Interrailing at 60 – week 3

Over half way through on my month long train jaunt around Europe to celebrate being old, and despite all the travelling I am full of energy. Week 1 was in the North, week 2 in the East and week 3 has been in the South. My last blog ended with me arriving in Palermo. The good news is that there was no horse’s head in my bed. Instead I found myself attending mass in the Catholic Cathedral. I do not understand Italian, but my Dad was a vicar and so I could follow the rhythms of the service and it was very peaceful. Mind you, I am not sure what this statue was indicating, outside the door.

Scicily is a slow paced island and I loved my time there. I even bought a cap, like the ones they wear in Godfather 2. It will come in useful next summer on the narrowboat, especially if I need to resolve any family arguments.

Naples was my next stop – two trains, an Italian haircut and a boat away. I have never been to Pompeii so that was my priority. It did not disappoint. The ruins cover a huge area with so many things to discover. And even better, because it was the first Sunday in the month, entrance was free. In my mind I was back in AD 79, under the shadow of Vesuvius.

One Pizza Cappricciosa and a good night’s sleep later and it was off to Genoa via Milan. It is a long journey and the train was delayed, so by the time I got to the hotel, it was nearly dark. I decided to take a walk around the harbour to the old town, and I was rewarded with wonderful old buildings and boats. It really is a beautiful historic town.

Tuesday’s trip was on small trains across the border from Naples to Nice. I was lucky because the Italian train strike did not affect my journey. I was even more lucky because the views from the train were spectacular, as the track clung to the cliffs on the edge of the Mediterranean. I have been on some of the world’s greatest train journeys, including the Glacier Express in Switzerland, and the highland line in Scotland. This route is up amongst the very best – Italian Riviera, Monaco and Cote D’Azur.

Nice is nice. I spent many hours wandering the streets and discovering old churches, art installations and gelaterias. I climbed the steep hill between the promenade and the port. It had the most stunning views. Another town I was sorry to leave.

There was one more town to visit this week and that was Marseille. It is a cosmopolitan city, founded 2600 years ago by the Greeks. The basilica of Notre Dame de la Garde sits on a big hill overlooking the town. This time I cheated and took the bus to the top. Again, incredible views and things to see before I walked down the cobbled streets to the port. I love walking when I am travelling because there are always surprises to find. I wandered into one abbey and found an organist practising. I just sat for a while and listened to the free concert. Then, when I got up to go, I discovered a door to the crypt, and found underneath the church a series of small chapels, hewn from the rock. I would never have found any of this had I not been wandering and wondering.

Having travelled through North, East and South Europe, it will not surprise you that I am going West for the last leg of my adventure. I had hoped to get to Spain and Portugal, but a combination of poor train options and bad weather has encouraged me to change my mind and head to the west of France. I’ll tell you more next week.

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Interrailing at 60 – week 2

I feel that I have now got into the swing of this trip – a month travelling by train through Europe. I am already nearly halfway through and feeling a little tired but I am not complaining. What a whirl it has been. If the first week was a celebration of the north of Europe, this week has been concentrated in the east.

I finished last week in Prague and from there I travelled to the far eastern corner of Czechia in an old industrial town called Ostrava. The industry closed down soon after the fall of communism, but there are many remnants including a huge coal slag heap overlooking the town. It is now a nature reserve and very beautiful, but as I climbed to the top I could still smell burning coal, as some of the “slag” still cooks underground. Early the following morning I ventured out to walk around a massive old iron works. It was dramatic and somewhat spooky.

From Ostrava it is a hop and a skip over the Polish border to Krakow. I had not realised that this is the train line that took Jews to the death camp Auschwitz. I did consider going to see the camp myself, but could not get a ticket. Instead I went to Oskar Schindler’s factory and then to the Krakow concentration camp Plaszow. Until recently I would have just found woodland with one memorial but this year a great deal of work has been done at the site, with many explanatory plaques and pictures telling the story. The visitor centre is not yet complete and the extensive site is not advertised. As a result I was the only person there for much of my visit, which in some ways made it even more poignant.

I did also enjoy myself in Krakow. It is another beautiful east European city, with lovely churches and museums everywhere. I took a trip out to see the salt mine, where over 300 years miners have carved out underground chapels and statues. Stunning. Krakow is also so cheap. I got a huge Polish breakfast for about £5. I will definitely come back.

Krakow to Vienna was on a lovely new train with a panoramic coach borrowed from Swiss Railways. It gave me great views over the countryside as the sun went down.

