Tom Hall: travel, London, other things

A week on and I can’t shake the journey home. The oddness of Munich Hauptbahnhof at 3am. It was not a very deserted place. I was expecting complete shutdown and acres of platform space to myself. The game finished late, and lots of people just kind of bimbled around, seemingly happy to wait for a train. They may have booked a late service thinking of extra time. Services to Ulm and Stuttgart are timetabled, and busy at 2.30 and 3.16am. Trains are not always be prompt in Germany but they do run all night. The 3.16, ICE616, is displayed as running to Munster (West) but in fact snakes its way across the whole country to Hamburg Altona. It’s a regular train, not a night service, so the only accommodation was a seat to curl up in.

How I felt watching the game reminded me of the trepidation of the last European away fixture I’d attended. That beautiful late summer’s evening in St Gallen, Switzerland in the Europa League. While shouting myself hoarse, I also felt far less invested in the result than I do a game at home. I was more focussed on the logistics of getting back to London than feeling deep commitment to the outcome. What was impossible to ignore was the near-total blokeishness of the Arsenal fans around me. The absence of kids (my own kids in particular), older people and women gave the air of a thousand stag parties colliding at once. Not often given free rein, a no-stops male environment felt sharp and extreme – more drugs, more coiled violence, and darker humour. I saw a pre-match punch up a few rows away. Not quite like the days when you flinched inside when one of ours spoke to a foreigner. One older fan though did make himself sound stupid after the game and was easily verbally bested by a Munich fan. – It was a reminder of how I always felt very outside left of this kind of man, and even more different from this generation, though we’re all bound together in wanting the same thing. Perhaps that explains why I turned a bit away from it and thought about the cold platform to come.

It was cold, 1c and no warm spaces. I alternately walked up and down the platform and sat huddled on a bench. Dad dozed off and his legs went to sleep. We walked up and down some more. When the guard arrived and the doors on the train were finally opened at just after 3 it was like being allowed into some kind of sacred space. We departed on time and on hearing the guard’s whistle and feeling the motion on the train I fell asleep. A lovely sleep, whatever the accommodation. Woken at Augsburg. It was dark and nothing was happening. Ulm, Stuttgart, stop, nothing outside, repeat. A vast engine yard loomed out of the darkness, then the shady outlines of the sulking Black Forest. And then high speed to Mannheim. A woman next to me bound for Geneva, I am sure, is on the wrong train. I consider saying something but leave it to the guard. He seems to not correct anything. The connection was tight and I watched the city arrive on Google Maps. We’re not there, we are there.

Connection slightly late and achieved. The Saar, the Vosges, the border, in and out of sleep, then unconscious until just before Paris. On-time arrivals meant there was time to walk to Canal Saint Martin in Paris. Sometimes Paris is like walking into a beautiful vision in its perfection, and on an early Thursday morning there wasn’t a tourist in sight bar us, and a few moments of peace and recovery from the journey. Walk to the Canal Saint Martin. The perfect place appeared from nowhere, the cafe you were looking for. German into French. The Gare du Nord. Then home again on Eurostar. Previous visits to Paris with Dad have gone like this: arrested (1994), agonising defeat (1995), agonising defeat and car broken into (2006) so a nice pastry, coffee and slightly slow passport queue was an exceptional display of benevolence from Marianne and her fair capital.

To live in London was my young wood-dream,—
London, where all the books come from, the lode
That draws into its centre from all points
The bright steel of the world; where Shakspeare wrote,
And Eastcheap is, with all its memories
Of gossip Quickly, Falstaff, and Prince Hal;
Where are the very stones that Milton trod,
And Johnson, Garrick, Goldsmith, and the rest;
Where even now our Dickens builds a shrine
That pilgrims through all time will come to see,—
London! whose street names breathe such home to all:
Cheapside, the Strand, Fleet Street, and Ludgate Hill,
Each name a very story in itself.
To live in London!—London, the buskined stage
Of history, the archive of the past,—
The heart, the centre of the living world!
Wake, dreamer, to your village and your work.

