Train

S7, f1.7, 1/1976, ISO 50, JPG

Day 3 – Train delays and evening in Stockholm

After a rather uncomfortable (and mostly sleepless) night in seat 32, I woke up as the train pulled into Hamburg station. At this time it was already over 1h delayed but I hoped it would still make up some of that time.

Little did I know that it would not only not make up that delay but add another hour on top of it. The good ‘news’ is that it stopped often enough to be able to see and admire the Danish landscape. If you only wake up in Denmark you might be forgiven to think the train took a wrong turn somewhere and headed back to Holland, both countries have a very similar landscape and are quite flat.

Thanks to the train taking it’s time to get to Copenhagen, not only did my time there did get cut down to 6 minutes but I also almost missed my connecting train to Stockholm.

A lesson to be learned is that you should expect delays and ensure you have longer time to spend in a connecting city and not to get an isle seat in the night train because it’s uncomfortable, although a middle seat is no better, window seats are probably best in terms of available space.

The train journey to Stockholm in a modern train was on time but took around 5h. The good news is that the seats are comfortable and the views change dramatically once you enter Sweden, with pine forests
and lakes dotting the landscape.

The first views of Stockholm you get from the train are very nice and just a teaser of what you get to see once you start exploring the city. My hotel was right next to the central station and while the room had no window, it did the job and was relatively inexpensive when compared with other hotels.

After dropping my bag off in the windowless room, I headed outside for a walk and to explore the city.
Some people will research a city and plan out what to do and see while they are there, especially when they only have a limited time there. I am too lazy for that and like to improvise and explore on my own. This can be good and bad, it means I see things at my own pace and might head outside the beaten path or it might mean that I miss out on some stuff and don’t quite know what I see. Still, why change what works and too muc planning is not good either. ;)

I did get to see the Stockholm Stadthus and touristy Gamla Stan, where I tried to find a place for dinner. While there are a lot of restaurants to choose from, the prices are really expensive.

Stockholm is so expensive that I can label it the most expensive city I have been to so far and not only do I live in London but have been to New York and Tokyo but neither felt as expensive. After consulting Google and Tripadvisor I settled on a place and not only was it inexpensive (compared go the rest of Stockholm) but also served nice food. In case you are looking for something decent and inexpensive to eat try ‘Stockholms Gästabud AB’ in Österlänggatan 7.

Aside from being expensive, Stockholm, made a very good first impression and it looks like a very nice city. While the landscape in Denmark did remind me of Holland, the ‘friendliness’ of staff in Sweden did remind me of Amsterdam although there were exceptions and some were quite nice and friendly.

Tomorrow, I will have till 16:00 to explore Stockholm some more before having to catch the Viking Line ferry to Helsinki.

Day 2 – Essen and train to Copenhagen

Since my train to Copenhagen only leaves at 21:25 from Cologne, I had time to see friends in Essen. We walked around the city centre and drove to the Zollverein later to take pictures.

After spending the day in Essen picking my bag up, I found myself back at Cologne station waiting for the night train to Copenhagen.

Having never taken night trains in Europe before, I did wonder how the journey would shape up to be. Having only booked a seat only, I hoped it would at least be halfway comfortable. It turned out to be quite uncomfortable after all but the journey was pretty enjoyable thanks to my fellow travellers.

The biggest issue for me turned out to be a complete lack of plugs in this train. This put me in a predicament as I was not organised enough to charge my Fonepad before so will have to do without it for now and hope I get a charger in the next train.

All going well, I will have 2 hours to spend in Copenhagen tomorrow morning before heading onwards to Stockholm.

Views from the Train

Scotland no doubt has some of the most amazing landscapes and views you will find and to enjoy all of this you can just take a nice relaxing train journey to almost anywhere and you will be rewarded with fantastic views from the train.

Probably one of the most spectacular journeys for me has been the journey from Glasgow Queen Street to Mallaig via Fort William and back. You would have seen some pictures of this journey already on my last post but I thought I will post another series of pictures from the train journey since I kind of miss Scotland already after getting back to London.

If you get the chance to do this train journey I can only recommend it no matter what the weather is, the views will always be spectacular.

All pictures have been taken with the GR lens since it was easier to press it against the train window to minimize reflections.

Caution

GXR A12-M, f2.0, 1/125, ISO 2810, RAW, 53mm (Voigtlander Nokton f1.2 35mm)

Took this on my way back home while passing St. Paul’s, I liked the bright yellow colour and the fact that the sign did not fit at all in the scene and stood out.

All Aboard

Spent most of the day in the train from Danang to Saigon so no series for today.

While the train journey was long it did give time to relax a bit and sort through the pictures taken so far. The journey itself has great views and is definitely to recommend over flying.

Tomorrow will be a day in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City and then it’s off to Cambodia.

Lonely Wagon

GXR A12-M, f2.8, 1/125, ISO 228, JPG, 53mm (Voigtlander Nokton f1.4 35mm)

End of the Line

GRD III, f2.8, 2 sec., ISO 200, RAW

Got back to London this morning and back to the rain here. It did stop raining in the afternoon and evening though so I could take a few pictures on my way back.
Since I had the GRD III with me, I decided to use it for some long exposures, these work much better now and are a lot more usable than the smudgy results one gets from the GRD I.
I used a strong sepia photo filter in Photoshop for the image as I did for the one yesterday to give it an older look. I also wanted to have some noise and shot the picture at ISO 200 but added more noise in Photoshop since I felt the ISO 200 noise was not enough.

Friday

GRD, f2.4, 1/13, ISO 400, JPG

This is the first picture I took today and my favorite from today. It was early morning at London Bridge and at first I did not even notice this scene but when I did, I took a few pictures with the GRD. The funny thing sometimes is that the first picture is always the best and the later pictures don’t work as well or have other problems. But since the first picture was good enough it is here now for you to see.
By the way, I did not notice the socks until later when I was about to get off the train.

No Trains

GX200, f4.1, 1/200, ISO 64, RAW, 28mm

Took the picture this morning while on my way to work. If you’ve ever wondered how snow gets cleared from railtracks in Britain, this is a old well kept secret…you just leave the snow on the tracks untill it melts by itself ;). A least this gave me the opportunity to take some pictures on my journey to work.
Unfortunately the snow melted so now we have slush or ice on the roads.