

Here in Stockholm, I’m getting around using the T-Bana (the city metro). My city guide book recommends Skansen, the open air museum to take visitors back to Viking times. I’m also planning to give a little bit of time to a nice walk around Södermalm, the beautiful old town and the open air baths. Being self-employed and staying here as a house sitter has made it possible for me to combine working and discovering this new city and I am very much looking forward to my stay (and to hanging out with Moppet, the cat I’m looking after).

How to Purchase your Tickets

Although navigating the Deutsche Bahn website can take a little getting used to, its wealth of connection and saver fare data means it remains a must when you are planning Euro train travel. Journeys abroad are open for booking as long as they’re offered by or in partnership with Deutsche Bahn. Alternatively, try The Trainline Europe.

I decided to opt for a mobile ticket, meaning I had to download the DB Navigator app and log in. I was amazed at how well this worked, conveniently allowing me to access my tickets and timetables on my phone, research alternative routes and get platform information. Even on the trip from Copenhagen to Stockholm, the conductor accepted my foreign e-tickets without question. Deutsche Bahn offers the option of posting the train ticket to you in hard copy. Be aware that lost tickets will not be replaced if you take that option, and there’s a small extra charge for it.

I bougnt a BahnCard too, a special offer from Deutsche Bahn which gives you 25% off each journey you take. Since the full trip from Wittlich to Stockholm was booked and paid through the Deutsche Bahn website, I was able to make this journey for just €110. That’s an outstanding deal, especially since I realised that it includes a ferry!

Notes on Learning German, Swedish and Danish

Learning German? My native language? Oh yes! This trip took place so recently after I developed my new German pronunciation course that my ears were more attentive than ever. My parents and I watched the news and listened closely to make sure the pronunciation is real Hochdeutsch. And we spoke more Moselfränkisch to each other than ever. On the train trip to Koblenz, I got to listen to some Trier boys drink beer and speak dialect. Do any of these expressions make sense to you German learners? I love and understand them all:

  • Hal dau mol de Schniss weile!
  • Du komen am Sunndisch die Frimmen vorbéi.
  • Dau Flappes!
  • Eisch hann die Freck, haut kann eisch néist.

The prize for most languages during a train announcement goes to the Danes this time, who racked up Danish, Swedish, German and English on their leg of my journey. I didn’t really stop in Copenhagen for very long, skimming over the Danish language on my trip to Sweden.

Everyone I have spoken to in Stockholm so far speaks English at an incredibly high level. But once again, you can tell that the “they all speak English anyway” excuse just doesn’t fly. They may be able to speak English to me, but they don’t choose to. I am happily wandering around at the moment armed with this little beauty, a dictionary from 1975:

This should not be missed in any pocket. I have a 1975 edition #swedish dictionary from my mother. Features the very important phrases "please develop this film" and "please do shave the eyebrows" #fluentshelfie #mamaistdiebeste

"This should not be missed in any pocket. I have a 1975 edition #swedish dictionary from my mother. Features the very important phrases "please develop..."

The way I use my dictionary to help me learn the language is so much fun to me. I carry it around everywhere and take time to look up words that I see come around again and again (på, och, uttlev) and translate written texts. The dictionary also contains a pronunciation guide, and once I feel like I’m ready to do it I’ll try out my new word on a Swedish person just to check I’m getting it right. Spoken Swedish is not making a lot of sense to me yet, which is to be expected on day 2 a 10 day visit. But every day, I'll be adding words and making memories.

And here’s a little closing note on the languages of this trip (no Norwegian included): 

If it’s got an ø (pronounced “gulp” or something like that), it must be Danish. If it’s got an å (pronounced “oh”), it must be Swedish.

I would love to hear from you! Have you ever been to Sweden? Have you travelled a long distance by train? Share your best train travel experiences with me in the comments. 

Podcast Episode 15: From marrying a soldier to writing a German language blog, with Angelika Davey

My guest this month is Angelika Davey, owner of the blog angelikasgerman.co.uk. Angelika has been teaching German independently for many years.

angelika davey

Listen to our interview to find out more about

  • Keeping your mind agile, and whether it really matters to anyone under 50

  • The ultimate showdown: Age vs. Attitude! Which one makes you a better learner?

  • Why learning German is your best choice for business

  • What it’s like to date someone from a different country

  • A new and innovative approach that makes even the best private teacher affordable and accessible to yo

Article of the Week

Multilingual Families: Even our Dog uses 3 Languages

Tips of the Week

Angelika chose Tip 1 as her Tip of the Week.

Tip 1: Read cereal packets, clothing labels and anything you can get (see Language Surfer blog)

Tip 2: Discover foreign culture at home

Tip 3: Use Eurovision to learn your Target Language (see Koko the Polyglot)

Tips and Links from this Podcast

Don't forget to take advantage of the special $10 German Course offer!

“If I’m selling to you, then I speak your language. If you’re buying from me, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen.”
— Willy Brand

Links to Amazon and Udemy are affiliate links so they cost you nothing more but they support Fluent Language and this podcast. Thanks for your clicks. If you are feeling able to give $1 to keep the podcast and the blog going strong, please head over to Patreon and become a supporter!

