Adventure In Venice

The Journey Can Sometimes Be More Important Than The Destination!

I had given up on taking the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express when they stopped using the British Pullman to operate the service through to and from London. That had always been the traditional route, the departure I used to see on the International Departures board at London Victoria many years ago and had always wanted to try; when it returned as a special luxury train I waited until an opportune time to take it, but then a coronavirus pandemic intervened, and by the time I started planning in the summer of 2023 a trip on the VSOE for my 70th birthday in 2024, Belmond had stopped operating out of Victoria, quoting difficulties owing to "Brexit". The last such trip was in the autumn of 2023 when I was in the middle of sorting out some health problems, so the idea was scrapped altogether. It would have been a lot of money to pay to have less than what I wanted to do; the new service involved starting from London St Pancras International by Eurostar and crossing Paris, as we have done so many times already - it lost so much of what made it special.

But then, out of the blue, came advertising from Great Rail Journeys, whose escorted tours we have taken many times. The advertising was for an independent tour comprising three nights in Venice, travelling out or back by VSOE and Eurostar and flying the other way, with an option of taking an extra day to travel by rail instead of air for the other direction. The price was what sold it, the whole trip less than what Belmond were asking just for the Orient Express and Eurostar section of the holiday .... to wheel out all the clichés, this was a game-changer, a no-brainer, and out came the diary to start the planning! To avoid the "we've done all this before" feeling at the start of the holiday, we would opt for the return trip being by the Venice Simplon Orient Express: this would take us as far as Paris and then Belmond, the VSOE operator, would book us Business Premier Class on Eurostar from Paris to London St Pancras International. We've never travelled Business Premier before so the whole trip back from Venice to London would be special.

For the outward trip we asked for the rail option, so that would indeed resemble many a previous departure from London but that was OK: this bit was not meant to be special - except that any European adventure is always special to a certain extent. Going by train would make it more of an adventure than flying since by travelling overland we would truly experience the journey and not simply drop into Venice from the sky - and in any case getting to an airport from where we live is a bit of a "mission" before we ever start. There would be an overnight stay in Montreux, Switzerland before an early-morning through train to Venice. This all looked great and we paid our deposit and awaited the departure date. Fortunately we had an adventure to Switzerland in the diary, too, also involving Montreux, in the summer, so we were not simply pacing the floor waiting for October to come round!

I booked the trip almost a year in advance, as soon as I was made aware of it, and so when my birthday came round both my wife and one of my sons bought me the Lego Orient Express set ... and although my daughter-in-law said they could take theirs back and get me something else I opted to keep it because the standard two coaches was a bit short and I thought I'd be able to make up something a bit longer using two sets! Such has been the busyness of my life this year that by the time we left I had completed only one set ... 

This being an independent trip, there was a fair bit of correspondence between me, Great Rail Journeys and Belmond to ensure that all the arrangements were complete (and I imagine a fair bit out of my sight between GRJ and several other companies, too), and eventually, a few weeks before departure, an email message from Great Rail Journeys arrived with multiple attachments containing the many train tickets and other vouchers and information that we would need while away. This time I bought my own train tickets to and from London and a room at the Premier Inn opposite St Pancras International station for the night before our departure. All was set.

Early on a sunny Saturday evening at the beginning of October we walked down to Stamford railway station with our cases packed for a real adventure. We were to see some familiar sights and a lot of very new sights, and we were on our own, exploring places and travelling a few new routes on new trains as well as some we had used many times before, including, of course, the very familiar Cross Country train from from Stamford to Peterborough! It was extremely busy, but everyone had a seat, and we sat near the luggage stack, ideal for our circumstances. I could not help thinking that this little train, perfectly adequate and comfortable (although in need of its pending refurbishment) was a long way from the splendid trains we were planning to use for the rest of our adventure!

At Peterborough we had a short wait for our connection to London; Sunday upgrade work on the East Coast Main Line meant that traffic on the line was rather reduced and when we boarded our train, on time, there were very few passengers in our coach so the complimentary service was very swift and fulsome. It was from the lowest-category Deli menu (trains were only starting at Grantham, so nothing hot was being served), but I enjoyed a very filling chicken brioche roll. We asked for a can of Hop On Board ale each as well as water for the trip and the usual crisps and the caramel pot for dessert and the little chocolate brownie to go with the coffee. Also supplied were biscuits, which we kept as "emergency rations" in case we needed them later in our adventure, and an extra can of ale each, which we also kept back for later.

