Can I write a little about frost and salt and how it all crunched under bare foot? The morning sun, near-freezing air and steaming water, cormorants perched on life-rings, half-familiar faces making short laps. And for hours afterwards thinking about what it is to not just walk and stand and stare, but to be a participant in the work of art.
I caused ripples in the water, breathed out warm air, huffed steam-train sound effects. Then got out and heard a shout only on the inside asking why I was jumping in again. The ladder a salvation from something I didn’t want to end. The end, it’s the start of the next part. It stays with you.
Is ðeos burch breome geond Breotenrice, steppa gestaðolad, stanas ymbutan wundrum gewæxen. Weor ymbeornad, ea yðum stronge, and ðer inne wunað feola fisca kyn on floda gemonge. And ðær gewexen is wudafæstern micel; wuniad in ðem wycum wilda deor monige, in deope dalum deora ungerim.
Is in ðere byri eac bearnum gecyðed ðe arfesta eadig Cudberch and ðes clene cyninges heafud, Osuualdes, Engle leo, and Aidan biscop, Eadberch and Eadfrið, æðele geferes. Is ðer inne midd heom Æðelwold biscop and breoma bocera Beda, and Boisil abbot, ðe clene Cudberte on gecheðe lerde lustum, and he his lara wel genom.
Eardiæð æt ðem eadige in in ðem minstre unarimeda reliquia, ðær monia wundrum gewurðað, ðes ðe writ seggeð, midd ðene drihnes wer domes bideð.
Much to my surprise Ryanair flight FR199 from Vilnius to Vienna left on time and landed early. This left some time to kill waiting for the 2202 Railjet to Linz, not that I cared. However, the extremity of the project I had landed on was becoming clearer. Even with everything fitting together it was a very short night in Linz. Just as well, as the hotel I’d picked was ‘Eurotired’ and above a casino. Linz itself felt like it was stuck in 1987. I was not sorry to leave early the next day. Perhaps I misremembered the Hidden Europe article extolling the virtues of the Summerau Railway. Perhaps the writers are just more chilled versions of me, itinerant but willing to spend more time sitting still. I enjoyed the gentle rolling countryside of a beautiful late summer’s morning and the distant views of Prague appearing like a baroque painting. In the Czech capital there was such an absence of sausage I concluded that all the sausage stands had gone, melted away in the blast of gentrification that removed the taste of street-stale mustard from local palates forever. What a shame!
Or perhaps that was just around the station, where the next train Bavorsky Express was waiting to travel to Munich. It wasn’t until later on this route that I spotted a road sign for Linz and realised just how much of a dog leg I’d taken on, not that I cared about having less time in Munich. Bavorsky herself took plenty of time over a seemingly disproportionate number of loco changes and reverses, dawdling on a warm afternoon for five and a half pretty draggy hours, especially once we were in Germany. The section in Czechia, like that morning’s route and the Decin line towards Dresden was completely lovely.
In the early evening something of the impossible happened and Munich revealed a different, possibly even slightly ethereally wonderful side. On what everyone seems to have concluded was the last Sunday of a not-terribly-willing summer, the whole city seemed to be in the Englischer Garten, just being out and being European. I don’t know if Hampstead Heath is like this on a sunny day, I don’t tend to go there then, but this vast green space was full of volleyball matches, people standing in the fast-flowing water, surfers doing their thing and a sprinkling of beer gardens to remind you where you were. The distances were huge to walk, and I did a New York day in an evening to and from the never to be finished Hauptbanhof and dinner via the park, and then over to Ostbahnhof, via another lovely open space where a few small groups sat out, one of them singing harmonies with a guitar to a song I didn’t know.
Nightjet 468 from Vienna to Paris, meanwhile, had set off and was catching up with my movements over the past 24 hours. It pulled in to Munich East just after 11pm with the memorable air of a service that meant punctual business and stuck to task. There were several of the disconcerting signal halts that were accompanied by the ventilation shutting off, both heating up and silencing the carriage. I had been unable to get a bed for the night on this train so was sitting up, in tight quarters with five others for company. One of these fellow travellers had talked without pausing for breath to his new friends for 30 minutes on boarding. Everyone went quiet when the provodnitsa turned the light out. Dog tired, I slept well and in tune with the up-tempo noise of the train until Mannheim, where we arrived at 2.11am. We were separated from the Belgium-bound portion of the train, a service I felt sure to hit delays weaving along the Rhine and along the Aachen – Liege crossing point of shit, and hooked up with a new loco. Then we sat there, with the usual suspects of a night train layover; chain-smoking train crew on the platform, an oddly-dressed passenger arguing and determined to board despite having unclear status, random shouting from the only partygoers left standing, and hissing and creaking from the train itself, otherwise hot and silent. My anxiety rose as time ticked on, but then we equally silently departed, picking up speed as we headed for the border. I woke again as we arrived in Strasbourg, possibly for a loco change, but we left there bang on time. At dawn we began to follow the Marne, flanked for sometime by champagne vineyards that seemed to be in the middle of harvest, passing Meaux, home of Brie. Another gut-wrecking trip for another time.
