Goodbye Berlin. Hello Deutsche Bahn and a marathon cross-country train ride.

The phenomenon of reserving train seats in Germany is a curious one. Because we are happy to pay inflated prices for fast train connections but not willing to part with the required €1.50 to reserve seats, Wilken and I tend to join the throngs of harried travellers who get shunted from seat to seat every time the rightful owners turn up.

The ultimate seats are those facing each other over a table – which on German trains have power outlets for the important business commuter or, in Wilken’s case, Starcraft-playing square-eyed nerds – and now, on account of his gammy knee, our search for seats must be even more precise. Table seats but with just a single seat on one side, if you please, so said gammy knee can be comfortably outstretched.

Given that at the best of times it’s a rare find to get even two seats – not next to each other, mind – in cattle car class, we’re really after the holy grail of train travel.

But today we hit paydirt, and though we spent six bated hours fearing that at any moment the displaced Bochum to Magdeburg reservees might show, we emerged nonetheless wholly satisfied with ourselves.

See? Who needs seat reservations, we say. Not us.