Duly fortified we arrived in London needing no dinner and went straight to our hotel and to our room, via the Little Waitrose at Kings Cross station to buy fruit for the following morning when we had an early start. The adventure had begun! After all the planning and preparation it was hard to believe we were actually doing it, but I had a great "wodge" of home-printed tickets (also saved to our iPhones in case that would be more convenient) to prove that we really were.

You can never complain about a Premier Inn room!

We set alarms for six o'clock Sunday morning, got ready for the day and made our way to St Pancras International station. Walking down Midland Road and entering through the side entrance we were straight into the International Departures area as the gates were being opened at 06:45 for the 08:01 train for Paris. The queue moved swiftly and we were soon through the security check and the British and French passport control - although at the British one we were behind someone with really complex multiple passports which held us up a bit: how complicated can nationality and citizenship be? Anyway, early on a Sunday morning there was plenty of waiting space in the departures area, we found a table in the Station Pantry café and I went to buy coffee. At security I had got chatting to a smartly-dressed young man who was on his way to the races at Paris, "the biggest horse racing event in Europe," he said. Looking around there were several men in ties and many in waistcoats clearly going the same way. One of them was buying four pints of gassy beer to take to his table with his friends when I was buying our coffee - I really could not bring myself to drink any sort of beer at that time of day!

Travelling Standard Premier Class in this direction we were served a light breakfast soon after departure, having already eaten our fruit from Waitrose with our coffee at the Station Pantry. It is amazing how quickly the time passes on the train journey to Paris: it is not one of the world's most scenic railway routes, although some of the section through Kent, and some of that just north of the Paris suburbs are quite picturesque. The tunnels under London and under the English Channel, of course, provide no view of anything at all, but at least these days there is full 4G data coverage through the Channel Tunnel.

Having always changed station in Paris by the RER (two stops to Gare de Lyon from Gare du Nord, so fast and convenient, but the trains are unpleasant and often very busy and the stations are not wonderful, either), we experimented with the Metro which I knew would take longer but we were in no hurry, having plenty of time before our booked train to Geneva. It had been my intention to travel on Metro line 5 to the Gare d'Austerlitz which would have left us an easy walk to Gare de Lyon and had the side benefit of seeing the station at which we would arrive when we came back to Paris on the Venice Simplon Orient Express on Friday; unfortunately it was raining in Paris so that plan would have resulted in us becoming quite wet on that easy walk between stations, so instead of going on to Gare d'Austerlitz we changed trains at Bastille and went to all the way to Gare de Lyon under cover! We bought our lunch from Monop'daily at Gare de Lyon as we have before, but this time we ate it inside the station and not outside as on previous occasions.

As soon as the platform was announced we went to join our next train, a TGV Lyria for Geneva, and took our reserved seats on the lower deck of a First Class coach, a pair of window seats at a table for four, so we had company in the aisle seats for this stage of the trip, but in First Class we still had plenty of space to ourselves. This was a similar journey to the one we had taken on our escorted tour to Lausanne and Interlaken in the summer., the Alpine scenery beginning after the train left the high-speed line and started making its way eastward towards Switzerland. At Geneva we left the train and walked through the passport control and customs post with no delay: it was a bit busier there than usual because the train was terminating there, short of its normal terminus at Lausanne because of a problem on one Lyria set which left the service unable to operate its full timetable. Those going forward were directed to the next train for Lausanne, which was not long afterwards. We had a little longer to wait for the connection to Montreux where we were to spend the night, but that was fine because we wanted a coffee break anyway and found a strange little place called The Bloody Bar inside the station. I'm sure we used a café at this this station about ten years ago but it was not like this ...

Our regional train to Montreux was a Swiss double-decker and although we had no reserved seats we were in First Class and we opted to sit upstairs and enjoy the lake view. By the time we arrived in Montreux the sun was setting. Great Rail Journeys had booked us a room and breakfast at the Swiss Majestic Hotel, right opposite the station, but because our train was leaving very early in the morning we asked for packed breakfast to take on the train and were promised that this would be arranged. Our room was small but great, with all the features we needed, and a small balcony with a view over Lake Geneva. I was beginning to wish I'd asked for two nights here instead of just the one, but anyway we had some evening so we popped out for a salad from a supermarket and ate that for supper on our balcony. A brilliant part of the holiday. The sunset over the lake was fantastic, enhanced by a pleasure boat coming into Montreux pier, just along the shoreline from our hotel.

