I thought the silence would be ominous. But the nighttime sounds of the Venetian Lagoon never really went to sleep. My room on Murano had a wonderful window on the moon reflecting the water over to the Lido, the starry night sky, and constant soundtrack of boats puttering back and forth, the occasional whirring warble of a curlew, the waves washing on the wall.
All of this and the after-wire of two busy work events, regular work seeming to explode in a froth of vengeant resistance to me being away, and a lack of trust in a 4.39am vaporetto to the mainland turning up meant I’d found sleep hard to come by. Waking up, what now feels like a thousand years ago, was physically painful. But I was outside the ferry stop in good time, and an even earlier boat emerged out of the darkness. I got on it, in fact I got on it wrong way. I know I had erred in some way because the guard told me off. Not that I really cared: I was relieved the journey was starting in good time for the first connection.
Venice is not really dry land but I was soon on it and able to walk through the kind of silence I’d been expecting on Murano, strolling over bridges and down narrow alleys of Cannaregio, eventually disappointed to find that I was on the direct, broad route to Santa Lucia station. This station is almost holy ground for me, where despite the excesses and crowds of Venice its magic works like a dream or time travel made real. There are times when you’ve never seen anything like it, when it almost hurts your eyes to keep seeing such beauty, and here it’s always the first time again, and minutes on the steps of Santa Lucia are riven through with the magic of the place. Just for a little while, like last time, I had the place all to myself.
Another quietly welcome arrival at the station was my Italo train to Milano Centrale, unfussily doing the business across Italy’s Northern Line. Padua, Verona, Lake Garda all gone by before dawn, and into Milan for the morning rush. No sleeping on this train whatever the plan might have been, just a fun trip to the coffee vending machine and on into the European day.
Milan was busy – it’s always busy – and the station wowed like each time. It’s not routine coming through here by any means, but it’s usually a staging post to reach into Switzerland, and today I was Basel-bound rather than Zurich.
Our inter-city service slouched. First, it sat unhurriedly in the tunnel that marks the frontier between Italy and Switzerland. Then it waited at Chiasso for an age. The same at Lugano, and again at Arth-Goldau, on the other side of the Gotthard Base Tunnel. A good thing it was that in between Switzerland was sunny, green and holding on to late summer. Strange too I’d never really noticed passing the Rutli Meadow, where Switzerland was founded, nor Tellsplatte, where (waffle about William Tell). I don’t really know who he is to be honest. I almost made alternative plans than my booked route to Basel, where I was aiming for a Rhine swim, thinking I could backtrack instead to familiar and safe swimming territory in Zurich and catch my TGV to Paris at its start there. In the end the train was cancelled from Zurich to Basel, so right decision.
Basel was not quite the fizz-bomb of city I had been led to believe, or hoped. While Venice and had been sunny and late season if Venice does that kind of thing, as had the Alps, Basel felt like summer had passed and while it was still sitting outside weather, you’d do so in long trousers and a fetching jumper. I thought of the riverside boardwalk in Zurich, with its middle-European energy, and kicked myself a bit even if I had come here to do something different on a train change in Switzerland.
Basel likes to present itself as a swimming destination, somewhere to arrive, pick up a fish-shaped waterproof bag, wander down to the Rhine and then float off like a delighted seal for several miles. The challenges for the temporary visitor, in reality, are legion. Firstly, the would-be swimmer must pick up one of said bags, and, unless they have a hotel room or other location to deposit other things, ensure the vast majority of their possessions are in a locker at Basel SBB station. Or leave it all on the riverbank, float off and collect it. Or leave it downriver, walk back upriver and then hope it’s all still there. Either way, in 2026 – and I would think generally – doing this whole thing without shoes would be very difficult. The Rhine had been at historically low levels after the long hot summer and has yet to recover. The fish-shaped bag I am sure would have worked very well but mine stayed dry. I satisfied myself with a refreshing, if brief, plunge and stationery swim against the current so I kept my stuff in sight. The annoyance was mainly because I can see how fun this could be, albeit I stand by my view that both Zurich and Bern are better river swimming destinations unless you live there. I wish I had gone to Zurich. It must be said there was something to be said for having been in the Rhine, such a storied river. Writing this the next day I am already feeling much more upbeat about having sone this at all than not having done the whole thing badly.
No-one else was swimming as I walked back downstream, work continuing to intrude on my attempts to have a day of thinking about a different thing that is also work, updating my recent experience for the trains book by going on some of them, rather than just reading about it. But that didn’t seem to be the order of the day, so I made calls and updated messages as I walked along the Rhine, with the aim of mind of reaching the German border, and then when I noticed that the French one met a few miles downstream thought I might cycle there too. All Basel’s Lime bikes seem to have become mini-scooters so I avoided that on principle and instead got on a bus back to the station. 4am was starting to catch up on me but still being in Switzerland (just) hope was at hand. An unpromising canteen-type location by the station served up a large beer, a rosti cooked with lumps of cheese and bacon and with a fried egg on top because hey, chickens can be neutral too. It all lasted about five minutes.
It turned out coming to Basel rather than Zurich had one advantage. My evening TGV Lyria to Paris, scheduled to start in Zurich, was running short from Basel so anyone wanting to get it from the original start was in for a surprise when they got to the station. This also meant my train was in position at quai 33, one the France-facing bay platforms in Basel. By this point I was mildly delirious and happy to board early, watching a procession of travellers running with bags and cases as the doors closed. We left five minutes late and ran a delay as far as the penultimate stop of Belfort-Montelimard TGV, one of those stops that you have absolutely no idea where it is or why anyone gets on or off there. Was it around Dijon? Looking at the map, I don’t really know where Dijon is either. Once presented with a clear run in to Paris the driver opened up the throttle and we bollocked to Gare de Lyon, making up a ten minute delay.
And so on to the last stop for the day. Paris is, by reputation and reality, a wonderfully alive city at night, with people sitting out on the streets and walking and cycling everywhere. Without fuss it’s become a fantastic bike city, not in the ordered sense of Copenhagen or the Amsterdam way of everyone biking in firm charge of the streets, but in anarchic fashion, with a huge variety of two-wheelers bashing round Place de la Bastille, whirring round in all directions. It’s so much more fun than doing battle with what’s going on underground, and I jumped on a Lime to get to my hotel near Gare de l’Est. Riding parallel to Canal Saint Martin for the last section of the ride young people were out everywhere, having one impromptu waterside gathering after another, which seemed at one point to merge into a kind of open-air rave. The silent timeless lanes of Venice it wasn’t. I loved everything about this day.
And now home to London and England, under the sea, planets away.