It’s 5.44am on a summer’s Sunday morning on platform 3 of Pesaro’s railway station. A thrilling sight comes into view – a seemingly late-running Treno Notte, thundering off north to Bologna. A few minutes later my train – the first, fast Fresciarossa or ‘Red Arrow’ – pulls in. I leave behind the work appointment that brought me to the Italian seaside on a warm, humid weekend and settle down for the journey north to Milan and beyond.

Six hours earlier, unable to get a taxi to take me back to the hilltop hotel I’d been provided with, I’d puffed my way up the long incline from Pesaro itself, using my phone as a makeshift warning light to oncoming cars appearing in the dark. At 4.30am I’d jumped out of bed before a silent dawn broke, and was slightly surprised when this time a taxi did arrive. As pleasant as Pesaro had been, I was happy to get on, planning on using this day to get north to Zurich, both to take a cheaper flight home and ride a few trains I’d been itching to get on since last summer. 

FR 8802 showed none of my sluggishness for so early on a Sunday. The buffet car was dishing up toasties and espresso doppo to not-home-yet clubbers and, as is compulsory on Italian trains, small groups of small nuns. As the nephew of not one but two nuns I always appreciate this enduring part of Italian life. Though I did appreciate the coffee more. For the first two hours of the journey we sped north along the littoral, first passing Rimini, still asleep after a party-hearty night, then crossing flat plains with the Adriatic on one side and the Apennines on the other. Mostly distant, occasionally handsome hilltowns of Emilia Romagna flashed by, too fast to properly work out which ones they were. At Bologna it felt like we entered northern Italy, platforms more crowded as Sunday morning advanced, and moving on to pass through Modena, Reggio Emilia, Picenza. I loved this train for the ground it covered, and how it didn’t dally even while running ahead of schedule.

Despite the busier feel of the train it was a further jolt awake to arrive in Milano Centrale. First, it was hot, and busy with the first non-Italians I’d seen all day. Secondly, having assumed that if I made it here the next train – heading into Switzerland, the land of clockwork running – would be punctual. In fact, while this regional service was jointly run with SBB/CFF/FFS (Swiss Railways) and Trenord, Lombardia’s train service, it was mostly an FFS kind of service. No-one knew which platform it was leaving from, a 10 minute delay crept up to 15, and it was completely jammed with Milanese heading to Como for a day out by the lake. Once we’d reached there, the crowds thinned out, but on entering Switzerland we came to a halt in Chiasso and it seemed disinclined to go any further. My spare hour in Locarno got halved. I ceased to like this train.

‘A-ha!’ the smart-arse with the SBB app thought – look across to neighbouring platform six! Here was an SBB service to Locarno, leaving in ten minutes. I jumped. Two minutes later lots of other passengers drifted over too. Then – you may have guessed the punchline – our original train, without warning, closed its doors and pulled out. Never mind. This new train ended up being a few minutes late, but it’s hard to be overly annoyed if you get a slower look at the extraordinarily beautiful green scenery between Chiasso and Lugano.The last section to Locarno feels optional. Nice, but unless you’re going to hang out in Locarno – I’d still like to one day, but I don’t think it’d be my first pick in the area – that’d be the small villages opposite Lugano hugging the hillside above Lake Maggiore. Go to Bellinzona from Milan and change there for onward trains if not taking faster services (note for future self in case I forget).

Back on time, the day’s headline attraction rolled into Locarno. The Treno Gottardo, a lovely bronze beast of a train, is a recent addition to Swiss timetables, and is a suitably democratic offering from this vote-happy nation. Running over much of the same tracks as the Gotthard Panorama Express (a pricey tourist-aimed experience with large windows and a boat across Lake Lucerne thrown in for good measure), this is a regular scheduled hourly service from Locarno to either Zurich or Basel. It’s a great alternative to the tourist train. The windows are still large, but it’s used by Swiss to get around, with lots of travellers riding to access hiking trailheads or hop on connections to more distant parts. You can do all this, or just sit and enjoy the view from the still pretty large windows. To stretch legs, there is a vending machine area of the train offering snacks, hot drinks, and, for the first time I’ve ever seen it, risotto with Ticino mushrooms. I’m not sure where the necessary hydration comes from for the risotto. No matter. 