After supper we had a stroll along the lakeshore and then went to bed early ready for the morning's early start: that would be two early starts in a row, so we determined not to rush to be up on the third day!

When we checked out, our packed breakfasts were ready and waiting for us on the reception desk: this is Switzerland and most things just work. But we were off into Italy. Montreux station was familiar from our summer holiday, where we caught the Golden Pass Express to Interlaken among other things. This day we were taking a six-hour ride straight through to Venice on an Italian EuroCity train, starting with a Swiss crew and then to be changed for an Italian crew at Domodossola - where we found our timekeeping lost 13 minutes, which it never regained, during the crew change! Never mind, it did not affect our holiday but it just seemed an interesting factor in the way different nations operate. We were in First Class again and in the front coach, but although this was a long-distance international train it had no catering facility on board (well, not quite true: it had a buffet coach but the buffet counter was shut for the whole journey), but we had allowed for this eventuality and had boarded with coffee bought at the station, our packed breakfasts from the hotel, and a few bits left from our LNER trip two days before, as well as some fruit from home. The packed breakfasts were very worthwhile and so did last us through the whole morning, just before one o'clock at Venezia Santa Lucia station. The train had reversed at Milan, so when we arrived at Venice we were in the rearmost coach instead of being at the front, so we had a bit of a walk to the station exit, where we were met by our English-speaking guide who would escort us to our water taxi and take us to the hotel. I had wondered how this part of the tour would work: Great Rail Journeys had included a private boat transfer from the station to the hotel (I'd have walked!) and there was Francesco, as he introduced himself, waiting with a board with our name on it, and the GRJ logo, as we reached the station concourse. 

After waiting a few moments for the taxi to find docking space we were whisked off by the canals of central Venice, finishing up back on the Grand Canal (having cut off a big loop) for the final approach to  the Hotel Savoia & Jolanda which had been booked by Great Rail Journeys for us. Our room on the first floor had a view across the lagoon to the island of San Giorgio, and we overlooked the waterbus stops and gondola station right outside our windows. 

We took advice both from our guide who had brought us here and from the hotel reception staff concerning restaurants and gelateria, and their advice was to provide much of our agenda for the two full days we were here! It was, of course, already lunch time by now, so guided by Apple Maps we set off for a supermarket for a salad which we took back to our room for the "main course" and then set out again for a gelato for the "dessert". The recommended gelateria had such an enormous queue that we decided to look for a quieter one, which we duly found and enjoyed what we bought. We had been to the Tourist Information Office near the railway station and after taking advice bought a three-day pass each for the water buses, the "vaporetti," which are most practical way of getting around the whole city and its multiple islands. The passes were valid for 72 hours from first use, so would enable us to travel the rest of that day and the two full days. We tracked down the restaurant where we wanted to have dinner, advisedly the "best carbonara in Venice, the Dona Onesta. It did not take bookings, but it was by now almost our dinner time and its opening time, so we went for a short stroll and came back to ask for a table. We both ordered spaghetti carbonara and it was indeed extremely good, but not having tried the same thing in any other Venetian restaurant I cannot comment on whether it is the best!

We returned to our hotel by waterbus, using our passes, and it was soon time for bed in preparation for a day's exploring tomorrow. We wanted an early start because rain was forecast from about noon and we wanted to squeeze in as much as possible before the rain.

Breakfast in the hotel restaurant was good: the usual fruit juice, coffee and a buffet, which included scrambled egg so yellow that I wondered what happened to most of the egg whites! It was delicious, though. 

