Szczecin; Saturday, 21 July, 2012

I checked out of the hotel and headed down to the bus stop to arrive at exactly the same moment the bus to the airport did. A very quick journey later I found myself in Terminal five on the first day of the school holidays at the back of a long queue to drop my bags off (thankfully, not as long a queue as the one that appeared to be snaking out of the private first class area!)

The flight was a little late leaving as it was full, but thankfully, we could almost have pushed back straight onto the active runway the stand was so close to the start of the take-off area, so incredibly, for Heathrow, just a few minutes after pushing back we were airborne.

Arriving into Berlin five minutes early I realised I hadn’t needed all the spare time I’d given myself as I could probably have made the earlier train to Szczecin, but rather than rush into town to make the train I instead decided to take it slowly and have a couple of hours wandering around the city before heading for the train.

Having dropped my luggage in the lockers at the Hauptbahnhof I caught the U-Bahn down to the Brandenburg Gate and had a wander around the area there before slowly making my way back to the Hauptbahnhof via the Reichstag and the riverside. I collected my bags, caught the train over to Gesundbrunnen, changed and picked up my train to Szczecin.

An uneventful, if noisy two hours later (there was a large family that had several young children they were letting run up and down the train screaming at the top of their voices), I arrived into Szczecin Glowny and walked the short distance to my hotel.

After checking in and unpacking I headed out for a late evening wander around the city centre before stopping at the town hall square for dinner in one of the restaurants. After dinner, I had a bit more of a wander along the riverside, before heading back to the hotel and bed.