Our base for the second half of our holiday in Germany was the Lower Saxony town of Hildesheim and whilst the town had a good bit of history and culture of its own to explore, its location also provided a great opportunity for some easy day trips elsewhere. One day, whilst I headed off to Hamburg (read about that in a couple of weeks), the rest of the group headed to the town of Wolfenbüttle which is known for having the largest collection of timber framed buildings in Germany and is somewhere I’d like to check out in future based on their reviews. However, we also did two day trips as a full group, one to the nearby city of Baunschweig and another to the town of Wernigerode in neighbouring Saxony-Anhalt.

Having travelled from Dresden via Berlin by way of DB Intercity and ICE services, the Lower-Saxony town of Hildesheim was our base for the second part of our holiday. Located to the south-east of Hannover, Hildesheim was founded more than 1200 years ago, however, was unfortunately heavily bombed during the closing months of World War 2 with much of the city being destroyed. Following the end of the war, the city was rebuilt, with key buildings being restored to their historical conditional and as a result Hildesheim has been home to a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1985.

This is the second of two blogs covering our time based in the city of Dresden, with part one pausing just before lunch on our third day exploring the city. That morning, we had visited Dresden’s beautiful Frauenkirche before jumping back on the sightseeing bus tour round to the Lingnerschloss, one of the trio of Schlosses that sit high above the north bank of the Elbe out towards the Blaues Wunder brücke.

Our journey from Dresden and through northern Czechia down to Prague with České dráhy (CD) had been relaxing, with us getting to enjoy some beautiful scenery as we followed the Elbe valley. Arriving at Praha Hlavní Nádraži (Prague Main Station) just before 1130 meant it was time to do some exploring with us having around seven hours in the Czech capital before our train back to Dresden. With our arrival into Prague coming just before lunch, we decided first to find some food and so headed to somewhere less than 10 minutes’ walk from the station that I’ve always wanted to visit.

For our two-week holiday in Germany, we had decided to split our time between two base locations and, having travelled from Peterborough by train, ship and more trains, we had arrived in our first destination onboard the European Sleeper. The city of Dresden is the capital of the German state of Saxony and third largest in the former German Democratic Republic after Berlin and Leipzig. As the historic seat of the Electors and Kings of Saxony, since the reunification of Germany in 1990 Dresden has become a cultural and educational centre of the country and is one of the most visited cities in Germany.

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.