Tour of the French and Swiss Alps by Train, part 2

The Mont Blanc Express to Chamonix

Monday morning dawned dull and damp but with the promise of some sunshine later. It was to be one of the more exciting days of the Great Rail Journeys itinerary for this holiday, the train into France to Chamonix Mont Blanc, our first mountain railway of the tour. Because of our base being in Lausanne rather than Montreux we had a slightly longer trip to get to Martigny where our train ride into the Alps was to begin. It was drizzling at Martigny as we left the main line train which had taken us there and walked to the platform where our narrow-gauge mountain railway train would depart. These were short trains and part of a coach had been reserved for our party. We were shown by a railway official where to board to ensure that we were in the right place for our seats.

The Mont Blanc Express is not what you think of as an express train! It is not even just one train, for it is necessary change trains part-way through the journey. The scenery is amazing, though, and the train starts to climb a few moments after leaving the station. 

Now we have travelled on many an international train, high-speed inter-city expresses like the Eurostar and the TGV Lyria on which we arrived in Geneva, the little branch-line train from Besançon into Le Locle and, for example, the Centovalli line between Switzerland and Italy, but the Mont Blanc Express is the only one we've used where a change of train is needed at the border: at the first station in France we left our train and crossed the platform to join an apparently identical one which took us the rest of the way to Chamonix. Another interesting feature about this route was that at a station part of the way between the border and Chamonix  the overhead electrical line ended and the train's pantograph was lowered, with electrical pick-up being from a third rail conductor. It is just like the procedure at Farringdon in London where Thameslink trains transfer from the overhead to third rail and vice-versa, but you do have to wonder why it is done here for just a few short kilometres of third-rail running, especially where deep snow is regularly expected!

We had a few hours to explore Chamonix and began with a trip to the tourist information office for a map. The drizzle had stopped by now but the day remained cloudy with occasional sunshine, but a trip up to the mountain tops would have been disappointing with all the cloud cover, so we opted to stay in the town, beginning with coffee! We had an interesting stroll around the town, France but not very different from Switzerland; indeed you would never know from the domestic architecture where the border is when you cross it on the Mont Blanc Express. Although we opted not to travel any higher in view of the cloud cover, we did go and look at a cable car station and saw that it had a healthy queue of potential passengers, so there were plenty of people who did decide to go up higher. We returned for lunch to the café we had visited earlier and enjoyed the advertised croques monsieur.  There was sunshine at times and the clouds shifted, revealing glimpses of the mountains that we knew were surrounding us. Chamonix was the venue for the first Winter Olympic games and athletes from the town formed the French team. There was a fascinating display of advertising posters for the Winter Olympics from the first time until the present.

We made our way back to the railway station to join the rest of the party and take the train back down to Martigny, changing trains just before the border, where we almost had an unplanned adventure: everyone piled off the train from Chamonix and crossed the platform to a waiting train, but no, apparently this was not our train but the next one back to Chamonix; why they had such a complex operation for a simple branch line I cannot begin to imagine. "It is France," was the best any of us could come up with ... And so, a few moments later the real train to Martigny arrived, we boarded and were taken back down the steep hillsides to take the connection back to Lausanne where dinner was at the hotel again. After dinner we prepared our luggage as far as we could for the following morning because we were to leave for the Golden Pass Express, and as we were in Lausanne and not Montreux we would have to leave rather earlier than originally planned in order to get our connecting train. 

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!

The Italian Lake District

Lake Maggiore by Train via London and Colmar

Our third (and possibly last) holiday based in Italy was booked almost as soon as we were home from the previous one, and again it was a Great Rail Journeys escorted tour. They offer a selection of holidays by train in the Italian Lakes but the one that stood out for us was a week or so in Stresa, on Lake Maggiore, because it included a trip on the Centovalli Railway which we had done once before in poor weather and wanted to visit again in the summer. It also included a stopover in Colmar (where we have stopped before and enjoyed) on the way there and Dijon (which we have never seen before) on the way back. It also included quite a lot of free time and would therefore be quite a relaxing holiday as well as a further exploration of Italy and eastern France. And although we would not be stopping there, a passage through the Alps would be good to do in a year in which, for once, we had not visited Switzerland!

We had tolerated a cool, fairy wet, summer and had been looking forward to getting away to some sunshine, and as we were about to leave the sunshine suddenly resumed, temperatures rose and England started enjoying summer at last, although, if anything, it was a bit too hot and we began to look forward to the slightly lower temperatures on the lake shore in Italy!

