Baltic Adventure by Land, Sea and Air, 4

LONDON, BREMEN, COPENHAGEN, STOCKHOLM, RIGA, TALLINN, HELSINKI, LÜBECK, COLOGNE

Part 3, Finland, the Baltic Sea and Home via North Germany

(see Part 1 here)

(see Part 2 here)

(see part 3 here)

We were taken on Thursday morning to the harbour at Tallinn by coach and after a short wait boarded a Tallink ferry, the Megastar, to Helsinki, across the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. This was quite a large ship with several decks for vehicles and a couple of decks, well-equipped wth catering outlets and a shop which resembled a department store, far bigger than any I have seen on board a ship before (not that I have seen all that many). The crossing was only two hours, and our Tour Manager booked a cabin before we boarded in which we could all store our luggage for the crossing so that we were free to enjoy the ship unencumbered. We arrived early afternoon at Helsinki, having had a snack lunch from one of the on-board bars. Too early to check into our next hotel we were taken first for our guided tour around Helsinki, by coach.

The first place we stopped to visit was "the rock church," a Lutheran parish church built into a hillside and carved out of the rock. It is a stunning building with simple modern decor just as a new Anglican or Roman Catholic church would be and is well worth a visit. 

We moved on to a park where a fantastic memorial has been erected to Jean Sibelius the composer (see header picture), one of Finland's best-known sons.

The final stop on the coach tour was the library, Oodi. Now when it comes to book collections the British Library is hard to beat, along with several others across Europe. But this library in Helsinki is something else. Yes, it has a lot of books (more Moomins than you'll see anywhere else ...) but also has an enormous amount of other things to use either on site or to borrow and take home. Playspaces for children, soundproof rooms for playing music (and instruments to borrow for the purpose), computers, large format printers, 3D printers and much more that I cannot remember now ....

Children's play area in the central library

The most amazing literary staircase

Who would imagine that such a small country with such a niche language, and which has had such turbulent recent history, would house such a fantastic public library? It had plenty of publications in English, of course, the most international of languages, very handy for British visitors.

We were then taken to our hotel and checked in, having been driven past the harbour and through the city centre. Another Radisson Blu hotel - they had all been very different - on the edge of the city centre with easy access on foot to everywhere we wanted to visit. We went for a walk before dinner and finished up visiting the Stockmann department store because heavy rain began just as we reached it ... the rain ceased and we walked back for dinner with intermittent light showers. This was the first rain we had encountered on the entire tour and was actually very welcome. Dinner was at the hotel again this evening.

Friday, our full day in Helsinki, was a completely free day with just breakfast laid on in the hotel. We spent it on a walking tour of the city centre and the harbour area. Starting out early, we began by popping into the rather splendid railway station: although we were on a Great Rail Journeys tour, we had arrived by ship and would be leaving by ship, so we had not actually looked at this dramatic edifice. It was grand on the outside and grand on the inside and worth a visit for anyone interested in urban architecture whether interested in railways or not. 

From there it was a short walk to the Lutheran Cathedral. There we not only spent some time admiring the main interior but then visited the crypt where there was a lovely little café where we had a drink before moving on.

Helsinki Cathedral dominates the city's central square and university quarter

It was a short walk across the square to the City Museum, although we did have to descend an enormous flight of steps and wait for a marching band to pass before we could actually cross the square, then negotiate a complex tramway junction with our eyes looking all ways in order to cross the road to the museum. We learnt about the history of Helsinki and indeed quite a bit about the whole nation. There were some very interesting ways of displaying things, often showing modern and old things together, and we could appear to take part in the displays, separated from them by transparent screens. So here am I apparently taking tea with a Finnish lady several decades ago. 

It was interesting to see how the nation has moved between German and Russian domination to its current freedom and how the languages used have varied over the ages. This is quite eye-opening for British visitors whose nation has been more-or-less stable since 1066: even when we did have a revolution and executed our King we soon invited his son to come and put everything back as it was! But so many nations in the Baltic region have had complex political lives and countless violent episodes with foreign domination for good or ill.

It was time to move on, with a view to eventually having some lunch, and we had identified a café by the sea, quite a long walk out past the old market hall, to which we intended to return later, with views out to sea. The sea here is quite unlike anything we have experienced in England, with many islands and inlets, and rather confusing. We were heading to Café Ursula which had traditional Finnish salmon soup on its lunch menu. The problem was that by the time we got there the salmon soup had sold out ... so we had a snack and a drink and thought the salmon soup would do nicely for tea later on ... We took a different route back, starting through a park rather than just straight back along the sea front, but made sure we finished at the Old Market Hall which now was home to myriad catering establishments. We walked around inside and chose the place where would finally have our salmon soup, and a second place for a cup of coffee and some cake to round off the meal. This would then be it for the day, no dinner necessary!

Finland is known for many products, mostly timber but also mobile telephones and scissors and, most important but probably least known outside the arctic and antarctic areas, icebreakers! Finland produces most of the world's icebreakers and many of them work in the Baltic Sea keeping shipping moving where the sea freezes solid - and the Baltic Sea having very low salinity freezes frequently. There were several berthed at Helsinki while we were there (in July, so not busy!) and we walked along to see them. There were information boards by their berths where we could learn about them (which is why I know what little I do know!).

