My September ‘23 in Review

Now September is over, and it’s time to take a brief look back at the past month.

The beginning of the month was all about preparing for our shared summer vacation. We had planned to travel by train through Scotland for two weeks, spending two to three days in different cities: London, Glasgow, Fort William, Thurso, Inverness, Edinburgh, and back to London.

Well, who would have thought that we would only manage about half of our plans before falling ill and having to cut the trip short…

Nevertheless, the first part of the journey was very enjoyable. I posted pictures of some highlights, like our hike on the West Highland Way, where we had to cover about 11 kilometers with all our luggage and many elevations. Or our trip to the Glenfinnan Viaduct, where we could see the Hogwarts Express Jacobite Steam Train. Glasgow, where we explored the city on foot and with rented bikes, was also very pleasing. We stayed in the Brunswick Street, which was amusing for us due to our hometown being Braunschweig (Brunswick).

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to experience much of Inverness, Edinburgh, and London. We now know where there are doctors and pharmacies in Inverness and Edinburgh, though. We plan to make up for the missed part of the trip sometime in the future.

Regarding transportation, everything went smoothly with trains in the UK, even though the UK is often cited as a negative example of railway privatization. At least here, it seems the British have learned from their mistakes, and more and more companies are back in state hands. We had a slight delay on one trip (between London and Glasgow) due to a storm. But both on the journey from Germany to Brussels, where we switched to the Eurostar, and on the return from Brussels to Germany, the ICE trains were delayed. At least everything worked without further problems.

In the future, we also want to use the train as our preferred mode of transportation for vacation trips. Compared to flying, the train is significantly more relaxed in some respects: no strict controls, no issues with luggage size, and no hours of waiting at the airport. And, for instance, to the UK, the train isn’t much slower. Interrail is also very suitable as a ticket, especially if you’re traveling for several days. Overall, the train is much more environmentally friendly.

The rest of September, I mainly focused on recovery and then got back to work. But now I’m back in good health!

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