The fascination of railway stations
October 5th 2007 19:13
My wife and I have been in two German cities in the last few days, as part of our month-long (roughly) train travel around five European countries.
On both occasions we’ve had good reason to go to the main railway stations (one in Hamburg and one in Köln), not just to book tickets, but also to enjoy the bustle and constant coming and going. There’s something about an endless traipse of humans across your sightline that’s appealing. People-watching is something my wife and I both find interesting.
As well as plenty of people, the stations both have a large number of shops and food places: and are they busy! I look at the bookshops in these
places with their dozens of customers and think back to my days in the bookshop I ran, where we’d be lucky ever to get more than two people in the shop at once. Certainly it takes a lot more work - and staff - to run a shop that’s perpetually busy, but it’s also an exciting way to work. Even though I was always busy enough in my shop, we often lacked the excitement of having several people to attend to at once, and the juggling of different demands.
Of course there are all sorts of shops in these stations, not just bookshops. There are some very classy shops standing alongside the McDonalds, and Burger King and Snack bars. I don’t know if there’d be any shops that would sell items with top price tickets, such as Vacheron Constantin watches, but I didn’t investigate all the shops. That’s usually my wife’s job!
I hadn’t heard about Vacheron Constantin watches until today: seems the brand is the oldest still functioning in Switzerland (Switzerland is next on our list of countries) and the new watches fetch prices in the region of $27,000 and more. That’s US dollars, by the way. Secondhand Constantin Vacheron’s don’t go for much less. Sorry, I should have said, ‘pre-owned’, not secondhand.
On both occasions we’ve had good reason to go to the main railway stations (one in Hamburg and one in Köln), not just to book tickets, but also to enjoy the bustle and constant coming and going. There’s something about an endless traipse of humans across your sightline that’s appealing. People-watching is something my wife and I both find interesting.
As well as plenty of people, the stations both have a large number of shops and food places: and are they busy! I look at the bookshops in these
Of course there are all sorts of shops in these stations, not just bookshops. There are some very classy shops standing alongside the McDonalds, and Burger King and Snack bars. I don’t know if there’d be any shops that would sell items with top price tickets, such as Vacheron Constantin watches, but I didn’t investigate all the shops. That’s usually my wife’s job!
I hadn’t heard about Vacheron Constantin watches until today: seems the brand is the oldest still functioning in Switzerland (Switzerland is next on our list of countries) and the new watches fetch prices in the region of $27,000 and more. That’s US dollars, by the way. Secondhand Constantin Vacheron’s don’t go for much less. Sorry, I should have said, ‘pre-owned’, not secondhand.
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