After a day exploring the Dutch city of Rotterdam, it was time to continue our journey east to Germany and our final destination of Dresden. However, before we could head east, we needed to head south as I had made a slight error when booking our tickets. So, after a quick journey with Nederland Spoorwegen, we were at Roosendaal and ready to start the next leg of our journey, an overnight trip on the European Sleeper.
Having arrived at Hoek van Holland on the overnight ferry from Harwich, its really simple to get into the city of Rotterdam itself, with the ferry terminal having its own stop, Hoek van Holland Haven, on the Rotterdam Metro’s line B. From here there is a train every 20 minutes, with the journey to Beurs in the city centre taking around 40 minutes. If you want to head to Rotterdam Centraal, you can either change at Beurs for lines D & E, or change at Scheidam Centrum for rail services to Rotterdam Centraal. You can get a day ticket for the Rotterdam transport network for €17, or as with most major cities these days, pay as you go with a contactless enabled bank card.
Just over two months ago when this blog goes live, on 12th September 2025, we started our journey from Peterborough to Dresden, to begin our two-week holiday in Germany. With members of our travel party not being fond of flying or tunnels under water, our options of getting off the island of Great Britain were limited to ferries, however you should know by now that with me involved our plans wouldn’t be as simple as Dover to Calais. No, this trip to Germany was without a car, and as such we decided to make use of one of the UK’s few remaining rail and sail options by sailing onboard Stena Line’s Harwich to Hoek van Holland route.
The middle of August saw another trip to Scotland for work, however this time our weekend plans meant the trip started from the Midlands, giving me the opportunity to take a different route north. Burton’s location on CrossCountry’s Southwest-Northeast corridor meant I had a choice of heading north via Leeds to the ECML and then up to Edinburgh, or head southwest to Birmingham and travel along my less used route of the West Coast Mainline (WCML). Of course, one option also had the significant downside of a long-distance journey onboard a CrossCountry Voyager and so this blog starts with me arriving at Birmingham New Street ready to start a journey north with Avanti West Coast.
Back in August I made my second trip to Birmingham Airport in a couple of months to go spotting and, with the wind blowing in the opposite direction to my previous visit, this gave me the opportunity to try out the other main spotting location around the airport, Sheldon Country Park. Located around the northern end of the airfield, underneath the approach to runway 15, Sheldon Country Park is a public green space and is a great place to watch arrivals when aircraft are using that runway. Completely free to use, although limited in facilities, the park is easily accessible by both car and public transport.
After a great few days away in southern Germany exploring in and around Lindau and the Bodensee, including a lap of the lake visiting four countries in one day, it was unfortunately time to head home. As with our flight out to Germany, we’d be flying back to the UK with British Airways (BA), this time on BA921, their evening flight from Stuttgart to Heathrow.
Flights & Times 