 

How I Travel Europe: The Train from England to Germany

Have you ever stood in the security queue at your airport, realising with a bolt of anger that you're about to have to hand in your big bottle of expensive shampoo? Or been troubled by fear of flying, wishing for solid ground in the middle of turbulence? In today's article, I want to talk about train travel, an alternative way of getting around. My own journeys take place in Europe, and I have taken trains in more than 12 European countries. If you're interested in trying it out, here's how to make it as easy and affordable as you can.

The Place of Travel Talk in Language Learning

As a blog that is mostly dedicated to language learning, I usually stay away from outright travel tales. It's important to encourage language learners out there that you can totally do this without ever leaving your town. But at the same time, language and travel have the same goal. They're about opening doors and showing us what's out there in the world. Most of us language learners are motivated by the thought of going to new places and meeting new people. And as an experienced traveller, I've got a few stories I can share. Today I'm kicking off the travel tales with my tips on train travel across my continent.

Train Travel...

In the age of high-speed everything, you'll likely tell me that there's no reason to spend 20 hours on trains when you can just fly to the same place in half the time. Train travel is slower and more expensive than flying. I've heard all that. But every now and then when you take a sip of the tea you made at home (no liquids restrictions) and enjoy a view of a carnival parade or lovers' argument on a platform, you realise what makes the train so special.

Train travel can be romantic, relaxing and enjoyable. So today, I want to share some tips with you on how to get a good deal and make your journey in record time. My own trip from Lancaster to my German village was done in only 13 hours this year - counting door-to-door this rivals air travel quite closely. To get a great trip like that organised, here are the essentials:

How to Book a Train Across Europe

You can read about any country's detailed booking process on the amazing Seat 61 website. For this article, I will focus only on the countries regularly involved in my own journeys: UK, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France. All of these four countries except the UK have national rail companies, making it easier to get yourself booked onto their journeys. They are Belgian Rail, CF Luxembourg, Deutsche Bahn and SNCF. Within the UK, you will have to book a ticket with a local provider, but those are easily found through ticket vendor sites like National Rail.

Easiest Booking Process

Here is the booking process that I have established over the past years. It's pretty reliable and allows you to book from anywhere.

Step 1

Look up your best connection through Deutsche Bahn. Their trip planner won't sell foreign tickets, but the connections it brings up are really reliable and it's seemingly got access to all of Europe's connections.

Step 2

Get train prices. You book a large chunk of your journey as a connected ticket through Eurostar or the SNCF Rail Europe site. The site will want to sell you tickets in your own currency, which means you may miss out on better rates. Here's a link to its UK-focused site.

Step 3

To make sure you are getting the best rates, look up individual ticket prices with each provider separately. This means opening a few tabs in your browser and keeping an eye on the running total of your costs, but it can save hundreds. I use the following websites when I'm doing this:

If there is no significant advance booking discount to be had, I often buy my tickets on the counter just before I hop on the next train.

Step 4

Before you make your final purchase, look into getting discounts such as Interrail cards, the German Bahn Card or the British Young Person's Railcard. Each of these cards costs money at the start, but usually pays for itself within 1-2 journeys.

For Visitors to Belgium

If you're making a journey from the UK to or from Belgium, consider buying a ticket that includes same-day travel to "any Belgian station". These can be booked through the Eurostar website and might save you both money and hassle. The train conductors are surprisingly well informed when it comes to knowing where exactly the Belgian border ends and will happily sell you a supplementary ticket.

For example, travelling from Brussels to Luxembourg, this ticket will pay you up all the way to Arlon. When you travel from Brussels to Cologne, your border station is Aachen Süd.

Tips for Your Travel Day

Train travel can be a pain at times, so ensure that you are taking a few steps to make your journey as fun as possible.. If you are spending a full day on trains, make sure that you have allowed enough time to make your connections. Allow for at least 20 minutes of connection times, and take advantage of your train manager - if your train is running late and you're worried about missing a connection, they can often help out by notifying the train you are connecting to or giving you a "hop onto the next one" stamp.

Overall, it pays to be flexible. Trains will be late, missed, cancelled. No one really travels three or more countries by train for the sake of efficiency, so instead make sure you have allowed plenty of time and a bit of budget in case you have to stay over somewhere last minute.

Eating

It may also be worthwhile to plan to eat in the buffet car (I recommend the German ICE for this) or book first class travel, because when you are lucky, you only pay £20-£40 more. Half of this cost will pay for itself in all the free water, wifi and food that first class entitles you to (Virgin Trains are the best providers here). Without planning your food breaks, you may find that your 40 minute connection time has been shredded to bits by a late arrival, and run around scrambling to find a muesli bar.

And finally, a Note for Language Learners

A photo posted by Kerstin (@dartogreen) on

Train travel is an absolutely perfect opportunity for practicing your language skills and meeting new people, and this particular itinerary is a language lover's dream. Announcements on international trains are routinely made in at least two languages, for example on the Eurostar it's English, German, Flemish and French.