On Saturday morning our homeward journey was to begin. Most of the party was returning by land and sea via Germany and Belgium, but the American group was to fly home from Helsinki and a few of the British group were also flying back, which was the default option on the Great Rail Journeys website. For us, though, a visit to Lübeck was an important part of the tour, and the overnight sea voyage from Helsinki to Travemünde an experience we did not want to forego, so we were happy to take two more days and pay a little more for this extension to the holiday. As it was the last night that we would all be together, most of us met in a bar by the harbour to say farewell to the groups with whom we'd spent a couple of weeks and from whom we would part in the morning. Most of them had a meal there, but we needed no more to eat and after enjoying a drink with them we made our way back to bed.

The Voyage Over the Baltic Sea

We went for a walk after breakfast to explore another part of the city, a park not far from the hotel and yet another part of the seaport, and then a coach picked us up and took us to the check-in for our ship at a different port from the one at which we had arrived. This was at some distance around the bay and it was an enormous freight port with a very small passenger facility. 

Having checked in and been given our boarding passes by our tour manager we followed the "To the ship" signs out of the terminal building and were loaded onto a coach which drove us some distance to a ship resembling the model in the terminal window, where we took a lift up to the passenger decks of the ship. This was a much smaller ship than the one on which we had arrived from Tallinn two days earlier, but it had all the facilities we needed, including, of course, cabins, for this was a 30-hour voyage and sleep would be essential.

Dinner, breakfast, lunch and another dinner were all included in our tickets and we were issued with meal passes for these. Our tour manager, who had done this trip several times before, assured us that the food was very good and that as it was a buffet we should be able to eat as much as we needed; even unlimited wine was included, which is quite unusual for all-in meals.

One thing that was not on offer was lunch on embarkation, but we were able to buy a drink and a sandwich which we enjoyed on deck while awaiting departure. It was fun to watch the freight loading operation on the open portion of the rear deck from our vantage point several decks above. Lorry trailers were brought on board by small, highly-manoeuvrable tractors which placed them neatly in close-packed rows where they were firmly chained down and power was connected to those which needed it for refrigeration etc..

We went to our cabin and unpacked what we needed. It was an inside cabin with no window, but although this bothered me at first it soon dawned on me that all we would do in the cabin would be sleep, so we really did not need a window. This was not to be a cruise and there would be no scenery for most of the trip anyway, just sea and more sea!

Soon the ship slowly slipped out of its mooring and picked its way among the islands into the Bay of Finland and off into the Baltic Sea. We spent some time watching the land disappearing into the distance and exploring the facilities on board, which took a lot less time on this ship, the Finnmaid, than on the much bigger Megastar on which we had arrived. Most of the passengers were drivers of the lorries, vans and cars on the vehicle decks below, and there was a huge number of languages being spoken on board.

Dinner was at a fixed time, canteen-style, and we handed in our meal pass and were shown to our table. Everyone was allocated a table for the whole voyage and we had a pair of tables for the group. We went and queued for our meal course by course (or all at once if you could carry it) and helped ourselves to wine from a tap! I had three large glasses of this wine (which tasted quite reasonable) and did not feel in the slightest bit intoxicated, so I don't think there was a lot of alcohol content! (Fine by me, I am not a fan of being giddy and talking rubbish.)

After dinner I made some more progress on writing this blog and sorting my photographs and then we retired to our little cabin and went to bed. The ensuite shower was very good, although somewhat cramped, and the only downside to our cabin was a smell in the shower room which always seemed to be present there. I don't know if that would have been a common problem or if we were just unlucky with our cabin, but it did not spoil the experience anyway.

After breakfast we thought we would try the TV in the cabin and see what we could get. We stumbled upon a Mass in German and decided to watch that as a substitute for church attendance (for it was Sunday morning). The sermon had already taken place before we tuned in, but I would not have understood it anyway. The service, of course, is much the same in any language and these days in most denominations. This one was Roman Catholic but Anglican or Lutheran would have been much the same and we did not know the denomination until the credits at the end of the programme. 

Much of my time on the voyage was spent sitting in one of the public areas preparing the blog: out at sea I was off line and could not type straight into the web interface as I normally do, but prepared the text elsewhere ready to paste in as soon as I had the opportunity.

Lunch followed much the same pattern as dinner, complete with wine. Dinner that evening, though, did not have the wine or beer available. Given that most of the passengers would be driving within a short time after docking, Finnlines did not supply alcohol for the last meal. I am not sure they needed to worry, considering the strength of the wine.

Soon land came into sight and we slowed down for entry into the river at Travemünde. As this was early July it was still daylight as Finnmaid manoeuvred to moor beside one of her sister ships and disembarkation began. We were not taken straight off the ship but loaded onto a shuttle bus on one of the vehicle decks. This was the only unsatisfactory part of the whole experience, for the bus was too small for all the foot passengers and luggage. Some people were clearly not used to being out in public, or, at least, they had no idea of manners, but we did eventually arrive at the terminal building and find our coach that would take us to our hotel at Lübeck, nicely in time for bed.

Rain and Marzipan

For me Lübeck was an important part of the trip, home to the famous German marzipan made and sold by Niederegger, and we had a morning to explore the town. We did not send all of it in Niederegger's shop and museum, but it was certainly the centrepiece of our time there and it was there we bought the last of our gifts for people at home, and for ourselves.