We began with London, as always when bound for the continent, but this time instead of going late in the day (Sunday, when we have no local trains until lunch time) simply to stay overnight we went earlier so that we could take the chance to see the King's and Queen's coronation robes on display at Buckingham Palace. In order to fit this in we asked both of our sons for favours: one to drive us to Peterborough to catch a Sunday morning train to London, and the other, in London, to look after our baggage while we visited the palace: it is always nice to see the family anyway, especially those in London whom we see only occasionally.

We had our usual breakfast at home before leaving by car for Peterborough station, but on boarding the train the smell of bacon rolls required me to have another breakfast on board the train! With orange juice and coffee this was a very satisfying start to the day. Sunday engineering work had closed the Hammersmith & City Line, so our journey to Shepherd's Bush for the personal left-luggage facility was more complicated than usual, but the Underground still delivered and we arrived there via a short visit to the Westfield shops where my wife had some pending business ...

Free of encumbrances, then, we made our way to Buckingham Palace, via an ice-cream break in The Green Park, and although we were half an hour early for our ticket time we were admitted and after the security check we were handed our audio-visual personal guides and began the tour of the Palace state rooms, which included the coronation robes displayed in the ballroom and quite a lot of information about the coronation service, the work of the monarchy and the life of King Charles III. It was all very well done but slightly amusing that the commentary spoke several times about what His Majesty normally or usually does each year, but he has not been doing it for a year yet! Clearly it is a description of what the monarch normally does, based upon what Queen Elizabeth II had established and often what the King has done just once.

We had tea with cake and sandwiches before leaving the Palace and returning to our son's home. We stayed a short while and took up their offer of dinner, although we did not need a lot after our royal tea.

For our overnight accommodation in London we try to get as close as possible to St Pancras International station and have often stayed in the Premier Inn opposite the British Library in Euston Road, but even the Premier Inn can be expensive in central London, so this time we tried The Hub (by Premier Inn), an even more budget hotel, and slightly further away, on York Way, east of Kings Cross station. Our room was two floors below street level but it had all we needed just for a night's sleep: a bed and an ensuite shower/wc, with space beneath the bed for two cases. There were mains and USB sockets for charging our devices (interestingly, continental as well as UK mains sockets), air-conditioning (no window, of course) and huge towels. We did not book breakfast and from getting up on Monday at 6am we were at St Pancras, after a ten-minute walk, just after 6.30 to check in with our tour manager before making our way to the Eurostar departure area.

I could not believe how efficient the operation at St Pancras had become! There was no queue at the ticket gates and I was caught off guard, not having bothered to have my ticket ready because I am used to taking five minutes to get to the barrier: still, with no-one behind me it did not matter that I had to ferret for my ticket before scanning it at the barrier. The security check was only slow owing to the need to put all my metal stuff, including my belt, onto the tray and then take it all back again after passing through the scanner. Then before I has time to get my passport ready I was being ushered towards the UK border post, fumbling now for my passport, for there had always been a queue here in the last few years, plenty of time to get ones passport ready. Once through the UK check at least I was now ready for the French border police who inspected and stamped my passport quickly and efficiently All done in less than ten minutes from turning up to being ready to go - with still an hour before departure. My wife had come through even faster and had found a couple of seats in the waiting area and then I went to buy coffee and we had our first breakfast: coffee and the apples we had brought from home, and in my case a croissant from the coffee shop.

We made our way early to the travelator up to the platforms, our tour manager having had a tip-off about the platform number. We were the first people up to the platform when the train was announced: never done that before, although we have been the first off when arriving.The train left London on time and our second breakfast was soon served, the usual Eurostar light meal on an early train, included in the price of our Standard Premier tickets. Engineering work in France made us just a few moments late into Paris, but that was not significant as we had a couple of hours there to walk to Gare de L'Est, have some lunch and board the train to Colmar where we were to spend the first night of the escorted tour. 

Bob the tour manager asked me to walk at the back of the group as I happened to have hat like his and he would know where the rear of the group was if he looked back and saw me, and he could tell the group to stay between the two hats! I have been chosen for many things in my life, some more pleasurable than others, but this is the first time that my headgear has been the criterion of selection ...