If you can’t be happy when arriving in Paris, especially off an on-time night train as the penultimate leg of a long journey then you must be dead. It gave me great if slightly guilty joy to once again make acquaintance with Ten Bells cafe just off Canal Saint Martin. An Australian couple with a Colin dog sat next to me outside. A French young lady asked them the dog’s name. ’Spanky’ they replied. Her face contorted into disgust. No further words were exchanged.
I walked around a bit looking for a brie baguette but couldn’t find one. Then joined the well-marshalled scrum to get through Eurostar check in and home. Summer’s end. The end of which has come up trumps.
Trying to be clever, I tried staying in Brooklyn. All I managed was to disconnect myself for the few days I was in New York. Brooklyn, another city over the water. Each morning I tried a different way to make the junction to Manhattan between early morning and reality. Up before dawn in the odd haze of jetlag, until the point where everyone else’s day started, the quiet of the city waking up to the clamour of rush hour.
The first day was easy enough. I pointed myself in the direction of Manhattan and walked, over the Manhattan Bridge, and on into the city. Shudderingly noisy with subway trains passing next to me, the bridge is a walk that goes on forever on a morning when I felt like I had forever. Then bagel and coffee stops once things have opened, and on up towards Union Square. An urban hike. Suddenly I was there.
The second day was September 11 which gave an obvious focal point to the morning. The great light memorials had pierced the sky as I was sitting on a sidewalk table the night before. A view to note, a great and brief few minutes of New York life. Not mine, but I don’t half love it sometimes. Dawn broke as I was crossing the East River. Ground Zero was solemn and busy, and leaving it to hike north up Greenwich Street I saw a driver stubbornly ignoring police instructions, determined to make the hook turn a policeman was insisting was not going to happen. I swapped comments with another observer of this scene, a man who had the easy-going bonhomie I love in Americans. I felt like I knew him quickly but I could never.
That evening I was uptown, looking for the Metlife scene captured by Neal Adams on the cover of Batman 251. I found it, and the strange alternate reality of the Upper East Side. Same island, but that’s it.
The day of going home meant easing off on the walking just a touch and cycling over Brooklyn Bridge. My main excitement came with a visit to Broad Channel, the strange linear village just past Howard Beach – JFK on the A Train. I had wondered about it so often but been scared to ride beyond my stop to get to it. Then I did, and found an island, a place not really like New York, interesting and melancholy. The subway ride over the water was strange, like floating. Broad Channel melted away once I was in the international quarters of the Departure Lounge, watching the last of the sun before coming home. More corners of New York, more undefined things I want from it and cannot name or have, the moments within Marquee Moon, the Ramones, and all the things I never find.
Hamburg and Stockholm
As my train from Brussels idled into Cologne I thought my connection for Hannover had departed. No rush to go and see. To my mild surprise it was still there but behaving oddly. One door was open with people still filing on board. Every other one was closed. Knowing that 30 minutes after this was a direct train to Hamburg, my final destination, I let it go, after having helped someone else on board without following them. It was a 4am start kind of moment.
On the later direct train the rest of Germany stretched north into a slow afternoon, industrial cities giving way to vast stretches of countryside, a procession of rivers crossed on high bridges. It came as a surprise then that on arriving in Hamburg I immediately began to panic, wondering what I was doing there, what I would do, and how I would escape that night, even though the night train was quite clearly booked for four hours time. It helped to sit and eat, and even have a beer, though the dream-like evening I had in Altona two years ago would not and could not be beaten. This time I waited in a fret at Hauptbahnhof, willing my train to arrive from Berlin, which it did. I boarded with a contingency of excited English clergy. We made our way with some delays (atonement breaks?) to Stockholm, which I didn’t care much about but took as an excuse to fret further.
Stockholm on a cool and grey morning merged with an afternoon event, which became a late summer evening chance to swim in the harbour, quiet and solitary with an almost-unconcerned eye on my belongings by the waterside. The sun was hanging in the sky looking wonderful and half-hearted. I felt miles from the city, quite lost in its maze of islands and cycleways, but oddly never far from where I had started. Delayed coming home, it is the memory of the water that remains.