The Treno Gottardo gallops along the same route as faster services to Zurich for the first part of the journey. Then, once north of Bellinzona, veers on to the classic Gotthard line, travelling more slowly up towards the summit of one of Europe’s great crossroads. On the way it goes up and over itself on several jaw-dropping sections of track, weaving under and over vast road bridges carrying traffic (jams) doing the same. It is simply stunning. There are waterfalls, fast-flowing Alpine rivers, and the sort of high Swiss villages you’ve probably seen in a dream where you wake up as Heidi. Or Peter. Or both. Once over the other side the trick is repeated, twisting and turning, with wonderful views and steep drops. I wish to come back and hike the Gotthard Trail between Göschenen and Altdorf, connecting the history of the line. Then again, I wish for many more visits to Switzerland, to be lucky enough to see more of this beautiful place.

To see more, by all means, but flying out of Zurich is a cloak of convenience by which to visit one of my favourite places in Europe. This is the third year on the trot I’ve found a way to jump into the Limmat River, now becoming a familiar path from Hauptbanhof, left over the bridge and along the waterside path to the pontoon by the fast-flowing, clear blue water. This day was a hot and sunny summer’s afternoon, and the atmosphere was a little rave-like, with music, dancing and lots of sunbathers. I got changed near a group of grinding guys in small briefs, which made both them and I laugh. Getting away from most people was pretty easy as it just involved getting in the water, even if jumping in required leaving a bag unattended and at times out of my sight. But it’s a risk worth taking, as was walking further downstream to one of several lovely garden bars, informal and inviting, for a sundown beer. Mein deutsch may be better, it’s still nicht sehr gut, but it held up ok. 

The evening was a walk through Zurich to the lake, which I’ve never done, and will never bother doing again. The lake isn’t even as nice as Geneva’s, and the Old Town such as it is was home to the tourist dumps I’d managed to avoid on every previous visit. Still, any guilt about my dinner was removed when I saw the size of the rosti portions most men were eating silently with their mute partners. There was time for one last don’t-know-when-I’ll-be-back swim before heading back to the cheap and cheerful (not often you hear that in Switzerland) Hotel Arlette, close to the river and the Hauptbanhof, and apart from wifi completely unreconstructed. I had visions of getting up early enough for a dawn swim before heading to the airport and probably could have, but it was a little murky at the start of the day, and there was one last train, which I got told off on for travelling on given I had a ticket for another one. 

Zurich Airport is really confusing and has bad signage, and I don’t like flying when I could train, but I couldn’t on this occasion. The pilot did land at City, which was one up on the last flight I took there. And then back into London, where people may be less glamorous than in Zurich and carry less pizzazz than in Pesaro, but we all look real and mean it and are serious, so welcome home, it was great, I’m very lucky.

I was just here, feeling lucky, and I’m here again, ready to be thrown out into the freedom of the city, in time to overdo it until it’s time to come home again. First there’s the small matter of getting into the country and then into the city. I ran off the plane straight into the full stop of a non-moving immigration queue. It took 90 minutes in a hot, low-ceilinged room and was as loveless a welcome as we reserve for people who want to come into the UK. It passed, but it drained my aims for an evening of expansive exploring in upper Manhattan and the Bronx. This would have to wait. Instead I paced the streets around the hotel, had a beer, ate something I can’t remember that I think was a typically vast, welcome to America sandwich, and thought about tomorrow’s early start.

Before dawn, or just around it, I hopped on a couple of subway trains north, slightly panicky in my decision-making and in a pre-office headspace, itinerant and pacing. The subway was hot and surprisingly well-used at this hour, though passengers had thinned out by the time I reached the former Polo Grounds site and then through Washington Heights, closed doors and quiet in the early morning. The houses were beautiful and there was a sense of elevation and space. I had no idea who lives here. Manhattan is narrow at this point and rivers felt close by. I had enough done in my bag to show whatever face I felt the need to to colleagues for the day. 