We took a waterbus to Murano, the island on which we had stayed last time we visited Venice, so it was interesting to revisit a few years on. We strolled around remembering our previous stay, and visited a few glassware shops, coming away with a new Christmas Tree decoration as our souvenir. One gelato, and it was time to take another waterbus to the island of Burano, much further out in the lagoon, which we had never visited before. This was to be a day of island-hopping, but it was dampened somewhat by the weather, as light rain began while we were on our way to the waterbus stop (the service to Burano only calls at one stop on Murano), and it was raining a bit more when we arrived on Burano, although it was patchy and we did have a couple of dry spells. We found a lovely café for coffee and a spot of lunch and then as we set off to explore the island the rain really came down solidly and quite heavily. The island was beautiful: it seems to be the thing to do to paint your house in bright, vibrant colour on Burano. You could never mistake it for any of the other islands. Well worth a visit. We walked as quickly as we could back to the waterbus stop and took the next departure back to central Venice, which took us via some of the other peripheral islands, but with wet and steamy windows we could not really appreciate them as we had hoped to do. The waterbus was busy but we managed to get seats, although in soaking wet trousers sitting was not easy! I had dried off reasonably well by the time the vaporetto moored at our local stop and we walked through the rain back to our hotel. We showered and changed and decided swiftly that dinner would be in the hotel restaurant that evening! As resident guests we received a 10% discount on the food bill at the restaurant, but the main incentive was not having to go back out in the rain!

The following day the weather was dry and mostly sunny, although a little windy but not too much. A much better day for weather, and we continued the island hopping theme, starting by taking the vaporetto straight across the the island of San Giorgio which was also new to us, although we had seen it quite a lot both on this visit and the previous one because you cannot really miss it! It is the background to life in this part of the city. We walked along the marina which forms the waterfront facing the place where our hotel is and saw the boats and ships making their way into and out of the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal which come together at this point: only the Giudecca Canal can take the larger vessels such as car ferries and the occasional cruise ship (which are no longer allowed to dock on Venice's islands). Building work on the island prevented us exploring there any further and we took the next waterbus along to Giudecca island and walked all along its waterfront, finding a local café for morning coffee, and crossing bridges until we reached the island of Sacca Fisola at the far end of the little chain of islands, from where we took a waterbus back into the city centre, for we were in search of a hat for Alison as well as some more exploring. In the hat shop were some interesting styles: the proprietor bought in a variety of plain hats and decorated them in various ways. We did not buy the steampunk top hat, although I was tempted until I remembered my luggage space!

Our exploration included some detective work to find the palazzo where we'd had dinner on our last night in Venice on the last trip - not to dine there again but because we had been taken there in the dark through a maze of back streets and picked up by water taxi direct from the palazzo and never really took in where we were. After a couple of false leads we did find it, the Palazzetto Pisani, with its front door in a narrow alley and a small mooring in which a boat was ready for its next trip. Now we knew where we had had that great dinner four years before: not a necessary piece of knowledge, but we were intrigued to know.

We walked back over the Grand Canal (using a bridge!) and took the next vaporetto back to San Marco and our hotel for dinner again. This time I had a pizza. I almost always have a Margherita, original and best in my opinion, and not just because they're usually the least expensive!

It was our last evening in Venice, for the following morning was to be the highlight of a trip which had already had its fair share of really, really good things: the ride home in the care of Belmond and its Venice Simplon-Orient-Express train. From check out at the hotel until arrival in London, all was booked and was to be of the highest standard. We had been used to Belmond's hospitality on the Royal Scotsman train three years ago and looked forward to a similar experience on the Orient-Express.

Tour of the French and Swiss Alps by Train, part 1

Away at Last!

It was not until we settled into our seats on the train to London that we took in how much we had missed travel since our last trip in autumn last year. Sitting at our "club duo" seats in LNER's First Class and browsing the menu it almost felt like we had come home from a long absence rather than the other way around! The familiar rattle of the catering trolleys being pushed into the coach and the friendly hosts taking our order brought back many memories of past train trips as the countryside slipped past. Late spring and early summer is a brilliant time to travel in England: the greenness of the landscape is just fantastic, especially after the wet weather we had had this spring. The cold drinks came first and we both ordered rosé wine but there was not quite enough left in the bottle on the trolley to pour two glasses, so I volunteered to have white … and the host placed the rosé bottle on our table so that we could finish the last half-glassful between us! We ordered the homity pie, a delicious vegetable pie which came with a “bean salad”, and meanwhile the crisps for a starter and the lemon and elderflower pot for dessert were delivered off the trolley. By the tine we arrived in London all of this had been consumed and we knew we’d need no supper that evening. 

