Travelling Fletchers

Before I tell you about the Color Fantasy, let me share a bit about food prices in Germany. Supermarket costs are similar to the UK and picking up supplies has been fairly easy. Eating out is much more expensive compared to home. The tax system is structured differently, making eating out a luxury. But the quality of food is much higher and so much more enjoyable. One tip we’d been given was to travel with a camping knife, fork and spoon set – these have been most useful as we’ve bought salad bowls in supermarkets that we could share between ourselves.

Returning to our journey, the Color Fantasy isn’t just a ferry – it’s a floating mini-cruise. There’s a spa for pampering, an indoor Aqualand with pool and waterslides, shops to browse, restaurants for every taste, and evening shows to round it all off. You could almost forget you’re travelling between Kiel and Oslo. The tip here is to book early – although everywhere will be crowded as this is effectively a 24-hour cruise, meaning everyone wanted to cram in as much as they could. We opted to sit on deck and watch the scenery pass by.

The route from Kiel to Oslo on the Color Fantasy takes around 20 hours and is as much about the journey as the destination. Leaving Kiel in the afternoon, the ship glides out through the busy harbour and along the Kiel Fjord before heading into the Baltic Sea. The scenery changes from bustling docks to quiet stretches of coastline dotted with small beaches and forested headlands.

One of the highlights early on is passing under the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark – an impressive span that feels even more dramatic when viewed from the open deck of the ship.

There was also the added bonus of a beautiful sunset.

We woke as the journey slipped into the Oslofjord, with its winding channels, wooded islands and colourful Norwegian houses signalling our arrival. As we were a day behind our plans and bookings, we pushed on to catch the train to Stavanger.

Packing up this morning I felt smug – I thought knew I could pack my bag with space. Turns out, I couldn’t. It took three attempts. Every time I turned round I found something I’d missed. I knew something was off when I had to tighten the straps. On the plus side – I did remember to pack my battery pack somewhere I can actually reach it. Maybe that’s a good omen for the day ahead.

The hotel beds were so comfortable that getting up took some time. I’d planned to be at the port for 8am to sort a new booking – but I didn’t wake up until much later. They say things happen for a reason. Cam and I arrived at the booking office at 9.32, to discover it had been open for just two minutes. We were first through the door.

Ticket booked – we were ready for our day. Or part day. Or, more importantly – brunch.

Kiel sits up on the Baltic coast in northern Germany – a busy port with ferries, the Kiel Canal, and plenty of naval history. It’s known for its sailing week in June and for fish dishes, especially herring. Shame we didn’t have time to explore more.

Things we’ve learnt so far… we need better planning – or no planning at all. Thinking about it now, it would have been better to arrive the night before. That would have given us extra time to explore and some wriggle room for late trains, which we’ve now been told are notorious in Germany (wish us luck for the return).

The other thing we’d probably do next time – and it’s definitely feeling like a “when” not an “if” – is not book in advance. By changing our booking today, the new cruise counted as an upgrade, so we now have a cabin with a window. And it’s cheaper than the original one we booked back in January, which was an internal cabin.

Another tip – make sure you have travel insurance, and one that includes cancellations. Good job we did. We were taught by the best in this respect – thanks to my parents.

Packing most things the night before meant we only had a few finishing touches in the morning. Oddly, it felt too easy – we all thought we must have forgotten something. Bags zipped up with space to spare, we decided it must just be experience paying off.

We headed for the 7.38 from Berlin to Kiel via Hamburg – no reservations needed. It felt a little strange, almost unsettling, not having a seat booked. But we needn’t have worried. Most of the seats did have reservations, but the slips are now digital, so they looked empty at first glance. We chanced it, sat down, and no one came to claim them.

We rolled into Hamburg with only a very quick turnaround to get the connecting train to Kiel – barely enough time to check the platform before hopping straight on. Good job the train app shows platform details or we might not have made it.

Tip for next time – always travel with a charging block. Tickets are checked on every train, and if you’re using a digital version, you need the battery to prove it. My haphazard-but-space-saving packing did fall down here – the charging block was with me, just buried somewhere deep in the bag.

We were making good progress… and then… we stopped. Sat staring out of the window for an hour. Then came the surprise – we reversed all the way back to Hamburg. And there we sat again. The problem? Firstly there was clothes on the line so we swapped trains and then a signalling issue further along.

Finally, we started to move again… only to the next station, mainly because there wasn’t enough space to keep us where we were.

We’d left Berlin early, worried we wouldn’t make it to the boat on time. After eight hours of travelling, we finally arrived in Kiel at 14:10…

Just in time to watch our 14:00 ferry sail out of the harbour!

This is where Booking.com came into its own. With the push of a few buttons, we booked into a local hotel so we could regroup and make a plan for what to do next. Sometimes travel goes smoothly, sometimes it throws in a curveball – but that’s half the fun. A missed ferry just means an extra chapter in the story.

It was time to leave – another early start to catch a train to Kiel. This time it was a local train, a fairly short journey by comparison.

As we left our apartment, I had a moment to reflect on all we’d done since arriving. We’d packed so much in – learnt plenty – but most importantly, we’d laughed together.