That evening I managed to escape again, this time to and from Grand Central Station, rattling uptown through Harlem, twice in a day, to a place that could be called anywhere and is called Fordham, not somewhere I’m especially interested in but that formed the basis of the outing to leave Grand Central and then return again. Both start and finish of the journey were strange and spectacular. The underground platforms and tracks formed a labyrinth of ramps, sidings, dirty iron columns and other indistinguishable things. Was that a dirt and darkness-covered glimpse an ancient railway carriage, or something else? Who was down here with me? And then suddenly through a narthex doorway back into the main body of the station, walking straight out of the vast concourse but turning round each time one last time. Each time might be the last time, so I took one more look. Then one more. You never know.

On Wednesday morning I became more of a regular member of the human race and met colleagues at 6am outside their hotel. Immediately the pace slowed, other people need tickets, need a coffee here and there, want to stop and look at things, are fun and good company. But we got over to Brooklyn Heights before 7am, to that wonderful promenade, then across the Brooklyn Bridge in the windy and cold early air. I was cold, but it was a good morning and in particular I felt good at helping other people, though I’m not sure how much they needed it. 

Wednesday evening, team outing, a place called Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn but could be anywhere. I liked it. The best bit was the rattling subway over the Manhattan Bridge with Patrick, a here-i-am feeling with the evening sun shining off the East River and the skyscrapers to the south. The train was noisy and smelt. We emerged onto Atlantic Avenue and walked for miles, another area of the city that’s full of people and sound and makes you feel like New York is endless. The night ended with a walk home along Broadway, a walking cliche, listening to Television. I’m not normally awake at night in New York and enjoyed it a lot.

5am Thursday and home time later that day. I was without a major destination so decided to walk downtown to the World Trade Center, a walk of about two and half miles not counting diversions. I spoke to several people on this trip about 9/11 – the taxi driver who had a close escape and several colleagues, and knew there was a coffee stop and some historic buildings to look at from the outside. Everything’s always closed at this time so interesting buildings are good things to aim for. It was cold again, the sunshine not really breaking through. At the memorial I watched as three fire trucks came in and unloaded with firefighters in full gear. They didn’t stick around longer than to be a ghost of that day.

After work – nothing to say about the strange silence of this day, other than that it reminded me of the last days of 240 Blackfriars and I didn’t like it – I ended up aimless, before heading to the airport, a sketchy and unhappy journey of wrong turns ending at the tidal marshes by JFK. So distant and detached, but served by very regular subway trains, I can only imagine myself pacing for a few minutes around Broad Channel, or Far Rockaway, then retreating to fight through the airport. Time was already becoming confusing, it was time to go home. 30,000 steps a day or something. Or something else.

It has turned out to be rather hard to come back to earth after a visit to Walnut Tree Farm. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. Having reached the open fields of the common, with cows grazing in the afternoon sun, then turning down a narrow track, then another and emerging through trees into somewhere suddenly made of wood, bricks and mortar it felt that everything here might be a dream, or just made of the the sound of birdsong a little louder than at home.

Here, like in all the daydreams I’d had about what it was like here, the sun shone gently through the trees. The breeze blew long grass around in front of me. It was a little cooler than the baking sunshine of high East Anglian summer. The owners have looked after the farm well, with creepers reaching around ancient harrows and lean-tos for drying wood. The hedges hide back-to-nature bicycle frames, cartwheels and not-sure-whats. The Maytime wildflowers are tall in the meadow by the railway wagon. We slept so well here we all overslept including Rosie the dog, who spent her time bouncing through the long grass chasing Winnie as she lapped the field and urged us into more games of hide and seek. 

The moat was green and cool with its spring-fed good looks, a perfect pool to swim in just a little. Two swims left a fiercely chilly impression. One in the early evening, one in the not-too-early morning. It took Winnie a few goes to get in down the ladder but she eventually did, twice cursing us for various offences we are immediately pardoned for once she was heading up and down, grinning away. On one occasion while this kerfuffle was going on the owners of the farm tended to beehives. Once in, Winnie stayed in, swimming strongly, water spirits smiling approvingly.