This morning was marked by a shower or two but nothing to stop us exploring, and by the time we walked back to the hotel for the start of the journey home the sun was shining and the day was warm again.

We were taken by coach to Hamburg where we boarded a ICE for Cologne. To our relief it departed more-or-less on time and we had a pleasant journey southwards.

It was early evening when we arrived at Cologne for an overnight stop in a hotel not far from the railway station. Here we had our last meal together as a group, and it was good to see people buying drinks for each other and enjoying time together. It had been a brilliant and varied experience. I think it was the longest escorted tour we'd ever done and it included so many new experiences, quite apart from al the new places we'd visited. We had not flown for several decades, we had never had a long sea voyage before, we had never visited a former Soviet country before (although we had been to a few for communist bloc countries) and we had never swum on the top floor of a skyscraper!

On Tuesday morning we began the last leg of our homeward journey and it was uneventful (which, considering that it began with a DB train, was remarkable). Our train arrived in Brussels more-or-less on time  after just a four-minute late departure and we were soon checking in for our Eurostar departure for London St Pancras. The Brussel Zuid channel terminal had a substantial makeover after Brexit to provide a huge duty-free shop, which I ignored, but it did still include a comfortable, if somewhat boring, waiting area.

As usual, the Eurostar train was comfortable and a very pleasant light meal was served during the journey, and we were soon on the platform at St Pancras saying farewell and making our way down to the arrivals area where, as ever, the Border Force watched us pass without a flicker of interest.

I had booked First Class Advance tickets on a suitable train from Kings Cross to Peterborough and had allowed a wide margin in case of delay, so there was no haste to make our way out off the platform and across to Kings Cross, and then we could relax in the First Class Lounge while awaiting departure. On the way I booked tickets for our connection from Peterborough to Stamford and we arrived at home at 19:30, with plenty of time to sort out our things ready for the next adventure!

Baltic Adventure by Land, Sea and Air, 1

London, Bremen, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Riga, Tallinn, Helsinki, Lübeck, Cologne

Part 1, through Belgium and Germany to Denmark

This tour of Scandinavian and Baltic countries was planned as a birthday treat for my wife's next round birthday and we were able to time it so that we would be away on the actual day. This had an advantage when going to northern Europe in that it would be likely to be warm enough, since the big day is close to midsummer day. The Great Rail Journeys rail tour  "Highlights of Scandinavia and the Baltics" nicely fitted what she wanted to do and was available at just the right timing, so we booked it up as soon as we discovered it, well in advance, and worked all out other plans round it.

Many other trips small and large were taken between booking this one and starting the adventure!

Trains and Boats and Planes

There are no trains out of Stamford on a Sunday morning but this suited us well on this occasion: as I am to be missing from church for two Sundays while touring, it was as well to be able to take the Sunday service at St Martin's before I left. We had a light lunch, washed up and walked down to the station for our booked train and connected at Peterborough for a train to London, travelling in First Class, booked well in advance.

As usual, soon after leaving Peterborough the cold drinks trolley came through and we chose rosé wine, excellent for such a hot day and we thought it would go well with our chosen food but alas the food had run out, but for crisps and biscuits. Not a disaster but an annoyance: we were meeting our son in London for a drink and would just add some food to the plan. Having checked in at the Premier Inn at Kings Cross we met at Mare Street Food, in the beautifully-redeveloped Kings Cross area.

On Monday morning our Great Rail Journeys tour began as we met our Tour Manager Martyn outside the GRJ office at St Pancras station and then made our way to the ticket barriers in the International Departures area. There was an unprecedented queue! usually we just walk in, wth an occasional brief wait, but this time the queue started right back by the lifts to the Southeastern Highspeed platforms. Although it was a long queue it was fast and it was not all that long a time before we were scanning our tickets and going through to await boarding. Security and passport check were swift and efficient. I was expecting to buy coffee at The Station Pantry as usual only to find that it was closed and behind hoardings, being redeveloped into another type of establishment. So we finished up at Prêt-à-Manger which was perfectly fine. Just time to drink our coffee before the train started loading and we went up the travellator to find our coach and our pair of facing single seats, our favourite accommodation on Eurostar and on any other train that offers it. As usual, a light breakfast was served on the train, and as often on Great Rail Journeys we met some of our fellow travellers who were sitting at the four-seat table opposite ours.

The Eurostar train arrived at Brussels on time and then began a long catalogue of delays. We had time to have lunch at Brussels and already knew that our connecting service to Cologne was running late.

We were scheduled to catch the 17:11 train from Cologne to Bremen and there was still plenty of time to make the connection, but it was indicated as expected at 17:58 and with no catering. As time passed it became later and later until it finally left Cologne at 19:00, nearly two hours late. This is, I'm sorry to say, the sort of service we have come to expect from DB. Our Tour Manager telephoned ahead to our hotel who kindly held back our buffet dinner until we arrived. It was a pity that we should not have a chance to see much at all of Bremen: thanks to further delays to our train we had to go straight into dinner and did not get to bed until midnight.