One of my favourite laughs came in the ‘well equipped’ kitchen. I say that not only because this was how it was described but also because it was very precise – exactly 4 plates, 4 bowls, 4 knives, 4 forks, 4 spoons. Four coffee cups and four mugs. Perfect for a family of four.

But scissors? Nowhere to be found. Opening any packet became a slow and careful exercise in knife skills.

The real surprise came when I spotted what was in the cutlery drawer – 4 cake forks!

Which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense here. Berliners take their Kaffee und Kuchen very seriously – that daily mid-afternoon ritual of coffee and cake. And not just any cake – think Käsekuchen, Bienenstich, Black Forest, and, of course, the Berliner Pfannkuchen doughnut. In this city, cake clearly takes priority over scissors.

Berlin – a city to return to

We loved the city – and the feeling of space that comes from being bombed in WW2 and then rebuilt.

Getting around has been so easy. The subway is wonderfully simple, with numbered tube lines that make navigation a breeze. The trams are quiet, regular, and just as easy to use.

People are happy to chat – and if you try a little German, they smile before replying in English. The point is, they welcome everyone. And it’s such a clean city too.

Most of all, Berlin is layered with history – and we didn’t even cover half of it. But that’s ok. We’ve left plenty for next time. And I’m sure there will be a next time.

Next stop – Kiel.

After a few heavy days of history we wanted to lighten the mood – so we planned a segway tour of the city.

First though – a few checks.

There’s a minimum weight limit for segways – otherwise I guess they’d never move. David, Cam and I had been on one before. Charlie hadn’t. We looked up the ride requirements and wondered if she’d meet them. Having a healthy child and no cause to weigh her, I had no idea.

We also don’t have any scales in the apartment (that would be weird).

So I did the next best thing – messaged the mum of her best friend to ask if she knew her daughter’s weight. They’re close in size – so we thought that might give us a clue.

The mum didn’t know either – but she did have a set of scales and her daughter at home. She kindly obliged and weighed her on the spot. The verdict – yes, it was possible Charlie could ride. She should be over the minimum weight limit… even if only by a small margin.

We turned up for our booked segway session only to be told it had actually been cancelled! BUT… the good news was we’d been upgraded free of charge to the two-hour tour. Twice the time for the same price.

We had a tour of Berlin on a segway – a whole wobble of us gliding through the city.

It started with a practice ride. Naturally, the other three took to it like ducks to water. Me? I just kept going round and round in circles – clockwise, too – and couldn’t work out how to reverse it.

Whilst we were waiting, I took my day bag off. This gave me a little more stability – and a centre of gravity I actually knew the location of. It sounds so simple, but it worked. I could at least go forwards, backwards, left and right – just needed to work out how to stop.

Then it was time to go. Off we went – like ducklings following a mother duck. Although in this case, the mother duck was sitting astride a moped… with 12 wobbly segways trailing behind.

We zipped past Berlin landmarks – the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, and stretches of the Berlin Wall still standing. We learned snippets of history mixed with local fun facts – we saw where the wall had once stood and followed the line of cobbled stones that lead the way, quietly reminding everyone that the city was once divided.

There were cobbled streets, tram tracks to weave between, and then traffic coming from the opposite direction just to keep us on our toes.

We only had four falls in the group – and three of them were David. We could almost start charging admission.

By the end, even I was weaving between the group with something close to confidence. Two hours had flown by – and so had we.

Outside our Berlin apartment door, the pavement is set with small brass cobbles. They’re called Stolpersteine – stumbling stones. Each one carries the name of someone who once lived here, along with the year they were taken away and their fate. They shine in the sun, but their stories are heavy.

On Sunday we visited Sachsenhausen. Opened in 1936 as a model camp, it was designed to set the blueprint for others that followed. Our guide showed us many things in this both impressive and horrifying camp – the watch towers, the places of execution, the rooms used for experiments, and the autopsy facilities.

One story will stay with me. The guide took us to the so-called neutral zone – the strip of ground between the camp fence and the wall. Step into it, and you’d be shot. A guard once snatched a prisoner’s hat and threw it into the neutral zone, ordering him to fetch it. The man obeyed – and was killed. The guard then had to complete pages of paperwork for the shooting. That same paperwork could be used to apply for leave, because the guard claimed he was ‘traumatised’ by the incident. The cruelty wasn’t just in the killing – it was in the cold efficiency of turning it into an administrative task.

Sachsenhausen’s story didn’t end in 1945. After the war, the Soviet secret police used it as Special Camp No. 7 to detain political prisoners, suspected Nazis, and others they considered a threat. Thousands died there from disease, starvation, and exposure. In the 1960s, East Germany turned it into a memorial – but one that largely focused on communist resistance. Only after reunification did it become the broader memorial and museum we see today, reflecting the full and complex history.

We returned feeling rather numb, the mood sombre. Berlin remembers its past in many ways – sometimes with grand memorials, sometimes with a few words on a small square of gold in the pavement. Both are hard to walk past.

Processing a heavy day in Berlin the best way we know how – with ice cream in the sunshine.

