34 HOURS NO SLEEP – I must be crazy. Düsseldorf day trip.

34 HOURS NO SLEEP – I must be crazy. Düsseldorf day trip.

[Music] hi everyone my name is Scott welcome to Planes Trains Everything and welcome to a rather windy Edinburgh airport 400 a.m today I’m doing a day trip to Dusseldorf when I booked this maybe 6 7 weeks ago I thought it was a great idea now that I’m actually doing the journey I’m thinking hm it’s a very long journey just to get to Dudeldorf the journey back tonight because it is a day trip after all is going to be twice as long and I have a connection a flight connection with about 5 hours it’s going to be a long long day and as a result I’m going to have about three three and a half hours in Dudeldorf i am looking forward to it because Dudeldorf is my favorite city in Germany after Berlin but three three and a half hours it doesn’t give me much time there is a bit of a theme running in this video today it’s to do with food and as long as I can get a schnitle and a beer at lunchtime I’m going to be a happy man now it is 4:00 it is 3 hours before departure and that’s a little bit early the plan was to originally catch the bus from Glasgow airport at 3:00 a.m but I thought I’m just going to be sitting in the the house watching the clock cuz I don’t sleep before flights it’s the Disneyland effect too excited too many things going through my mind so I thought instead of hanging around until 3:00 a.m why not catch the bus from Glasgow airport at 2:00 a.m i get here an hour early i can go in there get a cup of coffee get up to cruising altitude maybe have a sticky bun or something and then relax so let’s get inside get that coffee [Music] well that definitely hit the spot let’s get air side depending on how long it takes to get through passport control at Dist airport will determine how much time I’ve got in the city center i calculate at an absolute maximum 3 and 1/2 hours that also includes transfer time from the airport into the city center and back again fortunately it’s only about 15 minutes each way but boy this is one of the craziest day trips I think I’ve ever done gate 29 at least the flight’s on time that’s a good thing we got there we got there the flight arrived on time and the clock is now ticking okie dokie 955 didn’t take too long to get through passport control but there is an Sband service which goes into the city center but to get there you have to catch a monorail this is Germany after all oh my god and of course that wasn’t just any old Montreal it was a suspended memorial right where is this train station i was really hoping to buy a return ticket just to save a bit of time but it’s always just one ways they sell anyway we’re going uh down here in about 3 minutes this is a train okie dokie welcome to the center of Dusseldorf i’d sort of calculated it would take maybe about an hour to get from aircraft door to the Hanhov it’s taken 55 minutes that was a good estimate but the actual portion from the terminal to here took about half an hour cuz I had to wait for the suspended Montreal and also the Sband so half an hour going back it is currently 10:25 uh I want to be back here by 12:30 and making a serious inroads into the travel going back otherwise I’m going to start worrying so we’ve got about 2 hours here i’m going to go back in there cuz there’s an Adeka supermarket and there’s some foodie things I need to get while I’m in Germany well I can say 100% that did not go according to plan it was just actually a small supermarket i expected it to be small but not that small that’s like smaller than a Tesco Express it was really quite small and the two things I was trying to get firstly sauce now it’s like a mushroom sauce and it’s used for chicken and pork and you can get something similar to that in the UK but it’s not quite the same there is something different in Jgo sauce couldn’t get that anywhere and the other thing you’ll laugh for bananas haribo do these banana-shaped yellow basically foam bananas and it’s very hard to get them in the UK but you can sometimes get them in Europe and they’re really good for munching when you’re doing a lot of editing and uh Nope nope so I’m I’ve got my eyes open there is a little down that way but I’m imagining it’s going to have the same sort of stuff as my local little in Paisley so I’m not even going to bother going down there where am I going now well there’s a food market down here which according to Google should be open and that will occupy the best part of an hour because at around about uh 11:30 in about 55 minutes time I hopefully will be settling down to a schnitle and a beer and I’ve already sed two places that do schnitle and they should be open wish me luck yes I do like Dudeldorf in fact I’ve had this kind of thing about Dusseldorf since 1980s here we go with a bit of a story when I was living in Sydney I started a five aside football team with a mate of mine Greg and he lived in the northwest suburb of Concord in Sydney and uh I used to follow the German football back in the 1980s and uh we were thinking what are we going to call our team and I said what about Fortuna Concord and that was inspired by the local team here Fortuna Dusseldorf boy we were bad we were really really bad but funnily enough we weren’t as bad as the other teams they were dreadful and we actually managed to win some games so what does Fortuna mean in Fortuna Dusseldorf well in Latin it means luck but it’s also thought that Fortuna was the name of a bakery way back in the early days of the club anyway I’m rambling where’s this market cuz I was just thinking I can’t remember what the market is like although I do know they do uh fruit vegetables that kind of stuff they might do schnitle there that would kill two birds with one stone wouldn’t it i must say it’s very pleasant here in Dudeldorf today not a cloud in the sky 21° C uh maximum of 23 24 unlike Glasgow and Edinburgh where it was more like winter weather this morning boy it was cold in Edinburgh and boy was it wet in Glasgow now according to Google Maps if I just keep walking down this road I’ll come to the market observation in the UK if you’re crossing a a road with a traffic light you’ll press the button and more often than not not bother waiting for the the green man but here in Germany everyone waits for the green man i don’t know if it’s legal or whether it’s just a German thing but you do not cross the road on a red man oh no no no no no and here we are um time to go