On a bright and sunny Tuesday morning we walked back to Bremen station for the ICE to Hamburg. This one did have its catering offering but was a few minutes late then held before arriving at Hamburg Hbf, but was still in good time to make our connection to Copenhagen. The coffee was good but we had to pay cash, which is unusual these days; to our surprise, the train to Copenhagen was from Prague and was a Czech train with a Czech crew. Having crossed Germany it was, of course, late, although only be ten minutes. This eventually became twenty minutes before it actually departed. We were travelling in Second Class on this train, but this was still comfortable and pleasant. We did think of having a hot meal in the restaurant car, but when we went all the tables were taken and there were few of the cooked items left, so we bought sandwiches and took them back to our seats. The first highlight of this section of the journey was crossing the Kiel Canal on the Rendsburg High Bridge. This is high enough to allow ships to pass beneath, and have crossed the train then descends on a wide spiral to pass under the bridge and continue on its way along the opposite bank of the canal. This is all in a wooded residential area which looks great from the railway, although how great the railway looks from the homes I cannot say!

After crossing the other highlight of this journey, the Great Belt crossing, there was a total change of mood after a Danish crew took over at a subsequent stop. The driver spoke to us and told us he was going to to his best to regain lost time, there was a ticket check and a rubbish collection and everyone was asked to get their luggage out of the aisles, there was an announcement about the bistro (it was not restocked, though and the Czech steward remained). Unfortunately a Signal fault caused further delay and lost a few minutes more than our Danish driver had been able to recover.  We arrived in Copenhagen's wonderful main station with its unique timber truss roof just in time to walk to our hotel, the Scandic Palace in the main square, drop our luggage in our room and then walk to our meal out at the restaurant Flammen for a traditional buffet dinner.  It was very much a carvery where we were served with our choice if meat (I had wild boar) and helped ourselves to the vegetables. 

We had arrived in Scandinavia, the first of a series of capital cities. We had been in Copenhagen before, on a day out from Billund when we brought our children there for Legoland over thirty years ago! We recognised only the royal palace. Back in those days we had to fly to Copenhagen, but now were able to get there by rail via the Great Belt bridge and tunnel. Our activities in Copenhagen and subsequent adventures in Stockholm, Riga, Tallinn and Helsinki will follow soon in the next post or two ....

Interrailing for Seniors!

Visiting the oldest city and the biggest city in Switzerland

I have been following Byway Travel on Instagram for a while; their advocacy of slow travel and of the journey being an important component of the travel experience matches my own view very well. As a company they not only promote this philosophy but help people explore it for themselves by selling curated or tailored trips by surface transport, notably rail. If you like the look of some of my adventures and would like help to do this sort of thing yourself, then Byway Travel might be worth a look (no, they are not paying me). My most recent trip to Switzerland could easily have been arranged booking travel from London to Zurich with Eurostar and then using a Swiss travel pass while there and booking my hotels with Booking.com, but we thought it would be interesting to give Byway a try. This adventure is how it worked out (and some of the new experiences began while we were still at home)!

On the Byway website we input the elements we wanted to include, First Class rail travel, three nights in Chur, two in Zürich and one in Paris, and a night in London before departure. They came back with a suggested itinerary which we adjusted slightly and then accepted. This was an interesting experience because by the time we had filled in our details on the booking form one or other part of the itinerary had become unavailable and we were invited to try again. Each time we were offered a different selection of hotels. Now I could not believe that they were all filling up that fast, so after several of these attempts I just went an ahead and booked anyway. It all seemed to work and eventually we received confirmation of our booking and information about tickets and timing. 

This was the next adventure! We were to travel using Interrail passes, and while we had used these before on a Great Rail Journeys escorted tour they were paper passes then and we had a tour manager looking after seat reservations etc.. Now the passes were digital and we were responsible for everything ourselves. I am, as you might guess from the amount I publish on line, quite comfortable with digital media on the whole and I often use digital tickets, held on my iPhone. But the combination of the digital pass and the journeys having been planned by an agency meant that there was plenty of room for error in getting the right journeys on the pass on the right days! Byway even provide a weekly seminar on using the Interrail app alongside their Journey Guide which contains all the information we need for our trip. Those journeys needing reservations, that is the Eurostar journeys from and to London and the TGV Lyria each way between Paris and Zürich, had pdf tickets supplied by Byway which we both printed and filed in iCloud for access on our devices: it was these printed reservations which opened the ticket barriers at St Pancras and Gare de Lyon. We attended the seminar and all was ready for departure. As we were travelling to London one day before our first international train, we had to buy tickets for that part of the trip, but we were to return home from Paris in one day which ment that our Interrail passes would cover the UK journey as well: that’s the way Interrail works!

And so we were off! It had been a while since our last international adventure and it was great to be setting out again. A normal Friday morning in Stamford, although no need to buy anything from the market, which was just as well because the Mid-Lent Fair made it a pretty minimal market. We did join the ecumenical Lent Lunch and then wheeled our cases down to the station to take a train to Peterborough for a simple connection to London, First Class on LNER. We did not need the rather delicious-looking meal on offer as we had dinner to come, but we had a drink and a biscuit, keeping the crisps for later.

