York to Southern Germany. Leave York 08.12, arrive Ravensburg, nearly at the Bodensee, at the other side of which is Switzerland, at 21.07 same day. Everything on time, too, at least until we got to Stuttgart, where everything was running a few minutes late, so our 6 minute change of trains was maintained (cross-platform, nice and easy)but then the Hannover-Munich ICE we were on as far as Ulm was further delayed and resulted in a frantic scamper around Ulm station where a 6 minute connection had turned into a minus 3 min connection — but they held the local train for us (and about 20 others). The Paris-Stuttgart TGV was impressively fast on the new line in France and again in Germany, and wound reasonably fast through the mountains to the West of Stuttgart. But not that impressed by the TGV on board catering — not much choice and malfunctioning microwave and grill. The Deutsche Bahn Bord-Bistro is usually better
Stuttgart to York. Leave Stuttgart 12.54, arrive York 23.12. And time enough in Paris to nip across to the Brasserie du Terminus Gare du Nord for a splendid meal — bouillabaise and Grimberger beer in my case. Even Kings X to York was on time — things may be looking up. I’ll let you all know after I’ve done York to Exeter return in a day in the near future.
