A selection of journeys ranging from the diabolical to the divine

Pure Heaven

TRAIN: Deutsche Bahn ICE
Berlin to Munich

The scheduled service did what it said it would on the tin: six hours on the dot with one change in Nuremburg, travelling on Deutsche Bahn’s ICE high-speed inter-city service. Berlin’s new Hauptbahnhof is a delight, albeit huge – but the undoubted highlight is the trains themselves, which are sculpted into airy, relaxing spaces with clean upholstery and palatable catering. The service doesn’t beat the flight time of one hour, five minutes between the same cities, but it’s better if you want to get your head down and work. The carriages have T-Mobile Wi-Fi hotspots that can be accessed even when the trains are thundering along at 300km/h. Journey time: six hours, 30 minutes, versus one hour, five minutes by air.