The farmhouse, centuries old, is covered in high-rise roses, with windows defiantly open to the elements. It has no central heating which apparently and believably you adapt to quickly. The former owner, the reason for coming here, is hinted at rather than shown. The Great Eastern main line between London and Norwich passes to the east of the farm and trains swish past periodically. At the Cow Pasture Lane level crossing we explored on the way to St. Mary’s in nearby Thornham Parva there are very modern concrete mounting posts for very modern horse-riders to dismount, call to get permission to cross the line and the remount on the other side. The church itself showed off half-hidden medieval wall drawings – a cartwheel, a wolf, cartoonish saints, and an out-of-place but astonishing altarpiece, the ultimate barn find. Its roof and tower and thatched. It was quietly incredible. 

There are plenty of ghosts all over this place. They’re very happy here.

As awakenings go it was an unusual one. An entire Romanian Railways vagonul de dormit (Sleeping Car) worth of passengers’ mobile phones emitting a three-beep alarm. Bleary-eyed, I pulled up the blinds to reveal a snowy Transylvanian landscape, all birch trees, woodland paths and, in the distance, jagged-tooth mountains. And on my phone the words EXTREME ALERT! The presence of a bear was reported … avoid the area! Stay indoors! Keep away from the animal and do not try to take pictures of it or feed it.

Inside the cosy embrace of the sleeper I was momentarily confused. Unless there was a bear loose somewhere in the train there seemed little need for such an alarm. I had no plans to go outside at all until we reached Bucharest, some four hours down the line. Most intriguingly, whose instinct on bumping into a bear on a remote track in the Carpathian mountains was to see if it was hungry? The alert, it transpired, was something of a blunt instrument, aimed at skiers but delivered to everyone in the vicinity. We just so happened to be passing through Romania’s main winter sports area around Brașov. 

The Ister, so named for the Roman term for the Danube river and a stately bastion of Central European train travel, has been passing this way every day since inheriting the trans-continental baton from the starily-named, but actually pretty workaday, Orient Express. While the long-distance link from Paris itself to Bucharest is now severed into sections, the Ister, without fanfare, forms the evening departure from Budapest, Hungary, to Romania’s capital.

Budapest is a wonderfully well-connected place to start or finish an adventure on the rails. From here, long-distance services snake their way across Europe; reaching first Bratislava, then Vienna and Munich to the west, Bucharest to the east, Warsaw to the north, and Zagreb and the Croatian coast to the south. Most services of significance depart from stately Keleti (Eastern) station, one of the continent’s finest hubs. Four trains travel from here to Bucharest each day – one day train and three night services, named Muntenia, Ister and Dacia. 

My travelling companion and fellow train buff Imogen and I decided to travel on the middle of the three. It offered a dinner-time departure and mid-morning arrival. That meant a choice between a seat, a bunk in a four-berth couchette or a more private, and slightly more expensive, sleeper compartment. In fact the latter was the only choice available due to our late booking. The compartment came with bedding already made up and bottles of water. 

Before the train, there was some time to enjoy the fabulous winter destination that is Budapest. In between invigorating hikes to Buda vantage points was the chance for chocolate cake in grand cafes and, best of all, the city’s famous thermally-heated baths. Each is different, and while the Szechenyi Baths grab the headlines the art nouveau Gellert complex is equally  jaw-dropping. Its grand entrance hall leads to ornately-tiled bathing areas, an outdoor plunge pool and, most famously of all, a column-lined main pool that is a contender for the world’s most fabulous indoor pool. This area was only accessible to bathers wearing a cap, which you could buy on site and then gurn around taking selfies: slightly disconcertingly, the Gellert management didn’t seem bothered about stopping anyone taking photos in such surroundings. While magnificent, it’s not a cheap visit at 9400 Hungarian Forint ($26.50) plus the price of whatever accessories you’ve not bought with you – towels cost 5000 HUF ($13.80). (For comparison, this is half the price of Iceland’s Blue Lagoon.) There are smaller, more affordable spa baths around Budapest such as the Lukacs and Rudas Baths. Check online (spasbudapest.com), however, which ones might accommodate you as some are restricted by gender depending on the day of the week. 