Zagreb to Zurich
Croatia Airlines OU491 from Heathrow to Zagreb being late and annoying seemed to lead to the journey being one of those. I couldn’t find the car picking me up because I was looking in the wrong place, then the car park barriers wouldn’t come up, so it was 2am by the time I got to sleep, and I woke not really knowing where I was, why the alarm was going off or what I had to do next. So one day kind of bled into the next morning, one of those tourism conference days where the best things happen outside the room, and the whole thing is eye-opening as to how world-wide what I do can feel, when it often feels more one-dimensional.
I headed out into the still-light street and mooched around a bit, liking Zagreb, which gave the impression of looking nice, in a slightly shabby way that made it seem like a less fancy-pants Austro-Hungarian hangover than others.
From there it was on to the station, with angst more reasonably in check than it is for a flight, especially when the train is already in position an hour or so before departure. The station was a nice enough place to hang around, with a busier feel than, say, Athens or Sofia’s termini, and right in the middle of things especially during rush hour. The train carriage hostel appeared to have closed for the season. While this was nice, the absence of anyone to direct anyone to the right place on the train was slightly disconcerting, but it all seemed to work out ok, and we left very promptly on time. I was surprised to see that within 20 minutes of leaving Zagreb we were in Slovenia, just over the border, having a wagon change, always a deeply silent experience but, in this case, an encouraging one..
Our train rolled on through the long night of little sleep. While I had a ‘private’ cabin (all that 120 Euros could buy, good deal for a long journey and accommodation) this wasn’t a sleeper cabin, but a six-seat compartment with a sliding door lacking a lock, no curtains or bedding. Sleeping wise, you could lie down on either side, and I used my bag as a pillow. Light streamed in from outside and the carriage was noisy. The private bit was open to interpretation, as on several occasions passengers looking for seats came in and tried to sit down. I was happy to insist the old couple went off to their reserved seat, when a teenage girl asked if she could come in for one stop between half midnight and 1am should go elsewhere I felt ungallant, and in hindsight should have been accommodating. DuoLingo German did not allow me to get far into this question before she headed elsewhere.
Crossing Slovenia and Austria, adding and removing locos and car-carrying wagons with frequent long pauses wasn’t a recipe for a smooth night’s sleep, or very much sleep at all. I didn’t mind too much and enjoyed strolling deserted platforms in the dead of night. At Villach a kind of NIghtjet party, with Italy, Germany and Vienna-bound services congregating for a conga of shunting and loud chat between Austrian Railways staff.
Along the way there was the odd glimpse of river, of the lake at Zell am See, occasional church towers and Alpine-style houses. No car headlights, a few passengers getting on and off. It was magic. I did doze off between around 4 and 7, waking with a jolt with an announcement at Feldkirch that was seemingly designed to stir all aboard for the 7-minute crossing of Liechtenstein. There was no loco change for crossing one of the world’s smallest countries. Does Liechtenstein even exist? The Alps sat for much of the early morning draped in cloud, with fangs of rock emerging from where the mist hadn’t sunk. Sort of Autumn, or just a continuation of the soggy summer that’s been everywhere. The Swiss frontier was both more of the same and a suggestion of the effortless efficiency that takes over when you’re on a train there.
Somewhere that does exist is Zurich, and I was glad to be back again in what is one of the best places to spend a couple of hours. The sun was out here. A few lungfuls of clean air, a stroll down to the Limmat, a reviving swim of great and complete loveliness. There’s no time to spend much money on any more than coffee and sandwiches and my third borek in 24 hours. Borek was not getting any less enjoyable. I might switch to an all-Borek diet, a kind of Super-Borek Me experiment.
From Zurich, the speed-demon TGV Lyria thundered to Paris in little over four hours. I took a bike to Gare du Nord, feeling guilty that such a wonderful city is becoming one long winding lane to change stations, but also loving the feeling of familiarity. I was home in 22 hours, only leaving the rails for that cycle section.
Marseille, Nice, Genoa
Another early start from London, in the dark until the tunnel and then the familiar emptiness of the north of France. It was exciting and a little hair-raising to cycle between stations in Paris and land in good time for the onward Marseille service. I could have made a Nice direct earlier, but then I wouldn’t have walked a few paces in the windy Mediterranean loftiness around St Charles station, which managed to encapsulate the petit-grot I thought of when I thought of Marseille. It felt exotic and unusual enough to want to return, but not enough to make me regret passing through this briefly. As with seemingly every journey on French trains I was unable to use the ticket barriers and ended up walking through behind someone else. There’s never anyone to ask and no-one cares, plus I always have a valid ticket, but if I were an older passenger, or a more uncertain one I think I’d become a nervous wreck quickly.