into stealth mode okay [Music] thank you [Music] sadly that didn’t go according to plan it’s flowers it’s fresh fruit vegetables and a lot of artisan kind of foods but there is a Reva and I’m going to go in there cuz that’s a supermarket yeah [Music] that didn’t go entirely to plan just partially to plan they had the Vina Art the Vianese style mushroom sauce so I got a few of those packets and despite having a huge array of Haribo they didn’t have any bananas right time we got back to uh looking for uh there are two places as I mentioned the first one I’m going to see is Rosies which is down here then a right turn somewhere but I have to cross the road cuz the uh pavement’s blocked okay heat heat it’s 11:15 in the morning and I’m thinking about lunch it is a bit early but then I have been up since well in fact I’ve been up 24 hours now the first wave of tiredness hit me when I was on that easy jet flight but uh I think once I get a schnitle and maybe a beer I’ll be fine for the rest of this journey yeah I was thinking they probably don’t get too many people asking for schnitles and a beer at this time in the morning i mean if I went into a bar at 11:15 and ask for a beer they’d probably think you have a drinking problem but if you go into a restaurant and ask for a schnitle at 11:15 they’re going to think you’ve got a schnitle problem yeah well good news i found Rosies it’s open and I’m going to check the menu just for a moment I thought that wasn’t going to go according to plan they have schnizzle in the menu but it’s the lunch menu and it starts at 12:00 and it’s only 11:20 at the moment but I said any chance I can get a schnitle not a problem yeah no problem free accommodating the Germans and a beer as well a large one so was that schnitle worth being up for 24 hours you bet that was delicious rosy’s is a local restaurant and all you could hear around it was German accents no tourists as a result the schnitle was made correctly too often when you go to a tourist area you get what’s called schnitle but it’s just basically chucked together but that was done correctly the pork was just crossing the the lights here changing the uh the pork was hammered to within a millimeter of its life which is supposed to be and the pork had been obviously dried a bit before the breadcrumbs were applied cuz if you don’t do that if the meat is still wet the breadrumbs come off but that was stuck on that was the way a snitchial soup should be they did me a favor they didn’t have to do a schnitle before 12:00 11:20 I stroll up yeah they did it for me that was delicious right midday i had hoped to be back at the Hanhov at the absolute latest at 12:30 i think I’m okay we’ll head back to the station now well this adventure isn’t over yet i’ve got two flights to catch to get home i’ve got Euro wings from Distled to Stanstead a 5-hour connection there and then easy jet from Stanstead to Glasgow what I will do for 5 hours at Stanstead I’m not quite sure but the word Weather Spoons comes to mind right down here I need to do a left turn and that’ll take me straight to the Hulban hoof it is 12:15 my flight leaves in 2 and 1/2 hours this can be done [Music] platform 14 naturally at the far end of the station oh my god oh that was a close one [Music] okay not quite sure where I’m going absolutely no signs for the uh Montreal but everyone seems to be heading in that direction well that train that I caught from Delledorf Halt Manhof was a different line from the one I used to get into the city center because it dropped me off right at the airport i was expecting to find the Monreal somewhere no wonder I was thrown a bit this is pretty impressive isn’t it i had hoped to get curry verse too as well while I was in Germany and there’s a place back here that sells it but I’m absolutely stuffed after that schnitle it’s just not going to happen i think earlier I said I was uh changing planes in Stanstead that’s force of habit now I’m actually changing planes in Birmingham better get the city right huh [Music] okay we left uh It’s coming [Music] and here we are at Birmingham airport not Stanstead i told you I was tired yeah euro wings i don’t actually mind euro wings uh the flight was about 20% full so loads of space and although I didn’t sleep I think I kind of nodded off in that kind of a twilight zone between being awake and being asleep for about 30 minutes i remember waking up and my mouth was as dry as an Arab sanu right we are here now for 5 hours i might go inside see if I can get a coffee i might actually get a Gregs i’ve just spotted Gregs over there i’m starting to get a little bit peckish wow this gives you an idea of how much traffic there is with Jet 2 out of Birmingham and so having passed through security for the third time today I’m heading into the lounge here at Birmingham 4 and 1 half hours here at Birmingham and I’m ready to go home gates 1 to 20 they’re still not committing themselves as to what gate number but at least I know what part of the airport I’m heading for [Music] i don’t know well that’s 34 hours without sleep i’m a little bit tired i’m going to be home in 20 minutes and in my bed in 21 minutes was it worthwhile well I’ll tell you what that schnitle was amazingly good i really enjoyed the schnitle but when you consider the entire day has been spent traveling to and from Dudeldorf just for 3 and 1/2 hours probably not a good example of time management was it so I might if I do another one of these have a little bit more than three and a half hours that is cutting it to the absolute minimum anyway guys I hope you enjoyed this video i’ll see you next time

I’ve done some crazy day trips in the past, but this one takes the schnitzel. 34 hours without sleep just so I can spend 3½ hours in my second favourite German city.

Filmed June 2025 | Dusseldorf, Germany.

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End-To-End, the world’s longest train journey from Vila Real de Santo Antonio, Portugal, to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

This journey was also captured on video. To see all 16 parts, please visit https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWXCO-zfrKrXRLozbI0vSb9Hfhpli5f7u

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*** PRICES FROM THIS VIDEO:
Glasgow-Dusseldorf: Easyjet £36
Dusseldorf-Birmingham: Eurowings £44
Birmingham-Glasgow: Easyjet £24
S-Bahn 2 x one way fares: €7.20 (appx. £6.15)

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