The TGV to Colmar was very comfortable, as TGVs generally are, but it was very disappointing that the bar car was not open ("il y a une problème"), so no after-lunch coffee. Colmar is a place we have stopped overnight a few times before, and it was good to have a chance to walk round for a bit before dinner. Just as on the last few visits the weather was very hot. In one shop we even managed to do a very little very early Christmas shopping! Colmar is a lovely town, and one of the great benefits of overland international travel over flying is that you do get the chance to see other interesting places on the way to you main destination.

Dinner, a good night's sleep and a decent breakfast completed our stay in Colmar and then we met the rest of the group and crossed the road to the railway station for the train into Switzerland on Tuesday morning. This was a local train to Basel (Bâle in French) and we were all together in the First Class coach at the rear of the train. We had about an hour between trains at Basel, a station we have used several times in the past, both on group tours and on our own: it is really two stations in one, a French section and s Swiss section. We sat in the sun for a while outside the station and then joined the next train which would take us on through Switzerland to Domodossola in Italy. The original plan has been to stay on this train all the way to Stresa, but engineering work on the line had cut this particular train service short and so we had to take a coach for the few kilometres to our hotel on the lake shore in Stresa, but not before we had seen the beautiful Swiss Alps and several towns we have visited in the past, including Brig which was our first Alpine destination almost ten years ago.

We had a beautiful hotel room on an upper floor with a balcony (where I am sitting typing this post!) overlooking Lake Maggiore and the islands we would be visiting the following day. We went for a walk around the town and then returned for a shower and dinner with the rest of the group at the hotel. And so to bed. It had been a fairly murky evening after a sunny day, but the sky was beginning to clear by sunset and held some promise for the morning, but with very thick curtains to our room we would not see the weather until we opened them after a good night's sleep ...

Dazzling Sun, and A Dazzling Palace

Our room had very thick curtains and when we finally awoke, on our alarm at 07:30 on Wednesday I opened the curtains and immediately had to close my eyes and back off as the sun was shockingly bright, straight across Lake Maggiore and into my face! Once I had recovered my composure and my eyes had adapted to the light I could see that it was a wonderful sunny morning and a brilliant day was beginning. 

The morning and early afternoon were completely free and so after breakfast I spent some time in the morning writing my weblog on the balcony and then we walked into town again did some of the Town Trail of interesting buildings, with a stop for a gelato at a place where we bought one last time we were in Stresa, but to be honest, not many of the buildings were particularly interesting ... then we sat by the poolside (or, rather, I did: Alison swam, after much grimacing at the cold, in the pool) at the hotel until it was time to get showered and dressed ready for our first included excursion.

We all gathered in the hotel reception and Bob the tour manager led us out to the landing stage opposite the hotel where, a few moments later, a hired launch arrived to take us to Isola Pescatori for a brief visit - we had been there before for a slightly longer visit, but it was good to see it again - and then we were taken by another launch across to Isola Bella, the island we could see from our balcony and which we had never visited before. Isola Bella is the island on which the Borromean Palace stands. We had a swift guided tour around tha palace, which is still in use by the Borromeo family and in which the current Princess was actually in residence when we visited. The place was stunning. Buckingham Palace was still in our minds as we had been there just a couple of days before, but although the Borromean Palace was a lot smaller it beats anything else I have ever seen for decoration - except possibly some of the rooms at Burghley House ...

After the tour of the palace we visited its gardens and were served Prosecco and nibbles there before returning by another boat to our hotel for a later dinner and straight to bed to recover from the day: it did not seem that we had done a lot, but it all added up to some miles of walking and a lot of sunshine.

Freedom and Adventure

Normally on a Great Rail Journeys tour the free days are interspersed among days with included activities but for various reasons of non-availability on certain days it turned out that our two completely free days fell together, and immediately followed the first full day in Stresa when there had been only the island tour beginning late in the afternoon. Unfortunate in some ways but a free day is a free day and there was plenty we could do to fill them, or we could sit and do very little as I had tried in vain to do on Wednesday morning! We had toyed with the idea of visiting another lake, but the railway works which had caused us to use road transport for the last stretch to Stresa would also make reaching another lake rather long-winded, and in any case, there is much to see around Lake Maggiore without travelling so far. We decided to go to Verbania, the largest town on the lake and just across from our hotel. It could be reached easily by public boat service, by bus or, according to the timetable, by train. We decided to take the train, although I soon realised from the map that Verbania station was some kilometres from the town centre, indeed from the town, and even then I was daft enough to buy return tickets ...