Vienna is famously beautiful and another great city for walking. I went to see the Spanish Riding School training their horses (no photos of horses allowed) and took a tram out to the outskirts of the town just so that I could take it back in again past the most famous monuments. A lovely place but after Krakow boy is it expensive! My wallet was happy when I got on the night train to Rome.

This is one of the newest night trains – having been put into service a month ago. As well as sleeping compartments for 4 or 6 people, it has the innovation of sleeping pods, known as mini cabins. These are the price of a bed in a couchette but for individual travellers like me, offer privacy and all the mod cons, such as being able to choose whether I want the lighting red, blue, yellow or white.

Rome was busy but not quite as expensive as Vienna. Most of what I do in these towns is free – I walk around and see what I can see. In Rome I did splash out €20 to visit the museum of the ancient Roman Forum. It was a fascinating and huge museum, with few visitors but a great deal to see, imagining myself wandering through the buildings in my toga, two thousand years ago.

Finally this week I took another night train from Rome to Palermo. This is the only train left in Europe where the rolling stock is shunted onto a ferry during the journey. The ferry took us from mainland Italy to Sicily where it unloaded the train again and off we went. The line along the coast in Sicily is one of the most beautiful I have travelled, looking across the blue Mediterranean Sea.

And so, after about 40 hours travelling on just three trains, I have arrived in Palermo, for a couple of days off. It is warm here, and I feel like I am on an old fashioned holiday. But the trains back up the west coast of Italy to France are calling. See you next week!

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Interrailing at 60 – week 1

I explained in last week’s blog that I will be spending a month travelling by train around Europe to celebrate my 60th year. This has been my first week, and what a week it has been.

Through England and France to Belgium, where I stayed the night in the Flemish town of Antwerp, and enjoyed the famous Belgian beers.

Up to Dordrecht (where we once lived), Rotterdam (where I once worked) and finally to Groningen in the northern Netherlands, where I stayed with Christel a friend of nearly 40 years and her partner Gert-Jan.

On through Germany to Denmark, to stay in Copenhagen. Oh my goodness what a beautiful and peaceful city. And so walkable. Loved it.

From Denmark I stayed in Scandinavia, travelling to Stockholm in Sweden. This is the furthest north I have been in my life, and I made it a few miles further by hopping on a local ferry to see the archipelago that Stockholm sits on. I was obviously missing my boat! I also went to see the Swedish parliament. So much politer than the British one.

My first night-train of the trip was from Stockholm to Berlin, taking 17 hours. I shared a cabin with a Frenchman called Pierre, from Marseilles. He was a lovely chap, but after 12 hours in a confined space I was quite glad when he got off at Hamburg!

I dashed around Berlin in a couple of hours because It was too expensive to stay overnight and I chose instead to visit Dresden. I was expecting a bleak grey concrete city, that had been destroyed by the British bombs in the Second World War and then rebuilt by the East Germans. Instead I was greeted by tremendous “old” buildings that have been restored with a great deal of care.

My last trip of the week was to Prague. The train journey from Dresden was perhaps the prettiest so far, through a dramatic valley by the river Kirnitzch. No wonder this area is sometimes called the Saxon Switzerland. I was last in Prague in 1980 under communism. The lovely architecture has not changed but there are now so very many tourists. Too many.

It has already been quite an adventure and I have hardly started. I’m a very lucky boy. I miss sharing the experience with Mandy, but if she was here we would be going at half the speed and staying in twice the price hotels. Next up for me is a coal mining town in East Czechia, Kracow in Poland and then on to Vienna. I’ll let you know how I get on.

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How should I spend a month in Europe?

When I was 18 I really wanted to go on an interrail trip. Interrail is a train pass that allows you to travel pretty much anywhere in Europe, and was introduced back in 1972 for people under 21. Unfortunately I was broke and impatient to get to Uni so never went. This year I am 60 and Mandy asked me what I would really like to do to celebrate. It did not take me long to decide that what I really wanted was to interrail. These days there is a senior pass for people over 60 and that is what I have purchased. And this week I have set off on my journey.

Mandy was originally going to come with me for the first week but one of our dogs has a serious disease so not surprisingly she is staying. That is sad but it does give me the ultimate flexibility to go wherever I want and to see whatever I want. So where should I go?