Byway had booked us a stay at a Point A hotel in Grays Inn Road. We had never stayed in a Point A before, always tending to go for Premier Inn, and we were very impressed. Next time we need a stay in London I’ll see how the cost compares and will definitely consider it. We had been invited to our son and his family for dinner and set off there after checking in, then returned for a good night’s sleep and a good continental breakfast before walking down to St Pancras International station to check in for Eurostar. With dire warnings about queues and delays we had allowed far too long for the formalities which were over as quickly as ever, and we did not even need breakfast to pass the time! We did eventually have coffee (we don’t rate the coffee served on Eurostar trains, not as good as LNER!) and then, still with thirty minutes to go, boarding began. '

As we have discovered before, the light meal served on Eurostar trains from mid-morning is lunch, so, soon after breakfast we were eating our light lunch with the Eurostar signature refrigerated cutlery! (The meals are made up in advance on trays complete with napkin, cutlery, glass and cup and the whole trolley is kept chilled so everything is cold. I put the wrapped butter pat in my pocket to warm up …) The journey to Paris was uneventful - at least it was for those of us who have been this way so often: if you’re new to it the transit under the sea is probably quite an event! We were in coach 2 and the corollary of having a short walk in London to join the train was a long walk in Paris to leave the train. I had an electronic Metro ticket on my iPhone to use in Paris but my wife had none and try as we might we were unable to add one (even though at one stage the app did take some money), so at Gare du Nord we enquired about it and could not understand the explanation. She was sold a Navigo card (€2) and a single ticket loaded onto it (the normal €2.55 fare) I bought the same, ready for the journey home; I had thought that when we installed the Île-de-France de France app last year we were set up for easy purchase of Metro tickets, but the Paris Metro remains a mystery!

We do not like the experience of using the RER to Gare de Lyon even though it is quick and convenient, but we had time in hand (I think Byway are set up to help people migrate from flying to rail and go out of their way to make it stress-free!), so we went by normal Metro through to Gare d’Austerlitz, just across the river, and walked from there. We had coffee at the station and bought water to take with us and then boarded the TGV Lyria bound for Zürich where we were to change trains for Chur. We had First Class tickets on our Interrail apps and printed reservations for upper-deck seats. This was a great journey: no catering included but an excellent buffet from which we enjoyed a good salad dinner.

At Zürich we had about half an hour before our connecting train to Chur: this was a station we’d get to know in a few days’ time. By now it was dark, so the hour’s ride to Chur was not its usual scenic self, but the train was swift and comfortable and we were soon walking up Bahnhofstrasse towards the Hotel Stern where we had first stayed twelve year earlier on our first Great Rail Journeys escorted tour.

We checked in and went straight to bed, well after our usual bed-time, both excited and tired.

Our first day in Chur was Sunday, and although we had thought of attending church, circumstances were such that we changed our minds, not only because were we still recovering from the late night, but the choice of church was a bit problematic. St Martin's, the same dedication as our church at home, might have been good, but it is protestant, and Swiss protestantism is a bit extreme and I was not at all sure we'd have a clue what was going on. There is also the Roma Catholic cathedral and although we'd recognise the service (for it would be similar to our Church of England liturgy) the sermon in German would be opaque to me and technically we would not be welcome at holy communion. So a short lie-in and a slow start to the day prevailed.

At the hotel reception we picked up our tourist passes for the city, complimentary to hotel guests and covering free museum admissions and local buses. We had printed a city map before we left home and had a good idea of what we would do, starting with the Museum  where we learnt a lot about the history of the city and the canton. Chur qualifies as the oldest city in Switzerland because it was the first town to have a bishop appointed to it, and therefore the earliest to have a cathedral. There was a great view over the city from the top floor of the museum, and a decent cup of coffee to be had from the reception.

We had a stroll around the city, punctuated by a stop for beer outside a bar in the old part of the city centre - typically Swiss with outside tables supplied with blankets, but in the sunshine it was quite warm enough not to need these.

From the old city we strolled out along the riverside and then back towards the rail station area where we planned some of the following day's activities and then visited the city's natural history museum.

After a brief history of every beast known in Graubünden we went for a walk around the city centre following a published trail and found the "Chur Foot," a standard measure set into the wall of the town hall. The Foot is a familiar measure to us as British citizens but will be less familiar to locals these days!

We gradually made our way back to our hotel where we had dinner in the informal setting of a lounge bar trying some of the local Graubündner dishes on offer.

On Monday morning our plan was to complete our travel over every part of the RhätischeBahn by travelling up to Arosa on the line from Chur. I did not really know what to expect: the line began as a separate tramway, much like the Bernina Line further south, and was acquired by the RhB and absorbed into its network, and the destination was completely unknown to us (except that it was uphill!). These days the services are operated by Allegra electric multiple units towing a handful of older passenger cars and a driving trailer to enable them to work in either direction without shunting after each turn.

Our journey to Arosa began at 10:08 at the dedicated Arosa platforms at the front of Chur station, outside the main SBB/RhB building, with day return tickets bought from the station ticket office; our Interrail Passes were not set up for enough travel days to cover that day. The journey begins very much like a tram ride through the streets of Chur: once off the station forecourt we followed very much the route we had walked along the riverside the previous day. It begins as double track and we're riding on the same side of the road as the other vehicles, then after it singles out we are on the right-hand side which feels OK going this way, still with the traffic, but this is no tram: it is a train of six or seven full-length coaches! It is the same feeling you get in Tirano where the Bernina Express goes through the streets for a short distance. Eventually, well outside the town, and after an intermediate station in the street, the road and the railway do part company and we climb steeply into the mountains. 

