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Tag: First Class

A Day of Deutsche Bahn…

A Day of Deutsche Bahn…

Published on 30 October 2025 
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If you want to read about this trip from start to finish, instead of in reverse order, click here!

Time to go home! Just two high-speed ICE trains, with an easy, 51 minute transfer in Frankfurt am Main. Well, that was the plan, but when travelling with Deutsche Bahn, things hardly ever go as planned…

Since it would be quite a challenge to pack my bag—with more beer, pálinka, clothes, and goodies than I originally left Brussels with—I had my breakfast in the hotel. I even got around to trying the waffle iron this time! Once everything was squeezed in my bag, I checked out for the last time in a while, and went across the street to the station.

In Wien Hbf my ICE to Frankfurt (Main) Hbf was already waiting for at the platform twenty minutes in advance. Well, at least half of it was, so people with seats in the missing carriages were slightly panicking… The other half was attached a bit later, and the then complete train left on time, and stayed on time until we arrived at the first station in Germany… There, due to some ‘technical issues’, we stayed at the station way langer than scheduled… For a while, it still seemed feasible to catch my connection, but the closer we got, the more unlikely it became. Luckily it wasn’t my first time travelling with DB, so I had made sure not to be dependent on catching the last train to Brussels in Frankfurt.

We arrived in Frankfurt am Main Hbf about ten minutes after my scheduled connection left. Fine, I already made a seat reservation on the next—and last—train to Brussels, about an hour and a half later. So I left the station to get something to eat and kill the time. My first choice was a trendy hamburger restaurant, but there was a queue outside, so I went to a fast-food place instead. As it turned out, that queue probably saved my return journey…

Back in Frankfurt am Main Hbf, I went to the platform where my train would leave from. Just after I got comfortable for the wait, I noticed something on the departure board: my train would skip Frankfurt am Main Hbf, and depart from Frankfurt am Main Flughafen Fernbf instead! So I jumped on the first train heading in that direction, which dropped me off at the regional train station at the other side of the airport, and made my way over a dozen escalators and through long corridors to the right platform, which I got to in time.

And just when you think it’s over: another train in front of us broke down, so our ICE had to make a detour. Eventually, at ten minutes after midnight, I alighted in Brussels Midi station… Next time I’ll just take the ÖBB NightJet again!

Roman-ia!

Roman-ia!

Published on 22 October 2025

A new day, a new country! It’s absurd I hadn’t been to Romania yet, considering you can’t even spell the country’s name without “Roman”! Ready to discover which local dishes and beers Bucharest has to offer!

My Ister sleeper train wouldn’t even arrive until just before noon, so I had plenty of time to take in the views of the Carpathian Mountains and the Romanian countryside. Such a late arrival had the benefit I could check in straight away and have a shower at my ibis Styles Bucharest City Center. My room even has a balcony! Although judging by the presence of an ashtray there, it might have something to do with the prevalence of smoking in Romania…

Since I didn’t pack much of a breakfast for my train ride, I enjoyed The Pulled Pork Sandwich—and coffee of course—at Meron even more. 

Time to delve into some Roman history at the Muzeul Național de Istorie a României. Here they have casts of all the reliefs of Trajan’s Column, and full-size replicas of the base and top of the column. With the Museo della Civiltà Romana now closed, this might very well be the only place where one can still see casts like this! There’s also a lot of gold in the museum, but I’m not much of a pirate…

The museum was smaller than I expected, so I already had some time to visit my first beer destination in Bucharest: the Ground Zero Beer Taproom. 

Another coffee at Origo, and since I still had some time left before my dinner reservation, I already had a couple of beers at Ironic Taproom. 

Then it was time to start ticking off dishes of my Romanian cuisine list! Although it’s quite touristy, even experienced travellers and locals recommend Caru’ cu bere as the place to go for local food and a unique experience. Three checks in one go for me: zacuscă, tochitură muntenească, and papanași. While the main dish alone would have been enough to fill me up, they seemed to have given me a double portion of the dessert. So while every course was as tasty as I could hope for, it left me feeling quite stuffed. Maybe I should have joined the dancers when they asked me!

Then it was Beer O’Clock! No seriously, that was the name of the bar! They only serve their beer in half litres though, which is not ideal for tasting… Next door at Tap Craft Beer everything was available in a much more reasonable 200ml size, so I had a couple of beers there. 