Stresa station was about a ten-minute uphill walk from the hotel, pleasant enough, and although a little tatty in places with a faded splendour, a nice little station. We bought our tickets and went via the subway to the opposite platform to await the train. With a minute to go I remembered that the tickets had to be validated before travel so I nipped back and inserted them in the validation machine and returned to the platform just as the train was drawing in. No-one checked the tickets in any case.  Our train was a semi-fast from Arona to Domodossala, the first stop being Verbania. The station there was modern and pleasant but now we needed a bus to the town. Apple maps showed a bus stop on the main road nearby with a bus in a few minutes' time. It took a while to find the stop, but find it we did: nowhere to stand but the newly-mown verge (which must have resembled a meadow before mowing. The bus picked us up and then took us via a stop right adjacent to the railway station, but on the other side of the tracks and which we had not noticed, and would have been much more convenient. It was about twenty minutes into town and we were pleased we had not attempted to walk. We were already beginning to reassess the value of the return halves of our train tickets, the distance from the station to Verbania being roughly the same as the distance we had travelled on the train! I am not complaining: this is supposed to be an adventure, and an adventure it was! 

We had coffee at a café at the town hall and then went for a long walk along the lake shore, enjoyed a cold lemon drink overlooking the lake and then walked back into the centre of Verbania for a gelato and a bus back to Stresa. For our evening meal we had promised ourselves a cocktail and a pizza at a lakeside pizzeria near our hotel and that was what we did. While we were there two other pairs of people from our Great Rail Journeys group turned up, and we had seen another couple there earlier in the day. I hope they all liked it as much as I did. A good meal for two, with cocktails and coffee, €53.00, that's under £50: brilliant.

Friday was the last of the free days and we had decided to take a bus in the other direction to Arona, farther south along the lake. Buses around Stresa were not a big tourist thing and it was not easy to find all the information we needed; stops were not always easy to find and the online data available to Apple Maps and CityMapper, our usual public transport information sources, was patchy and difficult to understand, but we were able to get a timetable and information from the tourist office. The buses were actually quite useful once we found them and stops included one at the rail station (we'd alighted there on our way home from Verbania) and one by the lake boat terminal, so there was some effort at integration, but not a lot. After a quick look around Stresa Friday market, we waited at the (unmarked) stop by the boat terminal, soon encouraged by local people turning up to wait for the bus, too. It was a little late which would have made us concerned if it had not been for the others at the stop. The vehicle was more like a coach than a bus and was very comfortable. Like the buses we had used the day before, they did not take card payment as we were used to in Britain, but only cash, although they did offer change so were able to pay with no difficulty.

Arrival in Arona was by the rail station in the centre of the town, by the boat terminal there, where there was also a tourist office where we were able to pick up a map of the town. Again we walked along the lake shore and stopped for our morning coffee at a little restaurant that was just opening for the day. We decided that from there we would walk up to the statue (described as a "colossus"!) of St Charles Borromeo, a member of the ruling Borromeo family who had become a Cardinal and Archbishop of the Counter-Reformation and was very popular locally. When you read of his reforms to the Church in his diocese you wonder if he had come a little earlier in history the Reformation, with its great divisions in the Church, might never have happened. It was a long, uphill walk to the church and the great statue, sometimes along the roadside, sometimes a long stepped footpath, sometimes on the road itself. It was hot and sunny, but we got there! Apparently this is second in size only to the Statue of Liberty in New York of the type of statue that one can climb up inside: I did not try that ...  We returned to Arona town centre by a different route which was a lot easier going but just as hot and sunny and with much more walking on the carriageway. On arrival in the town a gelato was the most urgent thing to find, and we sat looking over the lake and recovered from our exertions of the morning before taking the bus back to Stresa - once we had found it! We  knew it would go from the rail station forecourt but did not really know exactly where: a bus in the right livery stood among about ten others but with its engine running, so we walked to the front and saw that the destination was, among other places, Stresa, and the door was open. So we asked the driver, paid him and sat down. About three local people were already aboard and one more joined us. It was not at a bus stop but just among a pack of coaches and would have been easy to miss! The adventure continued ... back in Stresa we bought salad and fruit for our evening meal at our room and one to relax. We would be up a little earlier the next day for what would be, for me, the centrepiece of this exciting holiday.