Gradually we saw more and more snow on the ground and in the trees and by the time the train arrived in Arosa there was thick snow on the ground and a frozen lake covered with snow. As we walked around the town a few snowflakes began to fall. We called at a small café for coffee and nusstorte and then went for a walk around the lake, by which time there was a light, steady snow shower. It was quite magical. Arosa is a popular place for skiing, which is not something I had realised until I got there. We took the next train back at far as an intermediate stop at Langweis where I took a few photographs and made some notes for the intermediate station on my model railway. 

From Langweis there is a great view of the Langweis viaduct and a small display in the station about its construction. For me, though, much of the interest was in the way the station is used: the nearest track to the building is a siding and you have to walk over the siding (on a proper crossing) to the hard standing which passes for a platform (as at many minor Rhâtischebahn stations), but when our train arrived there we had to pass a late-running train on its way to Arosa, and when we descended it was all the way down onto the gravel ballast: there was no platform at all there! My model station Mitteldorf will definitely be built this way, complete with level crossing right through the station!

We took the next train down to Chur and Alison spent the rest of the afternoon shopping, having seen some things while exploring the preceding day. Dinner was again in the lounge bar at Hotel Stern.

On Tuesday morning we validated our tickets on the Interrail app and left Chur for Zürich, Switzerland's largest city (although very modest by British standards), and we were able to enjoy the scenery we had missed on our way there by night on Saturday. We arrived in Zürich mid-morning and decided to go straight on to Luzern for the day, leaving our exploration of Zürich for the following day. Our hotel was some distance from the station here, so we kept our luggage with us. We each had just one  modest-sized wheeled suitcase and these were no burden. From the station in Luzern we walked along the river and crossed one of the famous wooden bridges - not the shortest way across but it's what you have to do as a tourist! I am not ashamed to be a tourist: this trip was definitely a tour. As this was a day when we were travelling on our Interrail passes, we were able to include the trains to and from Luzern on our passes by searching for the trains and adding the tickets to the pass - so we were travelling First Class on a short journey which we'd never do if we were buying tickets. We had our lunch in Luzern at Wirtshaus Taube, a restaurant we had identified from Trip Advisor and made this our main meal of the day, the usual filling Swiss delicious-but-not-slimming meal that keeps you going for the whole day.

We returned to Zürich in peak travel time and avoided a crowded four-coach train in favour of the less-crowded eight-coach one that left a few minutes later. The we walked to the hotel - this was interesting, along a river much of the way, but involved quite a climb and in retrospect was a mistake. The trams were cheap and frequent so for the rest of our short stay we used these in both directions, having discovered that three tram routes stop right outside the hotel and one route just one block away in the next street. We checked in and had a good night's sleep ready for the next day's adventures.

Wednesday was our full day in Zürich and we explored the streets in the morning, roughly following a city trail we had found and incorporating a visit to the Globus department store where we bought a souvenir glass to replace one we had bought in Interlaken a couple of years before and had been dropped and broken at home. Our trail took us to streets of interesting old buildings and streetscapes, as well as through the world-famous financial district, home of the "Gnomes of Zürich".

After a morning's exploration we made our way to the Landesmuseum for lunch and afternoon's study of Swiss history.

We had earlier identified the restaurant at the Hotel Adler for dinner and booked a table, so we returned there at the end of the day and then took a tram back to our hotel. The weather had varied throughout the day, but the increasingly frequent rain showers in the afternoon had given way to a dry evening and nothing spoilt our enjoyment of this great city. After a good night's sleep and a decent breakfast we were ready for another country in the morning.

We left for Paris late morning on Thursday and had our coffee at Zürich main station while waiting for our train to be announced. There is a myth in Britain that Swiss railways always run to time and are never cancelled, but this just isn't true. On our many visits ti Switzerland we have found the railways to be, yes, a bit better than ours, but not perfect. Breakdowns and trespassers can happen anywhere and Switzerland is not immune. International trains to and through Switzerland are also affected, of course, and contrary to popular belief at home, snow in Switzerland does affect the running of trains and the condition of the roads. This morning the departure board showed several trains delayed and one cancelled, but not our 11:34 departure for Paris, the usual TGV Lyria, operated jointly by the Swiss and French national railways.

Arriving at Gare de Lyon, we made our way to our hotel, the Sleeping Belle, and then set out for a walk through the city, following the River Seine and passing across the Île de la Cité and on the the now-open Cathedral of Notre Dame (although we did not visit on this occasion). We then made our way back towards our hotel looking for somewhere to have dinner, settling on a steak at an art deco themed restaurant near to the Gare de Lyon.

Breakfast on Friday morning was at our hotel and then we made our way to Gare du Nord for the train back to London and thence home. We had all morning and although we had Metro passes on our iPhones we decided to walk. This whole trip had been about "slow travel" and this would be a way to enjoy Paris while on our way home. With wheeled suitcases this really is not a hard thing to do and the walk was very pleasant.