The last stop for the night was the NoRoom Taproom—serving Maktoob and OneTwo beers—a place so small I first couldn’t find it, and literally no room to sit inside. 

Along the Limes

Along the Limes

Published on 21 October 2025

Starting the day with a visit to the ruins of Aquincum, the Roman border settlement and origin of Budapest, and ending it on the Ister train, which is the Latin name for the Danube, part of the northern border of the Roman empire. It was a very Roman border themed day!

Check-out day usually means breakfast in the hotel, to save precious packing time. 

Once that was done, I discovered the suburban rail network to get to Aquincumi Múzeum & Archaeological Park. Apparently there is a two hour walking trail that takes you to even more Roman remains, but I stuck to the main archaeological park and the nearby amphitheater this time. The park could use some TLC, but it was a nice discovery nevertheless. 

Back in the centre of Budapest, I resumed my mission: eat Hungarian specialties! There was one that I found out about when I first planned a Budapest trip in 2020, and it sounded so tasty, I actually looked up a recipe and I’ve made it myself quite often: rakott krumpli. But until today, I never actually tasted the original! At GRUMPY I was finally able to try that dish, and also some sweet Túrógombóc as dessert. 

After that late lunch I had just enough time to visit Tamp & Pull, one of the oldest specialty coffee bars in Budapest, and Constellation, a taproom and restaurant for both Gravity—whose brewery I visited on the second day—and Brew Your Mind. 

By then it was really time to get ready for my train. Since every train trip is better with a nice beer, I stopped by at Beerselection to get one, but it had slipped my mind that this beer shop had some beers on draught as well. It would have been rude to not try some, wouldn’t it?

After picking up my bag at the hotel, I headed to the Budapest Keleti business lounge, to charge my phone a bit—you never know if the power on the train is working—and eat a bit, although I hadn’t quite digested my large, late lunch yet. 

Time to find out if I have better luck with this Romanian CFR Călători sleeper than I had with my Hungarian one! Turns out I had: the one and only sleeper car was open and functional—running water and electricity present—and I think this is the roomiest room I ever had on a train. 

On my way to Bucureşti Nord!

La Cabra, Kraftpaule, and the Kálmán Imre

La Cabra, Kraftpaule, and the Kálmán Imre

Published on 18 October 2025

It all started with a post-it note left at the 2024 BMPH3 Xmas Party: “Come to Transylvania OCT 25”. Well, it is October 2025 now, so I’m heading to Romania for a hashing event… It is quite a trek, though, so I’ll be making some stops along the way. First destination: Budapest!

Like most of my international trips, this one too started in Brussels Midi train station, to board my ICE 15 to Frankfurt am Main Hbf. It was one of the newer models: very comfortable, and everything seemed to work. Even ordering food to my seat, which I did for lunch: a Frikadellenbrötchen mit Senf and a bottle of Apfelschorle. It’s a German train, after all!

I had hoped to have plenty of time to enjoy a coffee, but with the ICE’s arrival ten minutes late—Deutsche Bahn, so not unexpected—I kind of had to drink my La Cabra espresso Italian style! Just my luck that the barista at eins zwei was a particular loquacious one—albeit very nice and informative—so I really had to leg it to get back to the station in time. I did catch my train—the ICE 117 this time—and continued to Stuttgart! 

In Stuttgart I definitely had enough time to sit down and properly enjoy my coffee at Jules Coffee Roastery.  I actually had enough time for beer and dinner! For that beer I went to Kraftpaule. You might remember them as the organisers of Craft Beer Festival Stuttgart, which I visited in 2024. 

For dinner I had the Halbes Hähnchen and potato salad at Biergarten im Schlossgarten. 

Since I wanted to enjoy some more beers on the train, I went to Die Bierothek to stock up. 

And then… The EuroNight 50237 Kálmán Imre to Budapest Keleti was perfectly on time, but the sleeper car was suspiciously dark, and the doors stayed closed. And indeed, the MÁV staff informed me it was out of service, and I would be spending the night in a (shared) couchette instead…Luckily the only other occupants were a quiet French couple, using the top berths, so I still kind of had the bottom part of the couchette to myself. Oh well, time for those train beers, and an attempt to get some sleep after that. Good night!

London Brewers Alliance Beer Festival