The languages spoken can vary within one country, so be respectful and remember that a rail employee is not your practice buddy. For example a Belgian person won't always appreciate being addressed in French by all tourists as much as you expect them to. For the sake of a smooth journey, service employees are at least bilingual. Some train stations will also have different names in the country's official languages, so watch out before you miss your stop. (That pesky Brusssels Midi station is called Brussel Zuid in Flemish, for example.)

I've actually got plenty more tips on train travel, some of which might be useful expansions into the next blog posts here on my travel writing corner. Hope you liked it!

Thanks for reading this article on Fluent, the Language Learning Blog. If you are feeling stuck right now, why not subscribe to Fluent and check out our language book shop.

Three Language Learning Affirmations You Should Use (And Why They Will Work!)

Let me tell you about a demon. It keeps you safe and small, makes sure you’re in your place. It stops you from leaning out too far, leaning in to new adventures, and saying yes to any kind of change or risk. It’s kind of like a helicopter parent, and lives right in your head. That demon is called self-doubt.

Scenario 1: Self-Doubt

If you’ve been on a roll, spending the last few weeks listening to target language podcasts and seeing your tutor on a regular basis, then you’re expecting progress. You’re expecting a measurable, tangible feeling that this is worth the effort. And when that feeling doesn’t arrive, you start wondering why you bother.

Scenario 2: Self-Doubt Again

And here is the other side: You may have been feeling stuck during the past weeks. The language YouTube videos didn’t make you feel like you understand very much at all. You tried a language exchange and still couldn’t tell them about your week fluently. You’re starting to…guess what?…doubt yourself and second guess if language learning is even the right project for you.

Do You Recognise These Signs?

There are so many ways that self-doubt starts manifesting itself when you are a self-directed language learner. I bet you have experienced some of these before. I know that I do, and it takes one to know one:

  • Putting half an hour into study time, feeling no smarter than before, wondering if you’re using the wrong method
  • Spending five hours online researching study techniques, and zero hours doing any study
  • Accumulating 10,000 points on Duolingo, then getting bored with it and thinking you picked the wrong language
  • Buying every new resource out there, and using none of them

If you are finding yourself stuck in one of those ruts, you need to take action as soon as possible. Shifting your mindset towards becoming the kind of person that allows success to be a natural consequence of what they do is the key to moving forward. In all my conversation with language learners and polyglots and people who are happy about learning and people who are not, there’s always one clear definition: Everyone who is a great language learner believes in themselves. This is not an optional part of studying. You can say yes or no to flashcards, textbooks and italki. But you must never say no to your own learning capacity.

Using Affirmations to Get Unstuck

In today’s article, I want you to think about building affirmations into your learning practice. Shifting the idea about what kind of person you are from “Someone who struggles to learn Italian/German/French etc.” to “A committed lover of Italian/German/French etc” will make a huge difference. J from the Compassionate Language Learner blog wrote about this very topic recently in a post declaring how they use a careful approach to identity to make sure they stay on top of language learning. If you have never tried the same thing but have ever heard that annoying voice in your head asking you if you can really become fluent in this language, then this is something you have got to read. Building that fabulous positive image of yourself as someone who learns languages and enjoys regular successes.

Stop listening to voices in your head that say you’re not smart enough. Stop wondering about age, forgetfulness or which dictionary is the best. Just enjoy the ride.

Okay, so let’s get back to the affirmations. Like Wikipedia says, an affirmation is a statement saying that something is true. The concept of using statements like this to help your personal growth might feel a bit new-agey to you, but bear with this because positive thinking and affirmations are often linked to happiness and increased performance in studies. Beware though: Your affirmations must be credible to you and at least somewhat realistic, otherwise they won’t work. The idea is not to convince yourself, but to remember what you are good at.

Let me share my own affirmation, written right onto the board that I keep behind my computer screen. It says “(Pretend) You’re Awesome”. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering that I am awesome, but I can always pretend. This reminds me to take 10 seconds to close my eyes and imagine all of the awesome things that I do. It works because I am pretending, but at the same time concentrating on a positive image of myself.

Three Affirmations To Work With

Of course you can create any affirmation or positive image at all, but maybe you need a suggestion to get you started. The following three ideas might just work wonders and get you back to your book, your tutor or your homework.

If your inner voice says: "I’m never going to be great at this"

language is in my heart

If your inner voice says: "I am struggling with my language"

better-every-day.png

If your inner voice says: "I keep making mistakes"

language learning affirmation

How To Use These Graphics

These graphics are designed to keep you remembering that you've totally got this. Pin them to your Pinterest. Print them out, post them where you can see them every day or write them down every single day. You’ll only be investing seconds of your time, but who knows, it might boost your success by 500%!

Want a few more?

A positive mindset makes all the difference, and I've created more of these lovely cards for you to download, print, put on your phone immediately!

New Podcast! André Klein On Storytelling and Being Creative as a Learner

The new Fluent Language Podcast is out now, and I'll be sharing an inspiring interview with author André Klein. We discussed so much - freedom, creativity and other big ideas. Find out how to make things real for you.

Now on Stitcher

If you're using Stitcher, you can now find the Creative Language Learning Podcast on there too. Make it a star by giving it some stars! Here's an easy link to Stitcher's website.