At Gare du Nord check-in for our train to London was just beginning and when the attendant controlling the queue for check-in saw my Sunflower lanyard she beckoned us across the priority queue normally reserved for Premier Class travellers and made sure that we sped through check-in: this was very welcome as although I can walk any distance, more or less, I do find standing and shuffling a bit hard and this was largely avoided. I had my usual difficulty with the passport machines and had to have mine checked manually at the French passport control. The we had a short wait with a cup of tea before boarding the train and speeding across to London. We were on our way home with a short wait at Kings Cross, our travel from London to Stamford covered this time by our Interrail passes as it was an international travel day on them. We arrived home late afternoon and had plenty of time to unpack and read our mail.

Full video of the whole trip is now here, and on my YouTube Channel, @Marks_Rail_Adventures

It had been a great break, and now my attention turned to the final preparations for exhibiting my model railway at the forthcoming Stamford Model Railway Show. No shortage of things to do in retirement!

On the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express

Travelling home from Venice on a special train service

On our last morning in Venice our journey with Belmond began: the centrepiece, of course, was their luxury re-creation of the Orient Express train, but it began with a representative meeting us at our hotel and taking us and our suitcases to a private-hire water taxi for the trip to Venice Santa Lucia railway station to wait for our train. It did not properly end until we arrived in London St Pancras in Eurostar's Business Premier Class which was an integral part of the Belmond package.

Given the gastronomic experience we were expecting during the 24 hours on board the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express it might have been better for our health to have walked to the railway station, but the boat service was provided as part of the through journey, and it was in any case great to have one last trip up part of the grand canal. On arrival at the railway station waterbus terminal a team of porters was standing by to take our luggage which would be delivered to our allocated compartment. Those with more luggage than ours would have their larger cases stowed in a baggage car, just taking to their compartments what they would need overnight.

And so we arrived at Venezia Santa Lucia railway station and made our way to platform 2 where our escort went to the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express desk that had been set up there, ensuring that our arrival had been noted. The train was brought into the platform about half an hour before departure so that there was an unhurried boarding and loading of luggage. As a fan of Art Deco style and the inter-war "Dieselpunk" era, this journey was something I had wanted to do for a long time, and I was not disappointed in the slightest. The Art Deco feel of this train has been so well preserved, restored and enhanced, even though modern features like wi-fi and, discreetly hidden, electric charging points have been installed. 

Our steward Gloria took our passports in case they needed to be seen at a border in the night, put our luggage on the rack and introduced us to the features of our compartment - critically, how to lock the door! -  and a waiter came along and poured Champagne into the two flute glasses that stood waiting on the table. The Maitre D came along and asked our preference for the noon or two o'clock sitting for lunch, which, of course, was linked to the seven or nine o'clock sitting for dinner (we went for the earlier in both cases).

The train trundled away falteringly from Venice to begin with, with frequent stops and often moving slowly, but soon it was noon and we washed our hands in our little wash basin and made our way to the third restaurant car,  l'Oriental, for lunch, which was an unhurried affair with included Champagne and a wide variety of wine available, most of it included, but you could easily spend a few hundred pounds on special vintages if you wished to do so. The three-course lunch was delicious and relaxing: we accompanied it with a non-alcoholic rosé, given the amount of Champagne we had already had and that dinner with more alcohol would be coming along later. A meal on a train is always rather special, and in an Art Deco restaurant car in Italy especially special!

 

The train eventually arrived at Verona where the first locomotive change took place. Here we took an opportunity to have a stroll on the platform - just a little more exercise - and reboarded the train when the rain started. It was a fair while before we got going again, and the next service train from the same platform was indicated running 72 minutes late, which made us wonder what sort of disruption was holding us up and for how long. But once we got going we moved fairly swiftly, more like an express train, and were soon into Alpine mountain scenery. Before long Gloria came to our compartment offering afternoon tea, which include a variety of teas and some small pastries, both savoury and sweet. 

I wrote some postcards to the family (which I knew would arrive long after we were home, but they would be posted with the special Venice Simplon-Orient-Express postmark and would be nice for our family members to receive) and then we repaired to the bar car, which we had not yet seen, for a cocktail before dressing for dinner. I could not resist ordering the Vesper Martini, but I am unsure whether it was shaken or stirred. The bar car had a very relaxing lounge-like atmosphere and our drinks were served with a selection of nibbles - you do not go hungry on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express! And so back to our compartment to dress for dinner. Now, smart clothing is required throughout a journey on this train, and I did wear a jacket and tie for lunch, but for dinner, "formal" wear is required and so we did wash and change into formal evening wear. Two people changing their clothes in the confines of a railway compartment is quite a challenge but we did manage within the hour we had allocated to present ourselves smartly attired ready for dinner.

