So far, travelling by train has been a pretty interesting experience. For people that have never been on a trainride with at least 1-2 changes this might be really odd. I actually was one of those people not long ago.
From Gdansk, a city north in Poland, I travelled to Krakow which is closer to the south. I had two hours until the next train was leaving, and during this time I was able to find a place to leave my baggage for 7pln for the whole day if I wanted. I went to eat dinner in the mall, in the known food chain that sells fish with addings on the side. Then I went for a walk in the center of the town an took some photos of the old town before going to find the train.
When I had taken my luggage, I was frantically looking for the train because none of the tables was displaying anything similar to what was written on my ticket. I even though there were like two trains leaving at the same time, but I am still not sure if that was the case or not. In the end I got inside a train which seemed to be the right one.
My seat was next to two guy from the Netherlands that were also travelling by train to different countries. They were pretty sure I was also travelling because tht was their last question. Probably my full backpack and confusion said it all.
The ride was interesting, but the AC was turning on and of and at some point it was very hot. A difference compared to the train from Gdansk to Krakow where we not only did get water, but also a lady gathering trash every 1/2 hour, big space, tables from the seats in front of us and AC working the whole trip. It was also much more quiet, but I guess that is because it was in the morning and it was a premium train is what I found out.
Fast forward I got to Breclav in Czech Republic and had extra time due to the train being late by 40 min. I took a walk to the store found out they have their own currency so I had to pay by card instead of my vintage euros in form of cash. I used the self check out but I needed help, and luckily a person was willing to help me with that since everything was in Czech.
The buildings there and the general impression was that it is very beautiful and it seemed like one of the countries that are even lower down on the map. Another pro tip is that if you speak any slavic language, it is very likely that they will understand you there if you use that language.
In the end, when I got back to the station, it looked like the train i was taking was not on the table with departures, and I had to ask some people. They were not sure, and in the end I took a train which went to Bratislava. It was the wrong one, but it would be in Bratislava 30 min earlier, and I was kind of happy about that in the end, even though I had to pay 6 euros more because I had a ticket from another company. This was regiojet, but I actually recommend it because it is cheaper and is pretty fast, in ny case this was.
I got to the station and that was my whole trip that day. Kind of tiring, but it was worth experiencing because thing swill always happen so you might get to know some people, you might miss a train or mix up trains. The train might be late and you might have to improvise in terms of what ou want to use your time on. It is like in competition and sports. Something always goes wrong or differently, but it always turns out interesting. 🙂