Aachen; Friday, 28 August, 2020

As it was an early evening flight I finished work a little early and headed down to Gatwick. This was the first time I’d been through Gatwick since the start of the pandemic, and it was surprising how quiet the airport was, even though everything was located in the one terminal.

Due to the lack of passengers, and other flights, we boarded and pushed back early and once we left the gate we didn’t stop again until the gate in Dusseldorf, no slow taxing round the airport waiting for our turn on the runway just rolled straight onto it and took off.

Dusseldorf airport was equally quiet and as I only had hand luggage I was through really quickly and over to the station and able to pick up a train towards Cologne only minutes after we were originally due to land.

The train journey was relatively smooth, though it randomly ground to a halt in Leverkusen for a few minutes meaning it finally arrived into Cologne about 10 minutes late. Not that that was a major issue given my hotel was physically part of the railway station.

Less than five minutes after stepping off the train I was in my hotel room and heading to bed.