Leaving Marseille for Nice our TER train was made up of nostalgia-inducing compartments, much like the Zagreb-Zurich train. Without reservations, mine filled quickly with people and luggage. An old French lady began chatting to me and I got a few words out, but an equally ancient Indian couple, who spoke no French, needed to displace her bag and I found myself mediating, and then chatting with the man of the couple. He turned out to be a former Army captain, author of a book on how to win in business using the lessons of the Indian Army, and was interested in every aspect of British politics and life. So thoughts of checking on my own homework when writing up this route for a recent book went out the window, and instead I explained Brexit, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Rishi Sunak and seemingly dozens of other topics. Possibly the longest conversation I’ve had for a few years. It reminded me of my own visit to India, and made me want to go back.
Nice’s Gare de Ville is a stately place with an ambience of grand touring Victorians, but that was about the size of the appeal of the city for me. A storm had blown in, knocking out much of the fun of rambling around. There was a distant sense of the ancient city in the pastel-walled lanes of the old town but I could hardly find it. My hotel was empty and charmless, places to eat were either rain-drenched tourist places or nice-looking but expensive neighbourhood haunts that didn’t jump to welcome a lone male entering nervously. Would I welcome me into such an establishment over my sophisticated and regularly-visiting neighbours? In the end I went in mild desperation but also a touch of contrary excitement for Hippopotamus, the French equivalent of an Aberdeen Steak House, pretty good and pretty good value. Really it felt like there was nothing to wait around here for.
By the next morning the storm had cleared, trains had resumed and the last of France ran away to the south-east. My journey to the Italian border was a commuter service through the broader metropolitan that stretches almost uninterrupted from Nice to Italy. Most of the train was heading for Monte Carlo, whose station was fancifully built into a mountain even though it didn’t look like it needed to be. The water around Monaco was full of yachts, and the tower blocks clinging to the hillside looked as ridiculous as the streets beneath them promised to be. West and east of there the towns were smaller, with breathtakingly-located houses mixed with more humdrum signs of everyday life. It must be unbearable here in the summer, full of prats farting around with their phones. A vast cruise ship dominated Villefranche sur Mer’s otherwise lovely aspect. The sun glinted off the sea passing the small beach at Roquebrune.
On sections of this trip I played back a journey I made when interrailing, along this coast on a dream-like summer’s night, my companion rewinding and playing the same song over and over to burn the moment into their memory – I hope it stayed like it has for me. And sorry about other aspects of the trip, and other things too – I didn’t always get things right then, as now.
Travelling past Menton with no fanfare at all we arrived in Italy, to Ventimiglia, a definition of run-down looking lovely, with the backsides of buildings hanging over a high point of the town, with orange and red buildings and the tower of a church. The lower part of town, like much of what came further down the line, was low-rise, post-war and facing the sea. Italians are laid-back but also uncompromising in lifestyle – so long stretches of beach are not of great fascination. But it’s also not everyday I get to ride a train like this through a part of Europe that’s new, so, very good and thankful for that.
Coming into Genoa at journey’s end was the start of a working weekend, and it was a jolt out of the solitary headspace of travel to be in whatever work mode, looking for my hotel and looking at a press trip-type itinerary. Before that, walking into Genoa was a surprise. It felt much older than I’d expected, once inside the still-visible gateposts of the old city there was a souq-type atmosphere, a mix of Italian street scene and north African hustle-bustle, almost like Marrakesh’s lanes, or Lisbon’s Alfama district. There appeared to be a large number of heavily made up women dressed for an evening out at lunchtime, which being dim took me some time to realise that there was a large number of street walkers out and about. Genoa is and remains a port city first and foremost. It was quite confronting to walk along narrow lanes with this side of life being lived in front of me. My hotel, one of many converted medieval and renaissance palaces I’d visit over that weekend, was located off one of the main drags, facing out onto the city’s vast commercial port. As I checked in a vast cruise ship arrived into the city, its temporary inhabitants being bussed off I assumed to the Cinque Terre. It was like staying behind the curtain.
Two days in Genoa were spent in the company of tourism officials, who were very kind hosts and rightly proud of what was beautiful in their city (a lot). The street snack of focaccia covered in pesto was green, greasy and tasty. The highlight was a visit to the apartment home of one man whose bedroom was covered in frescoes and put in the shade many galleries I’ve visited. He invited everyone to lie down on his bed and take in the view. I bet that’s worked for him a few times in the past. Out of his lounge window was the stripey city cathedral, with late Roman statuary staring out at soggy passers-by. I got a window into the relaxed, civilised and old-world life of this city, a little out of the way of the rest of Italy, with this port-city window on the world kind of feeling.
