Good morning and welcome to the Independent Travel Podcast, the first one of June, with me, Simon Calder, on a very special day indeed.

I'm coming to you from a hotel balcony, just overlooking the main railway station in Cologne.

In Germany, the astonishing twin towers of the cathedral are soaring heavenwards,

but my attention is drawn entirely by the platforms in front of the hive of activity.

Now that's partly because it's nine o'clock in the morning

and people are going to work.

But it's also because today is Wunderbar Wednesday.

Well I'm afraid that's what I'm calling it.

It's not what the official name is.

That would be Wunderbar Midwark, of course.

But it is Wunderbar because the very best

rail deal in the history, I think, of European rail is now open for business. Let me suggest

that you might want to take the 11 minute train ride from Bristol to Bath.

Perfectly good service. It will cost you £8.70 more than you want to pay.

If you pay a pound less than that, you will be able to travel anywhere in Germany by rail, by bus, by tram, by Uber, the underground trains, and that's going to cost you

nine euros, about £7.70. And that's not for one day, it's for the entire month. I keep thinking,

well, there must be a catch to it somewhere, but I've tried it out. It works an absolute

treat. No time limits. There have previously been some really good German rail tickets,

particularly for individual regions, but you can't use those till after 9am on Wednesdays,

but I was travelling a lot earlier than that. The only terms and conditions really that apply are, well,

there's a gleaming intercity express train just over there setting off for Berlin shortly. I can't

catch that. There's some privately run trains. One's just drawn out from Blasined National Express, yes, our lot. And Flix train as well.

...