After a leisurely amble across Pest to Keleti, we had an hour or so to kill before departure and were able to enjoy a craft beer in the handily-placed Keleti Waiting Room. While Keleti station itself has some dramatic ante-rooms which can double as perfectly adequate waiting areas, this cellar bar is in fact few minutes walk from the terminal, selling a huge variety of brews in a snug vaulted basement. A fine place to settle in. Wobbling slightly on departure, there was time to pop into a supermarket for train provisions. We knew there was no dining car on the Isterand though reports suggested one was attached in the morning this turned out not to be the case. A train picnic was therefore very welcome.

After a short stroll under the atmospheric lights of Keleti we boarded the Ister around 20 minutes before departure at 19:10. Even in the middle of the winter season, I had expected it to be a little busier, but our carriage was no more than half full. We were even offered an on-board upgrade to a compartment with a shower for 20 Euros each, cash only. Several groups were only on board as far as Romania’s biggest draw for travelers, the town of Brașov, reached at breakfast time. Heading in the other direction, this service has been heavily used by Ukrainian refugees over the past year. It was certainly efficient. I’ve explored Europe’s night train network extensively in the past few years and found many of them to run unapologetically late, which is part of their slow-travel charm. Unless, of course, you have an onward connection and then find yourself remonstrating with an overly-relaxed platform attendant at Munich Ost station. No such worries tonight.  The Ister glided out of Keleti on time and despite multiple locomotive changes, two border controls and the vagaries of crossing snowy mountain passes stayed on the clock throughout. 

Apart from feasting on everything we’d brought at the Keleti branch of the Spar supermarket and toasting our good fortune, there wasn’t much to see as we halted at a seemingly endless succession of small Hungarian towns and villages. The Ister reached the border a little before midnight and  made steady progress – averaging around 40 miles per hour –  across Romania through the night. making stately progress through the night. And once the prospect of meeting a bear had woken us up, the scenic highlight of the route: passing through the Carpathian Mountains between Sighișoara and Sinaia. Dense forests heavy with snow. Ramshackle villages jostling with new-build big-time houses on their outskirts and, in places, ski lifts already carrying Alpine enthusiasts off for their day in the hills. With a few hours to go until Bucharest, this was also a very relaxing part of the journey. No 6am arrival into a still-sleeping terminus to contend with, just the chance to watch Romania unfold around you. 

Eventually the hills and forests did give way to a flatter, more industrial landscape as we reached the hinterland of the capital. Then journey’s end at Bucuresti Nord station, a vast, colonnaded monolith when viewed from the outside but actually a relaxed and intimate place to arrive. This turned out to be much like Bucharest itself: an unheralded and European capital. With more trains to explore from here – a night service to Moldova, a daily route into Bulgaria,  or regular trains to the Black Sea, this felt like the start of something rather than the end of the tracks.

The breakdown: 

How much?

A berth in a two-person sleeper felt well worth the £75 / $89 / E84 each. 

Best Time To Go

Like all services across Europe, peak time on the Ister is school holiday time. If you can travel midweek you should find the best deals and quieter trains. 

Tickets

Booking was easy at Romanian railways https://bileteinternationale.cfrcalatori.ro/en/booking/search – getting hold of the ticket was a two stage process where you find your booking online and then generate a ticket to print or show on your phone. You can book up to 90 days in advance.

I can’t write, I can’t speak, I don’t know where to start about the whole thing. Would you? What would you say about the thick jack frost on the grass, turning the ancient heathsides bright white? About the sun’s vigour, bursting through bare trees?

And what of the water, waiting like always, but always something new, today with its yellow fire-flame on rippling falls and rises and who knows what tomorrow? Then steaming bodies and animated conversation to dry off, useless fingers and ‘I don’t know what now, how about another turn?’

Back past the edges of the pond again, round the stationary sun-worshippers, some prodding at new-forming ice with their feet, and a return to the real world up the hill.