We were on our way by train to London early on a Friday evening ready for a very early start on Saturday to check in for the 08:01 Eurostar train for Paris on our way to Switzerland on another Great Rail Journeys adventure. This one was new to the Great Rail Journeys catalogue, because it uses a train service which had only started a couple of years earlier, the Golden Pass Express which we were to use between Montreux and Interlaken. We had never visited Montreux before, or anywhere else on Lake Geneva, nor Chamonix in France which was included as a day trip by train in this tour. We had never really visited Interlaken, either, although we had changed trains there often enough, and although one of the day trips from there was something we had done before it still included lots we had not. Amazingly with a mix of four- and five-star hotels and First Class rail travel, this tour was not particularly expensive and I did not hesitate to book it as soon as I saw it advertised the previous year. It has been something to look forward to through all the health issues that have dogged me over the last several months, culminating in (yet another) cardioversion just two days before we left home. 

In London we stayed at the Hub by Premier Inn beside Kings Cross railway station. We have used this place once before: it is a touch cheaper less expensive than a proper Premier Inn, but to my mind is still very poor value. The room was very cramped and inconvenient and although this time we did at least have a room above ground (last time we were two floors below ground!) it was till very claustrophobic. We shall probably not use it again: the Premier Inn in Euston Road is also better located for St Pancras station and far more pleasant for just a few pounds more. 

We went to bed early but did not sleep especially well before we were up early and off to St Pancras International railway station to meet Richard our tour manager before going to the International Departures ticket gates to begin our continental rail trip. The station was extremely busy! Train travel has definitely resumed now and we look forward to more services being reinstated. After showing our tickets at the gates we were soon through the security checks and then showed our passports at both UK and French Passport Control - unusually it was the French controller who smiled and spoke to us and not the British one, very odd. Seeing that the preceding train to Paris was just boarding, we thought that if we made our way straight to the café area we might get seats at a table there for our breakfast: this turned out to be correct and while my wife looked after the luggage at our chosen table I went off and bought a couple of black coffees which we drank with the fresh fruit salads we had bought from the Little Waitrose at Kings Cross station before we went to our hotel the previous evening. Before long the boarding of our train was announced and we were off on the travelator to the platform to board the train.

We were in coach 3, towards the rear of the train, and our section of the coach was where the wheelchair spaces were located, separated from the rest of the coach by a partition with a couple of private coupes, so it was a cosy area with just nine people in it, and around our table of four there were just us and one other couple on the Great Rail Journeys tour, so we had met the first of our travelling companions already. Before long our Eurostar E320 train slipped out of the platform and began accelerating along High Speed One towards the Channel Tunnel and on to Paris. A continental breakfast was served soon after leaving, as usual in Standard Premier Class on a morning departure. We had finished breakfast by the time we emerged in France, and for some reason the train slowed down and even stopped briefly causing us to arrive a few minutes late in Paris. This was not a concern as we had about three hours to change stations and have lunch before travelling on. As always with Great Rail Journeys we were taken across Paris by coach to Gare de Lyon; if we had been travelling alone we'd have used the RER or Metro, but it would be hard to keep a group together that way. At Gare de Lyon we bought a salad lunch at Monop' Daily as we so often have and ate our lunch outside in the sunshine while we awaited the departure of our train, a TGV Lyria direct to Geneva.

The first part of the TGV journey is unremarkable apart from its high speed, soaring across France down towards Lyon. Here I began typing the first paragraph or two of this blog post, and paid a visit to the buffet bar for drinks. We were with the rest of the group, some two dozen others, on the top deck of a duplex First Class coach and it was all very comfortable. The journey came into its own once we left the high speed line and started wandering towards Switzerland. We were threading our way through the hills where the Jura and the Alps come together and where France, Switzerland and Italy start to share mountains and lakes, and it is all very pretty. At Geneva we were changing trains to take an Interregional service to Lausanne where we were to stay the first three nights. We had changed trains at Geneva before but had been travelling in the opposite direction and taking a French train out of Switzerland. As with going the other way, however, there was no passport control at the EU border (although the facilities were there) and no customs check (although, again, the facilities were there, and we did see someone having their suitcase searched but no-one even looked at us).