We’ve arrived at our apartment and discovered we’re on one of the most iconic streets in the capital – Schönhauser Allee. Once a medieval road out of Berlin, it’s now a lively stretch mixing history with city buzz. Named after the royal palace up in Pankow, it’s seen centuries of change – from horse-drawn carts to U-Bahn trains rumbling overhead since 1913. There’s a Jewish cemetery tucked just off the street, grand old façades side by side with cafés, and the tracks for trams (though they’ve been playing hide-and-seek with us so far)

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The apartment itself is a spacious studio with clean modern lines. The kitchen is small, and in my first attempt to find cheese in the fridge I somehow opened the cupboard housing the boiler. I’ll get my head round it eventually – or we’ll just move on to the next stop before I do.

All our bookings so far have been through booking.com and we’ve yet to be disappointed – which sounds very British. For those in the States or Oz, the apartment is awesome!

Our holiday isn’t all about rushing around to see everything – we need some downtime too. With space in my bag limited to anything smaller than the palm of my hand, most of my usual crafts were out of the question. So, I decided to try something new: watercolour painting. I found a tiny travel set that fits neatly in the palm of my hand – just enough to keep me happily occupied between adventures.

We travelled first class on Friday – all our Interrail is first class – which meant we could go Eurostar Plus. The perks were a meal onboard and extra space. For those of you who haven’t eaten onboard Eurostar before, it’s not like airline food and is far nicer. The glass is real to start with, not plastic. And nothing is covered in crazy foil.

The train was a smooth ride, though quite a bit in the dark which could only mean one thing – the Channel Tunnel.

After a quick stop in Lille – only half an hour from Brussels. We arrived in Brussels to find our sleeper train and took a quick photo.

This was the only time we will travel second class as we wanted all four of us to be together overnight. The carriage looked like something out of the Harry Potter films – just in blue.

Four of us fit rather cosily in the compartment and I’m glad we took the advice about not bringing suitcases – they would never have fit under the couches.

Making up the beds was interesting. The seats convert into beds but are a bit like Velcro – everything sticks where it lands and moving anything is a workout. Getting into the sleeping bags was its own comedy. They’re like cotton sheets sewn together. The only way I managed was to sit on the side of the bed, climb in, and wriggle up as much as possible. At that point, I’d become a mermaid – one tail instead of two legs. Then I found I’d wriggled too far down and couldn’t stretch my legs out fully. If I needed rocking to sleep, the train certainly provided it.

We arrived in Berlin at 6 am – far too early for the city to be awake. We’d already been to two cafés before 9 am. This gave us the perfect chance to visit Checkpoint Charlie and see some sections of the Berlin Wall before the crowds.

We went into the museum there – once in the space between East and West Germany. We read story after story of people escaping, or trying to escape, from the DDR side to the West. Some hid in false panels in cars after the engine had been moved to make space. Others studied aviation so they could build aircraft engines and attempt escapes by air. Two families even tried hot air balloons – the first attempts were shot down, but a second balloon succeeded. Some hid in old stereo units. Others dug tunnels. Tunnel 57 was dug from West to the East!

One account was from a man who escaped when he was just seven. To him, it was exciting – not only riding in a car but hiding next to the engine. His father was more nervous, worried his son might scream from excitement. He spent the whole journey with his hand over his son’s mouth. The most chilling part was realising, after a quick calculation, that this boy is only five years older than me. Sobering – and it brought the whole history closer to home.

Moving on we walked through the Brandenburg Gate after passing the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Not sure if it’s impressive or oppressive – but certainly something that should never be forgotten.

The Great Sock Search and Bag Crisis

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We’re all packed and (almost) ready to go! The final push before any holiday always has its quirks, but today felt like a proper warm-up for the chaos to come.

The hardest part? Socks. Not the actual packing – socks. Matching socks. Socks that actually belong to me. I unearthed no fewer than three pairs of flight socks, several tiny ones last worn by the kids a decade ago, and barely a single pair that was both mine and matching. Not a promising start.

Then came the bag maths. Four people, three bags – how hard can it be? Turns out, very. Despite all best efforts and the dream of a minimalist interrail setup, it just wasn’t happening. Off we went on a mission to buy a fourth bag.

Miraculously, once back home with new luggage in hand, we were repacked and ready in five minutes flat – thanks to the magic of packing cubes and liners. Highly recommend if you’re trying to cram multiple wardrobes into limited space with limited patience.

Let the adventure begin

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We’re Off – Interrailing Begins! 🚄

We’re off! Interrail app at the ready, trains loaded, and backpacks already more in number than we planned.

I’d read loads of posts saying you have to toggle on each journey in the app – but honestly, it’s one of those things you only really understand when you’re standing on the platform with one bar of signal and a train approaching. Got there in the end!

Boarding the Eurostar felt like hitting our 10,000 steps just in the queue – weaving through barriers with our backpacks on. No dragging bags here – just the constant awareness that if we turn too quickly, we might accidentally knock someone out. Sorry to all fellow travellers I may have bumped in to.

Eurostar to Brussels – next stop adventure.

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