Travelers to Amsterdam 12-10-25

We were awake and ready to go in good order this morning. Our first obstacle or challenge if you will was the dog barf in the elevator that some worthy didn’t see fit to clean up. So we went down one at a time. About the time we left the building our driver was there to pick us up for the ride to the station, again no obstacles.  I went through the process of registering our eurail passes for the day, but I couldn’t tie them to the paper “tickets” we had obtained when we first arrived.  But since we had the QR codes I didn’t particularly worry.  The train was on time and using our printed “tickets” we passed through the validating attendants to board the train.  A short time after we departed the conductors came through the car and asked to see tickets. “No problem” says I. I present our “tickets” which he scans and then asked to see our passes. So I

produce our passes on our phone and he says “ok, where are your tickets?” I’m confused but basically it comes down to this, the QR codes are for seat reservations, not for tickets. Luckily he is a very understanding conductor and he helps us through the process of procuring our tickets for the train we’re already on. He does mention that he will waive the ticket fee, but in future we must procure the tickets or possibly be subject to the 500 euro fine for each ticket. YIKES!! At this point wer’re really questioning the advantages of having a pass. At least with a live ticket agent you’re only subject to the language hurdle, but with on online “helper” there is no secondary level interaction. I thought I had basically mastered the intricacies of booking with the passes but nowhere does it deal with manual reservations connecting to actual tickets. DRAT. The actual trip over to Marseille was very nice if somewhat resembling a tubercular ward, ‘tis the season. Good bye to the sunny south.

We arrived at Gare de Lyon in Paris and had to travel via the regional train over to Gare du Nord. When we got there we saw that there was a train bound for Amsterdam getting ready to leave. So we went over to the Eurostar office and asked if we could get on the earlier train. Their reply was that we could talk with  the train manager and if there were seats available it would cost an extra 50 euros each. We debated a bit and decided that it would be money well spent. So when the track was announced we hustled over to talk with the manager. His response was that the train was completely booked and there were no seats available.  It was worth a try, so we settled back for the 2 hour wait until our train.  Our track was announced and we then found our car and seats without problem. When we finally arrived in Amsterdam it was almost midnight. We followed the signs to the supposed taxi stand and found that they had shut down that portion of the station leading to the taxi stand.  Luckily a very nice couple led us over to the stand by going around the station. There were taxis waiting for riders and we got a really nice driver who was originally from Turkey. He had been in Amsterdam for 35 years and had 3 children. He delivered us to our hotel in fairly short order and we were checked in and in our room just after midnight.  A long day.