Lausanne turned out to be a very interesting city to visit, although it was not originally planned to be part of this tour. We were supposed to be staying in Montreux and for many of us on the tour, ourselves included, Montreux was part of the attraction, but for some reason the hotel there was not available and Great Rail Journeys had booked the Lausanne Palace Hotel for the group instead, a better hotel, apparently, but not quite where we had expected to be. The itinerary otherwise remained the same, although it was not quite as efficient and convenient, but I think we can put up with that as a trade-off for the standard of the hotel. Getting to it from the station was fun: it is a very short walk to the station from the hotel, but the walk to the hotel from the station would be up a very steep hill so we travelled just one stop on the Lausanne Metro. The hotel minibuses took our luggage (and had room for four passengers, too) and we were handed public transport passes for the city which the rest of us then used on the Metro, alighting at Lausanne Flon station opposite our hotel. Well, I say opposite, but it was still four storeys below the hotel entrance, but there is a public lift from the Metro station to the street and we eventually all made it up to street level and were checked into the Palace Hotel. Our room was fantastic. This was a five-star hotel and was well-equipped: unusually for Switzerland there was a coffee maker in the room and the minibar was free to use (although the only alcoholic drink there was beer, but still a great part of the standard offer). By the time we had sorted out our luggage (brought up to our room by the porters) and showered it was time for dinner at a hotel restaurant and then bed. It is always helpful when dinner on the first night is included in these packages especially on Saturdays (busy) or Sundays (half the places closed), and dinner at the Lausanne Palace was great!

On Sunday morning we set of to explore some of the city centre of Lausanne, taking the Metro just two stops to the opposite side of the ravine in which the city's shopping streets are located, from where we were able to cross a bridge to Lausanne Cathedral. As it happened we were there between the Sunday morning services and were able to pop in to look at the building. We did not have time to stay to worship as there was a programme of activities for the rest of the day, but we did spot a likely restaurant for a fondue and kept that in mind as a possibility for the evening unless something even better turned up. We walked back through the quiet Sunday morning shopping streets to our hotel and met the rest of the group for the first group tour. As we were not now staying in Montreux our capable tour manager, Richard, arranged for the group to take an earlier train than necessary for the included tour of the Château de Chillon. The ride along the shore of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman in the local language, French) was wonderful with an almost continous view of the lake, with hills beyond and a series of towns, villages and vineyards between the railway and the lake. At Montreux railway station, standing at the platform was the train would be taking later to Interlaken, the Golden Pass Express, looking very splendid.

Montreux, billed as "stylish Montreux" in Great Rail Journeys' publicity, was a lovely place to visit, especially on the waterfront. Some of the party were excited by the statue of Freddie Mercury along the promenade! We bought a take-away salad lunch from the local Micros supermarket and sat by the lakeside to eat it in the warm sunshine. It was an idyllic time, and like most of the group we opted to walk along the lakeside footpath to the Château de Chillon rather than take the train (the plan, had we been staying in Montreux, had been to take the trolleybus there, apparently). We all arrived eventually at the entrance to the Château for the booked guided tour in which we learnt the fascinating history of this building, built on a natural rocky island just off the lake shore by the Savoy family to claim duty on traffic on the lake and conquered by the Bernese a couple of centuries later. While we were being taken around the interior the rain came, and came heavily. By the time we were ready to leave, mercifully the rain had almost ceased, and soon did cease. We made our way to the nearby pier from where a paddle-boat took us back along the lake to Lausanne, with a view of "stylish Montreux" and a few other places where we docked on the way. the weather by now had turned quite good again and we were able to sit on the forward deck with a super view of the surrounding hills and mountains. Most of us then used the Metro again to return to the hotel. We showered and changed and made our way back to the restaurant we had discovered in the morning and enjoyed our classic Swiss cheese fondue with Swiss wine served by attentive staff at the Café L'Evêché, after which we returned to the hotel, with help of the Metro, through the rain which had returned, but was OK for the short times we had to be outside. 

And so our first, brilliant, day of this Swiss "adventure" came to an end. We had visited a cathedral and a castle in two different towns and enjoyed a traditional Swiss supper and we were staying in a wonderful traditional Belle Epoque hotel. We looked forward eagerly to what more new experiences the subsequent days would bring, beginning with the Mont Blanc Express, back into France for the day!