Berlin to Amsterdam: The Day Everything Went Wrong (and Somehow Still Worked Out)

We were wrapping up our time in Berlin, a city we honestly wished we could’ve stayed in longer. But we had three nights booked in Amsterdam before our flight home, so we had to keep moving. What should’ve been a simple travel day quickly turned into one of the most chaotic (and unintentionally funny) journeys of the whole trip.

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We were up early, leaving the Hilton Berlin before sunrise and heading straight for Berlin Station. We were expecting to have one more Hilton buffet but it opened late on Sundays, so we missed it entirely, a small heartbreak on our last morning in a city we didn’t want to leave. But with Amsterdam ahead of us and a flight home waiting after our three-night stay, we didn’t have much choice.

Instead, we grabbed a cheap McDonald’s breakfast and checked the departure board… only to realise our train wasn’t listed. We waited. Still nothing. Eventually we asked a conductor, who casually informed us, “Oh, that train is cancelled.”
Exactly what you want to hear first thing in the morning when you’re on a deadline.

We’d booked first-class seats on a direct route to Amsterdam, but suddenly we were scrambling to rebook anything that would get us there. The best option was a connection through Düsseldorf, so we grabbed those seats and sprinted for the platform.

For a while, things seemed back on track, until the train broke down halfway there.

With no idea what was happening, we relied on Google Translate to interpret the German announcement. The translation told us we had to get off at Münster and change platforms in five minutes. Thankfully they repeated it in English, but the panic was already well underway.

Before the chaos, I’d managed to grab a single sandwich from the food cart, which turned out to be the only thing we ate all day. We flew off the train, raced across the station, and jumped onto the next one with seconds to spare.

We finally sat down, exhausted, only for a German family to inform us we were in their reserved seats. So we moved again, ending up in a small compartment with a very strange man eating cold, smelly noodles. At that point, nothing could faze us anymore.

But somehow, against all odds, we made it. We rolled into Amsterdam, found a taxi, and checked into our hotel, and it felt incredible just to stop moving.

Dinner was a giant burger at a local restaurant, followed by Dunkin’ Donuts, where the staff gave us free donuts because they didn’t have the ones we ordered. After the day we’d had, it felt like a cosmic apology.

Along the way, we’d passed the massive Volkswagen factory and a few unusual towers scattered across the landscape little glimpses of Germany we wouldn’t have seen if everything had gone to plan.

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It was chaotic, stressful, and completely unplanned… but arriving in Amsterdam made every moment worth it. We had three nights ahead of us to unwind, explore, and enjoy the city before flying home. Next week, I’ll take you through our first impressions of Amsterdam, from the canals to the stroopwafels to the unexpected surprises that made it one of the highlights of the trip.

If you missed the Berlin day that led up to all this chaos, you can read it here.