It will not surprise those that know me that my first instinct was to do a detailed plan, and that is exactly what I did. But then I read lots from people who have interrailed before and their regular advice is to take it slow, and make decisions as you go along. So just the first few days are now planned . I am currently in Groningen in the Netherlands, staying with a friend after travelling yesterday from Stone to London to Brussels and ending up in Antwerp. Tomorrow I will take four trains to end up in Copenhagen for a couple of days before moving on to Stockholm, and then a night train to Berlin. From there who knows? I could go further east to Poland, Czechia, Hungary. Or I could go south through Austria, Switzerland and Italy. Or I could stay in Berlin for longer. Not having a plan makes me nervous but also excited.

What a privilege it is to embark on such an adventure. I am a very lucky man. Please bear with me as my next few blogs will be more about trains than narrowboats. Where will I go? Let’s find out.

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Is this an owl?

I was walking the dogs in Cannock Chase this week, when I came across this bird sitting in a tree above me.

The bird is about 18-24 inches long and sitting quietly on the branch. Apologies that the picture is not clear. It was early morning and the light was not great. But it is clearly a bird of prey of some kind, and I found it unusual that it would not fly away when it saw me and two noisy dogs.

Apple photos tells me that it is a long eared owl. The size is right but to me it does not appear to have long ears and the head shape is more like a falcon or a kestrel. But it is too big for them, and too small for an eagle. Having googled identifying birds of prey, I wonder if it could be a buzzard. If you have any clue, please let me know. And why was it not scared of me?

It is a week since we moored up for the season. We are still living on the boat because our new house will not be ready for another couple of months. But we do have a car, which is a treat after living without for six months. And it does allow me to go to places like this. Perhaps learning to live a slow pace of life on a narrowboat also frames my mind to notice things more like this bird. But what is it?

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Is this our new home?

We have spent the last six months travelling thousands of miles in our narrowboat around the UK. From Stone we cruised up to Runcorn on the Trent & Mersey and Bridgewater canals. Then across to Wigan and along to the end of the Rufford arm of the Leeds & Liverpool. Over to Liverpool itself for a few days in the docks, and then all the way across the Pennines to Leeds. Then it was down the river Aire to the Calder & Hebble, where we needed to buy a four foot wooden spike to operate the locks. From Sowerby Bridge it was the Rochdale canal, one of the bleakest in the UK, but also very beautiful. That took us to the centre of Manchester, from where we travelled up the Ashton and along to the end of the Peak Forest at Bugsworth basin. After a short stay in Whaley Bridge it was back and down the Macclesfield back onto the Trent & Mersey. This time we took a left turn across the Middlewich arm of the Shropshire Union and up to the very end in the boat museum at Ellesmere Port. Back down again we came to the Llangollen where we joined Mandy’s brothers for a week pretending to be a hire boat. Since then it has been all the way to the bottom of the “Shroppie” and back up the Staffs & Worcester and T&M back to where we started.

Aston Marina, Stone, Staffordshire

Every year since I retired we have said we had the energy and desire to do just one more year on the boat. And every autumn we look back on our adventures and say “just one more year”. 2024 has been no different – a very successful year on the boat, but not enough for us to say we have finished.

This winter will be a little different this year because we currently have no house. Our home in Scotland was sold in July, and the house we are buying in Lancashire will not be ready till November or December. So for the next couple of months this is home. Fortunately it is a very friendly marina, with all the facilities we need, and after our journeys this year it certainly feels like home. As the storms batter around us we can batten down the hatches, light the fire and relax.

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Who is missing tigger?

We were travelling up a set of locks on the Shropshire Union canal this week, when I came upon this sad cuddly toy sitting by the lock.

I say “sad” for multiple reasons. Tigger himself looks sad – as if he is missing his owner. The soft toy is looking weather beaten. And I am guessing his owner must also be sad. Tigger looks well loved and someone somewhere will be wanting to give him a hug.

There must be so many special cuddly toys that over the years have been lost or forgotten. I am fortunate enough still to have my blue lamb from my childhood which in point of fact is a grey donkey, but I still call him “blue lamb”. One of my sons had a “puffalump” that became so worn with love that we secretly replaced it one night with an identical one, even going so far as to cut off a strap that had come off the original. My other son use to twiddle cushions and when he is tired (aged 34) still does so.

I guess it is something to do with feeling secure and safe. A special cuddly toy is an important thing to most of us. Where is yours?

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Is this the best time of the year to go narrowboating?

The weather right now is just about perfect for being on a narrowboat. We are waking up to cold crisp mornings with mist rising off the canal. We are getting really beautiful sunrises, sunsets and dramatic moons. During the day the temperature is rising to low twenties – warm enough for shorts and t-shirts.

