The small Franconian town of Coburg has just hosted the world’s largest Samba Festival outside of Brazil. Around 200,000 visitors attended the yearly celebration with Samba groups from all over the world. Participants included Rio’s reigning Carnival Queen who probably wondered in temperatures of mid 30˚C if she was on the wrong continent. Stern Online has some images of the celebration – click here.
With increasing flight costs and the odd volcano outburst, train travel – in particular on high speed trains – will maybe become more of an alternative for business and leisure travellers. State owned Deutsche Bahn has ambitious growth plans, also in the UK. It already has various operations here such as Chiltern Railways, Wrexham and Shropshire Railways, London Overground, DB Schenker, the Tyne & Wear Metro and possibly soon also bus and train operator Arriva.
The new €4 billion New Heart of Europe project will establish a high speed rail link between Stuttgart and Ulm and complete the high speed route between Budapest and Paris. This includes moving rail infrastructure and the main train station underground and redeveloping the then newly available land in the centre of Stuttgart.
Over the next four years, Deutsche Bahn plans to invest a total of €41 billion in infrastructure and new trains. Click here for full article.
If you enjoy travelling by rail and are looking for a good source of information, The Man in Seat Sixty-One is probably your best bet. Mark Smith has worked in railways throughout his career, initially for British Rail, two major UK train companies and the Dept for Transport. His passion for European and international rail travel means that other travellers can now draw from his experiences and even rail travel agents refer their passengers to his award winning blog.
Stammtisch 
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