I have been thinking about my Interrail adventure a lot recently. A year and a half ago I spent a month travelling around Europe on trains. I saw so many sights and had so much fun. I’d love to do it again one day but it did cost a lot of money and took me away from my family, so not for a while. Instead this week I spent one day on some of the most scenic railways in England.
From Preston to Carlisle, then on the famous Settle line to Leeds, before returning on the Bentham line to Lancaster and back to Preston. And all for £34.25.
The weather was not as good as in Sicily during my Interrail trip, but it was clear enough to see the amazing views across the Yorkshire Dales and the South Lakes.
There is something about train travelling that I love. I do not need to concentrate as I do when driving a car or a Narrowboat. I can simply gaze out of the window, listen to a podcast and watch the world go by. I can see great countryside, dream of what it would have been like in the days or steam, and even nosey into people’s back gardens.
And because I am retired I can do it all any time I want to.
So was it a great day out? You bet. And does it count as an adventure. Yeah why not.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Pete's Blog 