Dinner was in a different restaurant car from lunch, the idea being that we would get to experience everything the train had to offer in our twenty-four hours aboard. This time we were in the Côte d'Azur car, all decorated in blue. This was my favourite, and it was good to have the longest mealtime there. Most people played the game and turned up in formal clothes, some really spectacular, and no-one was in less than a jacket and tie. Once more this was a leisurely meal with all the water and wine you could wish, and started with Champagne. We were not far into the meal when darkness came and we were travelling through the night. The route took us through the Alps to Innsbruck in Austria where the train reversed and made its way eastwards through Liechtenstein towards France. No murders so far, although there was a party of some fifty Americans on board, so the Agatha Christie scenario was not impossible. No Russian assassin attempting to kill a British assassin, either. Time to get ready for bed, and if dressing for dinner in the daytime compartment was a challenge, undressing for bed in a compartment which had been transformed by our attendant into a bedroom with a ladder to the top bunk was even more so! At least the ladder meant that we could easily access our cases on the luggage rack if we needed to get something out or put something away, and actually the compartment was so well designed that we really did not get in each other's way very much. 

The bed - I had the lower bunk - was surprisingly comfortable and I had a decent night's sleep (better than our last night at the Venice hotel, in fact), until we stopped somewhere and our compartment was immediately next to the cooling fans of a locomotive on the next track. Neither it nor our train was going anywhere for some time, and noise came and went frequently as the locomotive's thermostat required it. This felt like it had been going on for a long time, but this can be deceiving, before at last the sound began to fade and I realised from the slight sounds from below that we were on the move again. By now it was two hours to our accustomed morning alarm, and I had the best part of that asleep.

It was still dark when we awoke and dressed, taking the opportunity to repack our suitcases as we went along, so that by the time we went for breakfast our compartment was reasonably tidy. It was daylight when we arrived at the restaurant car Étoile du Nord for breakfast. There was a small basket of pastries on the table which we ignored until after we had eaten a fruit salad and, in my case, the best-tasting poached eggs on toast that I have ever eaten. We stayed at our table for some time enjoying the views of countryside not unlike that at home, and drinking coffee and water, then we returned to our compartment which in our absence had been converted back into a sitting space. The train was by then through Dijon and making its way eastward on time towards Paris. The sun was shining, it was a lovely morning to be travelling.

When we arrived at Paris Gare d'Austerlitz it was still sunny and although the air temperature was quite cool, it did not feel particularly cold in the sunshine. The train crew had taken our luggage onto the platform and we collected it and wished them farewell, but our exciting and special journey was not yet over. Since the withdrawal of the through service to and from London Victoria using Belmond's British Pullman train, the Venice to London service now uses the Eurostar in Business Premier Class to complete the London stage of the journey, so we were now to experience Business Premier Class on Eurostar for the first - and quite possibly only - time. But plenty of time had been allowed before the Eurostar train departure from Paris Gare du Nord, so we decided to go for a little stroll along the Seine rather than just take the Metro straight there. As we walked we felt warmer and warmer in the sun. We went as far as the west front of Notre Dame cathedral and then took the Metro from Cité station direct to Gare du Nord, where the signage all seems to have changed since our last visit, with the Eurostar terminal now being designated "Hall 2", with the Union Flag appearing next to it. 

Even after our stroll we still had lots of time before the train to London, but that was fine, because a big part of the Eurostar Business Premier Class for Venice Simplon-Orient-Express passengers is the availability of the Business Premier Lounge while waiting. Another advantage would have been the fast-track queue at the ticket gates, but there were only two or three people in front of us anyway, so that didn't make any real difference! We did get nice smiles from the Eurostar staff, though, amusingly. The lack of crowds made the whole security process so much more relaxed, and I was pleased to note that the scanning of luggage etc at Gare du Nord seems to have improved since my last visit, and the electronic passport gates on the UK passport control had worked this time and let me straight through. There was no queue at all at the French passport control desk, either. Once through passport and security checks we took the lift up to the Business Premier Lounge, showed our tickets, sat down and relaxed. I could not get the phone-charging sockets to work, but that was not important this time, fortunately. We helped ourselves to coffee and snacks, then later a cold drink, while we awaited the boarding of our train, which was scheduled to leave three minutes earlier than when it had been booked, such is the way with Eurostar trains.

As soon as our train left Paris we were served drinks. We chose Champagne; after all, this was a part of our Orient-Express experience! The meal was soon served, but I missed a trick in not asking for wine to go with the meal when the drinks were brought, but we did have plenty of water. In Business Premier Class there is an option of a hot dish, and on our train it was trout and very good indeed. This was a light three-course meal with starter, main and dessert and although not quite Orient-Express standard was pretty good. The meal finished before we reached the Channel Tunnel and before long we were at St Pancras International station, with plenty of time to go before our booked train to Peterborough and connection home to Stamford - I dare not arrange it any tighter because of the multiple opportunities for schedule to slip before we got to London, but in fact nothing held us up at all and we had as long in the First Class Lounge at Kings Cross as we did in the Business Premier Lounge at Gare du Nord.

Our train left Kings Cross on time and we were served the usual refreshments, although we did not need a lot after the week, and the day, we had been enjoying. The train did encounter a few shorts delays which made the connection to Stamford rather tight, but we made it with a couple of minutes to spare and arrived at Stamford exactly on schedule - and without having to hang around on Peterborough station. Our kind next-door neighbour picked us up by car and drove us the last half-mile home: it's a lovely walk in the summer but we were glad of a lift this time.

When we left home six days before I said it was hard to believe that we were going on this adventure (and as I write this I have not yet published that part of the story!), and now we are back I find it hard to believe that we have done it! The legendary Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, ticked off the The List. 

Video presentation of the whole holiday in Venice and 

the journey on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express