K – So Friday went slowly, slower than a normal Friday. Once I finally finished work I grabbed my bag and headed off for Liverpool Street Station to get to Harwich and the ferry. Got to Harwich too early to board, so had a biscuit and a coffee while I waited. Finally onboard, headed to the restaurant for dinner. Had a lovely meal then straight to bed – exciting travel life this! Stena Line wake people up at 6.30am Holland time (so 5.30 am BST) with ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ played at a decent volume before a far too cheerful at that hour announcement – so I was up early! Up, dressed, and ready to depart long before the ferry got in, Then again, that meant I was one of the first people off the boat and on my way – even managing to catch the very early train so I was in Eindhoven half an hour before I expected. Of course, Joe managed to be there an hour before he expected! Which was nice.<\/p>\n
J – Having spent two weeks in Amsterdam working, got up early on Saturday and went to get the tram to Centraal. Got to Centraal in time to make the 8.08 to Eindhoven, an hour earlier than I had hoped. Once I found the right train I had to make sure I was in the correct half as it split – one half going to a different destination! Then when I got to Eindhoven I sent Kathleen a text, went to find left luggage lockers – which did exist! – so I put my rucksack in left luggage, and went to get a cup of coffee and wait for Kathleen. Got a text from Kathleen saying she’d be in at 10.02 so I checked the 10.02 arrivals and went to the platform to discover that two trains came in at 10.02 – one to my right and one to my left. So I stood in the centre of the exit stairs and waited for Kathleen to appear.<\/p>\n
J & K – So Eindhoven! A new place in Holland for us. For some reason the train from Amsterdam to Copenhagen was not running on this Saturday so we had to leave from Eindhoven and we decided it was a good chance to see a new place. So stashed K’s bag in the left luggage and headed out of the station, straight into the Tourist Information Centre, which was right outside the station. Got a city map and a brochure with two city walks – east and west. But first we headed for the market to hunt breakfast!<\/p>\n
There were loads of places in the market, all with tables and chairs outside as the weather was wonderful. We finally just went into one that had a breakfast menu outside (all the others had lunch) to discover we’d just missed breakfast (which explains why all the others had lunch menus out!) However, the waiter was very nice and said he could do apple pie – why not! So for breakfast we had huge slices of Dutch apple pie and coffee!<\/p>\n
As the market is part of the east (historical) walk we carried on with that – but in the reverse order of the map and directions! So we sometimes wiggled off the walk. But saw the churches and artwork – there is a lot of artwork in the city! Unfortunately the map was done sometime before 2009 (it kept referring to things that would happen in 2009), so it was not always accurate. But it was a nice walk. We finished that and stopped for a cold drink. We then headed out on the west (Phillips) walk – Phillips is the centre of the town. Lots of lovely art deco buildings. It’s a fairly new city, having been flattened by various invasions, but it’s still a lovely place. Lots of bars and cafes!<\/p>\n
Having walked ourselves out, we found a place to have a very early dinner. Lots of ribs! It was very nice and we had a good time. Also discovered we got a lot of sun, both with rather red faces and arms! The day was beautiful and hot. Initial photos have been uploaded to Flickr – link on the top right!<\/p>\n
Then off to the train station to find our train. The time our train was suppose to leave came up, with Warsaw, via Berlin. Which is the wrong direction! So we asked (and we weren’t the only ones) and were told that’s our train. So there was a large group of us on the platform all agreeing that if it wasn’t our train we’d all run around to get the correct one to wait for all of us! It was our train – funnily enough earlier in the day Joe had said it was interesting that you didn’t see trains split that often. It used to be that a train would start out and a carriage or four would split off to different places. Well, that’s what this train did – part going to Copenhagen, part to Warsaw, and part to Moscow! Of course, our carriage was right at the other end of the platform!<\/p>\n
We managed to get on and into our sleeper, to discover that a family with a toddler was in the next room. A loud toddler! Oh well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
K – So Friday went slowly, slower than a normal Friday. Once I finally finished work I grabbed my bag and headed off for Liverpool Street Station to get to Harwich and the ferry. Got to Harwich too early to board, so had a biscuit and a coffee while I waited. Finally onboard, headed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4T97-7y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2405,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/11\/ich-bin-ein-berliner\/","url_meta":{"origin":468,"position":0},"title":"Ich bin ein Berliner","date":"Sunday, 11 September 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"So Berlin. Joe was in Holland for work stuff, so I came over on the ferry and met up with him on the train in Hengelo. Long journey! Left work at 5 on Friday, up to Harwich and on the ferry, dinner and sleep, in Hoek van Holland at 8\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":210,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/22\/netherlands\/","url_meta":{"origin":468,"position":1},"title":"Netherlands","date":"Friday, 22 August 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"We are heading for the wilds of The Netherlands. After work yesterday headed home and finished packing, watering the plants, general tidying, then got the train to Liverpool Street Station to start the journey. We took the night ferry from Harwich to Hook van Holland. Very nice with a cabin\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":514,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/08\/sunshine-and-rain\/","url_meta":{"origin":468,"position":2},"title":"Sunshine and rain","date":"Sunday, 8 July 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"We planned for a later train to Esbjerg - 12.25. So up and coffee at the hotel then checked out and headed out to the station. Got there in plenty of time to have a danish while waiting for the train. Then found the proper spot on the platform to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":509,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/06\/rainy-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":468,"position":3},"title":"Rainy day","date":"Friday, 6 July 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"First corrections from yesterday - it's the arts and crafts movement I liked at the museum and we saw a pantomime at Tivoli - and that's what I get for typing while tired! The forecast for today was rain. We've been really lucky with the weather all week; even when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1805,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/25\/and-home-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":468,"position":4},"title":"And Home Again","date":"Wednesday, 25 June 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"So, no update for a while! We were busy. Last days of holiday and all. Sunday night we headed out for a restaurant that was recommended by Lonely Planet, El Machichaco - turns out it was very good. Organic, local, slow food. We got mains and pudding this time -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":229,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/28\/home-again-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":468,"position":5},"title":"Home again","date":"Thursday, 28 August 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"And at work. Dreary grey day in London and stacks of work on my desk, but on the plus side there are scones in the kitchen. Got up yesterday and had breakfast before strolling to the train station. Leaving at 11.40 is awkward - to late to just go and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":474,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions\/474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}