Nathan's Insights

Sunday 07 April 2024
Highlights: Getting lost trying to get to our hotel, meeting our tour group

Today we ended our short pause in Helsinki to get to the start of our G Adventures Eastern Europe, Croatia and the Balkans tour starting in Berlin.

We started by enjoying a great buffet breakfast at the Hilton Helsinki Airport Hotel, then checked out and walk the short distance to the airport. As we were flying in the European Schengen travel area this was similar to domestic travel in Australia. If you fly outside Schengen travel area you need to clear Border Control.

After successfully using the self-serve kiosks and dropped our bags we explored the airport before using the Finnair Schengen Lounge (Helsinki). Again this is similar to a domestic lounge, a nice relaxing place with drinks and finger food.

Our flight was on Finnair A320 plane for scheduled two hour flight. having selected windows seats for both myself and Darby we could watch snow-capped Finland disappear and the green fields of Germany as we came into land (flight review).

The problem of the day was using the train service. We just missed the Express train I researched, doors shut as we tried to board with the train leaving 30 seconds after the doors locked. Instead we went on a different Express Train. However I didn’t realise that this service didn’t stop at Berlin Gesundbrunnen station. Instead after stopping at Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Berlin Central Station) it took off at 220 kmph speeds to regional Germany. The next stop was 1.5 hours later at Schwerin.

A German on the train helped me work out a plan for us to get back to Berlin. So in the end we needed to purchase regional train tickets to get back which cost $226.72 total. Luckily we were not charged for the journey to Schwerin! So an expensive mistake.

We had to change multiple times but we did managed to get to the right station after our 3 hour plus adventure. One upside is we saw some beautiful countryside.

We arrived late to Tour Group Briefing but we did make it. There are 14 people on the first leg of this tour; Stewart (Doug), Kimberley, Anne, Alexa, Mary, Gerolf, Theresa, Andres, Aaron, Megan, Carolyn, Ivan plus Darby and myself.

Our Chief Experience Office (tour leader) is Christin Braatz who helped me figure out a way back to Berlin and created a WhatsApp tour group.

Christin then took us to a nice local restaurant (Lichtburg) and we got to know each other a little better and work out options for tomorrow. On our free day Christin has volunteered to take us on a walking tour in the morning, something that isn’t included so a nice extra for her to provide. A number of us booked the Dark World walking tour starting at 3 pm tomorrow.

An unexpected mini adventure to start off this tour. Mistakes like this create memories people remind you of in future years!