I think you’d also try to put into words the wonder, your good fortune, and how with so much world to travel over, this is a patch that’s found and hundreds of feet in the air with the spirits and magic.

Covid testing to enter the USA
If there’s a place to start a journey of thousands of miles it’s not a dormant car park by the North Circular Road at Brent Cross pressed into use as a COVID-19 test centre, but here we are as a family, needing five negative tests the day before our visit to Belize. The nurse assures us we are all fine and I relax, but only four results out of five are emailed through when we get home. After fretful hours pacing, talking, debating replanning the whole trip, the final one pings into my inbox. Coming back from Belize, the swabbing nurse vaguely introduces my nostril to the cotton wool bud and pronounces I am clear of infection. I ask her when she last had someone test positive, preventing them from undertaking their expensive and timely journey home from vacation in this Central American idyll. ‘Been a while.’ she deadpans.

Cycling
Half term, on a bike in the Yorkshire Dales. The bike is propped up against a drystone wall. I’m resting for a bit on a bench bearing the dedication ‘may I always see green’.

Rotterdam & Amsterdam
June. On an orange bicycle, an increasingly irrelevant distance into riding round the endless warehouses and wharves of Rotterdam’s Europort, with the sun feeling like summer. Water, big ships, trucks, space. Later on, having a drink outside a bar in Amsterdam awaiting an evening departure from Centraal on the night train to Zurich. As the train leaves the old city views immediately fade, the tracks instead shadowing an outdoor terrace filled with young people enjoying the warm evening. In a common theme of the year, my train sat for a little too long outside the station after that.

An Italian waterside
Lugano in Italian-speaking Switzerland, here for the unimaginable luxury of two fresh water swims in the same day. The town sits glamorous and rolling down the hill from the station to the waterside. A small, stony beach is just right for half an hour, looking across the lake to somewhere even more heavenly. From here it’s down, down, down to Milano Centrale and a sweaty walk to the Duomo, astonishing all over again. Somewhere along the line I’ve given up going in to places like this, content to wander and admire from the outside, and avoid the crowds, queues, x-ray machines.

Overland to Hamburg
Aachen, on-board the notorious and ill-fated ICE 15 from Brussels to Cologne. All summer this train has run when it felt like it, which wasn’t often, yet it was a key part of our journey from London to Denmark. Like a parody of itself, our delay in Aachen is first announced as being ten minutes, then 45, then indefinite. We jump off and run down and up stairs to make an alternative, a local train puffing along via Monchengladbach then, eventually reaching Dusseldorf, have two options of late-running trains to Hamburg. Boarding the train we were supposed to be on, we continue north as the Ruhr gives way to the rural flatlands of the north-west, the sun dipping to turn the fields golden. A thread of sunshine leads from there to a happy evening dinner a long way from home. Again, we made it and I am relieved, exhilarated, exhausted.

Toucans
The jungle in Belize provides an immersion that is immediate, and incredible. From our balcony Winnie points out a toucan. She spots it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. To me it is a revelation. I feel like I’ve forgotten what it was like to be a child and to stare for hours at pictures of their colourful beaks at a table at home. Here are two, real, clacking away, looking impossible but also real. I feel lucky to be here and hope this moment never leaves me.The whole world looks like a jungle from the top of a vast, steep-stepped Mayan pyramid. 

The Queen
Late September in the summer with the evening setting over green hills outside the Kydunapark in St Gallen, Switzerland. I’ve come a long way to watch Arsenal, who are having a good season. Not for the first or last time this truncated season I’m not sure if I want to be there. Or rather, once here I’m looking for the door. At half time the Queen died, not long after I decided to head back for my home for the night, talking with some Englishmen who had made Switzerland their home, for reasons I didn’t ask and found in my lack of knowledge envious and unfathomable. 

Cork
Late into rainy Cork, and getting last orders for something to eat at what still feels like quite an early time, but anyway. I nose around for a few hours feeling as confused as ever about being in Ireland, loving the differences and the similarities and the puzzle of the whole thing.