Narrowboaters are notorious for complaining about the weather. It is either too hot because we live in a tin can, or too cold, because our fingers are going numb driving the boat. It is either too wet, so we don’t want to move the boat, or it is too dry, with water levels falling. It is either too windy, making turning impossible, or too still , encouraging biting insects. We are never happy.

But this week we are. So many smiling faces as we have passed fellow boaters on the Llangollen and Shropshire Union Canals this week. In truth, while I complain, I love living on a narrowboat in all weathers. But this is a very special time of year. Peaceful and very very beautiful.

Thinking back to pre-retirement, I would have been busy in an air conditioned office, missing the weather completely. I loved working but this is so much better.

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Traffic jam on the Llangollen Canal

It has been the quietist summer on British canals for many years. Volunteers from the Canal & River Trust tell me that boat numbers are down a third on last year. There are many reasons for this including a post Covid desire to go abroad, prices being too high from hire companies, and the very wet weather. However that has all changed since the beginning of September and this week on the Llangollen canal has been as busy as any I can remember,

The Llangollen is notoriously a very busy canal and we would not usually have chosen to travel it till later in the month. Often when the kids have gone back to school, retirees get their boats out of the marinas and busy the network. But we had the opportunity to travel with Mandy’s two brothers and their partners, who we’re hiring a boat for a week. It has been a lovely week. We have been down to the very end of the pretty Montgomery Canal, and then along to Llangollen, over the famous Pontcyscyllte aqueduct.

For some reason I don’t understand it is not just old folk like us on the canal this week. Every hire firm seems to have been fully booked for the first time this year, and the cut is full of holiday boaters., We have met groups from America, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden as well as English and Welsh. Why are they all travelling this week?

It has made some of the navigating a little tricky. There was one moment where I thought there would be a standoff between the queue of westbound boats who could not get into a single track tunnel because of boats coming the other way, and a queue of eastbound boats who could not leave the basin after the tunnel because of boats on the aqueduct coming the other way.

Having said that, it has been a really lovely week, full of beauty, adventure, engineering and family. Not a bad way to spend a week… and my life.

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Are retro drinks the best?

I was in a shop in Oswestry this week and found Prime energy drinks at half price. I think it was just a couple of years ago that these drinks were released and for a while became an obsession amongst some groups of young people. There were limited supplies and drinks would exchange hands at well over the asking price. So I decided to try the blue raspberry and see what all the fuss was about.

It was disgusting. The strongest flavour was artificial sweeteners, followed by a slightly acid taste. There was certainly no flavour of raspberry. I admit the hit of caffeine was pleasant enough but I would certainly not buy it again. A classic example of trend over reality.

Let me instead sing the praises of retro soft drinks. These can be found at a bargain price and for my taste are so very much better. Most are from Scottish drinks company Barr.

I have to start with Tizer. Bright flashing red colour, it would originally have been made with enough food dye and levels of sugar to send a small child into a Tasmanian devil. These days the sugar has been much reduced and colourings are natural, but the flavour of red and citrus fruits sill dominate. Originally conceived in Manchester as “Pickup’s Appetiser” it is a favourite of mine.

Another Barr staple is their Cherryade. Of all these drinks this is the one that actually tastes of the fruit – although perhaps the dark bottled maraschino cherries you get in cocktails, rather than fresh fruit. When I worked in Scotland I had a friend who worked at Barr and would get me slabs of 24 cans at a a time for next to nothing. Needs to be drunk cold but very refreshing.

The most famous Barr drink is Irn Bru. With the slogan “Made with girders” it does indeed actually contain iron, as well as bright orange colouring and secret flavours. Scotland is the only country in the world that does not have Coca Cola as its favourite soft drink, preferring this temptation. It also used to be the go-to hangover cure north of the border because of unfeasibly high levels of sugar. There was stockpiling in 2016 when these were reduced. I choose the “Extra” version these days because it has no calories but still that original flavour.

The one soft drink I would celebrate that is not made by Barr is Vimto. Launched in 1908 in Blackburn Lancashire it was originally “Vimtonic” a herbal drink found in temperance bars, as an alternative to alcoholic drinks. The fruit flavours of blackcurrant, raspberry and grape were added in 1920 to make the drink we see today. As well as the fizzy pop, I really like the squash version – my chosen drink when navigating locks on the canal.

All of these retro drinks are leagues ahead of Prime, Monster and other so called energy drinks. What do you think? Are you a retro drinker? Do you have your own favourite – cream soda, limeade, or bubblegum perhaps? Are you a die hard fan of Coke or Pepsi? Or can you explain why anyone would drink Prime?

I’m off to find some orange lucozade. See you next week.

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