After all this I wanted to go home, I was scared for no good reason I wouldn’t be able to. I had three different routes planned to try and make it possible. I hated the one I’d chosen but it got me home the quickest so I did it. With minimal fuss, my Sunday morning flight took off and banked away from the Ligurian Sea. Now I am looking back and the views were fine.
Somewhere on the island of Great Britain. Often thought of as small and crowded, here it felt anything else. Vast, green and endless, a rolling road that had already risen up for several miles from a silent and empty border twisted on, following the frontier that here diagonalled south. Nothing quite made sense. A patch of land called I had no idea what. My phone had long since cut out. It was an interruption of normal life and noise, just the turning of pedals and my occasional reminder to myself that each one took me closer to Carlisle, and the end of that part of today.
Though I’d allowed myself to get lost I did, in honesty, know pretty much exactly where I was going – I’d come here because I wasn’t sure what I’d find here. Far south Scotland, where the Scottish Borders country of Jedburgh, Kelso and Hawick met Dumfries and Galloway, and struck out a salient line for England and Cumbria, had long fascinated me on numerous family holidays to Northumberland. From the far we stayed on, and explored out from generally no further than an hour in travel time there were numerous curiosities. Being so close to Edinburgh, one of the world’s great cities, yet feeling like you were off the map almost entirely. The procession of medieval remains of the border skirmishes that seemed utterly irrelevant, even as Scotland ties itself up in knots about its future facing old foes to the south. South, you can stare south from England and look at Scotland, the invisible line running more like 240 degrees than 45. So after several hurdles including finally acquiescing to having a proper bike fix, and replacing forgotten bits of kit, I got up early on Saturday and resolved to ride the roads from just inland from Berwick to Carlisle.
It is always best to start early, with the most light, and the quietest roads. Grabbing my kit off the windowsill of our holiday cottage I caught the eye out the window of Mo, one of the resident border collies. We stared at each other for a while, each wondering why the other was up. He spent most of the preceding week encouraging children to play fetch with him but after this face-off didn’t take much interest in me getting ready to go. The other advantage of starting while sleepy the first few hours tick my in a kind of alert drowse. So went by silent lanes and the occasional view of the board, blue River Tweed, marking the international frontier as far as Coldstream. Upstream of here the border changes angle and, without changing direction, I entered Scotland and stayed there until the last few miles of the route. There are often flags and signs considerably fancier than the drab, apologetic English markers when heading the other way – my favourite just said ‘Cumbria – Skid Risk’.
At Hawick (’Hoick’) no-one was out of bed even though it was gone 9am, and the High Street, lined with fine honey-coloured buildings, appeared to be in a state of permanent dozing. I’d not originally planned to come this way, but during the week had found an ancient Ordnance Survey map in the back of a book covering the entire Borders area that suggested a 20 mile road south of Hawick to Newcastleton was a convenient bridge through some unknown terrain, and I found myself tempted by not needing any route guidance beyond this. The road remained as it appeared on that map, narrow and intensely rural, passing fields of horses, pigs and piglets and donkeys. The occasional hare zipped out across the road, and fields of as-yet unharvested wheat rustled in the wind. Speaking of which, I was starting to notice the wind, blowing at me as if along the border line, giving me a ready made excuse for slightly stately progress. Then the road began to kick up, and up, winding through what I later think is Liddesdale, up through scenery that was more robust than the Dales, but more forested and lower-lying than the Lake District. It was very easy on the eye, mildly terrifying to feel for the first time in a long time to be so far in the distance, and a very good workout. The descent, when it eventually decided to turn up, was a thrilling twisting ride on empty roads, at one point passing a railway heritage centre with some old Pacer trains – probably the worst ever trains – and an Caledonian Sleeper carriage. A remnant of an ancient line. And then Newcastleton, an 18th century planned village, Buckinghamshire in the Borders.
Shortly further on I re-entered England, with an hour or so to go until Carlisle, and slightly surreal to enter it from the north and odder still to find it so sweaty under the glass of Citadel Station. I tried to ignore the chaos breaking loose around my island and be here and just here for a few minutes. A Saturday steam special was waiting to depart, while I had a magical journey back to Yorkshire to be reunited with my family via the Settle- Carlisle line, one of the world’s great journeys and even more stupendous in the late afternoon’s sun. The road twisted and curved round here too, days passing in another summer of ups, downs and round the bends.
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 may 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 was sure, was on the wrong train. I considered saying something but left it to the guard. He seemed 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.
Tom Hall: travel, London, other things 