Constantinople
Istanbul, overwhelming in its wonder and sense of singularity, disappointing in that it’s not still the capital of Byzantium, and that her guardians today don’t seem to want mosaics, littering capitals, old railway stations. I walk for far too long, looking for something. Eventually I see what it might be – the suburban railways emerging from a tunnel outside the Theodosian walls, the night sleeper to Sofia passing Edirne, subtly lit up past midnight.

Walking through Liverpool
Walking back into Liverpool from Anfield. I knew from the map that Everton was a kind of escarpment over the maritime plain, but being here at night offered a lovely view after a fun night in the safe standing Anfield Road end. A timeless place, heavy with legend no matter how many times you might come here and lose. Two home fans whizz by on scooters. I relish every step back to the waterfront, with ghosts for company still pacing along, looking for the streets of gold, the next day following their tracks south.

Swimming in Hamburg
Hot, hot, hot. Hamburg is baking as we stop off here bound for Denmark. There’s a swimming spot right in the heart of the city we aim for, just opening, not too busy. Finding a small patch of shade, we take it in turns in the water. There’s a slide you can swim to and distant view of a grand but unremarkable schloss. It doesn’t feel like home, it’s the reward for our exertions the day before getting here.

Rome walk
Arriving in Rome from Perugia in the rainy darkness. It isn’t cold. Termini is full of life and fast trains. In Rome you can quickly duck back in time, to the preferred Italian era of 1984 or possibly much earlier, when things, you feel, had a flavour of being just so at that point and not really worth moving from. Ambulances wail occasionally, cars and motos rumble over so many cobbles. Walking through Monti the buildings are yellow, red, orange, vast baroque churches appear visibly squatting on top of ancient predecessors, pavements are dead-ended by scooter parks and walls over to what? Then just like that I pop out at Trajan’s column, the forum, that huge Italian reunification memorial, the Tiber, Trastevere. It is wonderful, workaday, the best there is. It keeps raining.

Border crossing
Kapikule at 2am, Europe’s hard edge, a clock already ticking as the queue moves slowly along. It’s dark and locked in time here, 1987, or 1995, or something. Impossible to sleep at the place where Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria meet. The locomotive creeps through the frontier, to Svilengrad, perhaps Bucharest would have been a better choice, perhaps next year. This journey worked for me.

Across the sea
As the fast boat speeds across the Caribbean Sea the water gets bluer and bluer until its a kind of parody of a pirate film. In turn I become a stereotypical holidaymaker, yes I will have another cocktail, blunder getting my family off this boat, fail to tip properly. No matter, even if I still feel bad about the tipping. Caye Caulker is beautiful, the sun is shining, we have made it.

Panorama Train
Geneva has a beautiful lake, a lovely stretch of fast-flowing river and an air of constantly, lovingly admiring its own arsehole. I can’t get away fast enough. Changing trains in Montreux the Golden Pass train blows my mind, softened slightly by the knowledge that it would, all the way to Spiez – via a change at Zweisimmen – where the view is even better than I remember and real people live and go on holiday. Being in Switzerland is like having honey poured over my eyes, and my anxious head being stroked by an endless chain of on-time railway departures.

Before the night train
Another European city that makes my heart ache. Hamburg in late September is still a kind of sit out on the pavement kind of place. Altona in the hours before my train makes me happy. The anonymity of sitting quietly with a quite incredibly good beer – maybe the moment more than the taste, I’m not sure – and the promise of the night journey on to Stockholm, is there anything better than being here, bound for somewhere?

A second beer, maybe, eventually, ordered and arriving at Cafe Captein & Co in Amsterdam, where Lastegeweg and Oude Waal meet.

The sun has blazed today, meeting with force my mind’s idea of the appeal of European summer heat, and baking my meandering cycling round Rotterdam and later wandering round this perfect place. In all my visits here I don’t think I’ve ever managed to find just this spot to sit. This is the city of quick interruptions to peaceful moments, alleys ending on seedy streets lined with beautiful houses and canals. Is it real? Here I am, back in Europe like before, same dreams of people, places and things, timetable in hand, in constant motion apart from these few moments. The sun streams over the gable end. What heaven is this?