The Centovalli Line in Sunshine at Last - and in Its Centenary Year

We last rode the Centovalli Line almost ten years ago, but it was in winter and on a wet and murky day. Winter is not a bad time to travel a scenic line, actually, when the deciduous trees are bare and there might be snow highlighting some features, but the rain and mist were, well, a dampener. We looked at doing it again one summer but on that particular day the forecast, although warmer, was not much sunnier, so we didn't even try. Third time lucky: the inclusion of this scenic line in Great Rail Journeys' itinerary for this holiday was one of our reasons for booking it, and it was sunny. Along with the rest of the group we walked up to the station from the hotel and awaited a train to Domodossala where we had just under an hour before taking the Centovalli Line train, just right for the morning coffee break. The station buffet operated the traditional Italian coffee bar system where you pay at the till and take the receipt to the barista who then makes the drinks listed on the receipt. We had become used to the concept on out earlier visits to Rome and other cities, but it was the first time we had come across it on this trip, the first time, I suppose, that we had been at a bar not specifically aimed at foreigners. The entire transaction was conducted in Italian; we are getting there.

The group had a block of seating reserved on the Centovalli train, Second Class in this case: I suspect there would not have been enough First Class seating on the four-coach multiple unit that comprised this train. It is a two-hour ride to Locarno on the express service we were on, and it is scenic for all but the first and last couple of kilometres. I did not take photographs because they would never do justice to the scenery: if you want to see it you'll have to travel the line yourself, well worth doing!

There was a party atmosphere in Locarno when we arrived, with a large music festival happening in the streets, a sort of urban Glastonbury.

Above: Locarno market place this summer

Right: Locarno market place on our previous visit

In Locarno we revisited the pizzeria Al Portico where we had had lunch the last time we were there, but this time we could speak to the staff in Italian. On my iPhone I showed the waitress my blog post with a photograph of the restaurant. It had barely changed, although we did notice that the menu now had a German translation of each item - not that that was any use to me. By the time we had eaten our salads and enjoyed the coffee it was the to wander back to the rendezvous with the group to await the boat ride back to Stresa. Our tour manager was keen to ensure that we boarded the boat fairly early in order to give us the best choice of seating, and as it was so hot and sunny we chose a shaded area on deck, bt eventually moved under cover with an iced drink from the on-board bar. It was a three-hour journey back to Stresa, the boat calling at several places on both sides of the lake on the way, including two stops in Verbania, which it was nice to see again from a different angle. By then the sun was much lower in the sky (we arrived at Stresa at seven o'clock), so we were out on the sundeck for the last part of the voyage, from which we could see the side of the Borromean Islands that we not visible from Stresa, and could spot our hotel among the buildings as we approached the town. Dinner was back at the hotel after a very quick shower.

Another Lake

Sunday dawned with another sunny morning but we had a chance to recover from the three preceding days' adventures in the heat as the included tour to Lago Orta did not start until 13:30. After a snack lunch in our room we joined the rest of the party for the coach trip to the small town of Orta San Giulio: it was not far as the crow flies, but was in the next valley and so further by road (and would have been even further by rail!). From the coach park we took a little road train down to the town centre and lake shore where we had a few minutes (another gelato stop!) before we all boarded a boat to visit the tiny island of San Giulio on which stands a church founded by Saint Julius and in which his body is buried. The church is beautifully decorated with wall paintings throughout and well worth a visit. The island is densely packed with homes and a large Benedictine convent and there is a walk around the island, the "Walk of Silence" in one direction, with plaques about the value of silence, and the "Walk of Meditation" in the other direction with plaques of platitudes which really did not make a lot of sense to me. Either way round, though, and we had ample time to do both, was a very pleasant walk. Lake Orta itself is much smaller than Lake Maggiore, much more the size of the lakes we know in England and Scotland. The boat to the island took us the long way round so that we could see something of the lake and the island's numerous boathouses where the residents keep their boats. The boat back took the shortest route and we were soon walking back to the little road train and our coach back to the hotel for dinner and bed.

Food and Wine

Bob the tour manager had warned us to have a light breakfast on Monday morning because we would be fed amply during the day! It was quite a long day out by coach into a wine-producing area some way south of Lake Maggiore, and began with a visit to Ghemme, including a tour of the Rovellotti winery, which must be unique, followed by a tasting, with accompanying nibbles. The winery is situated in the town centre in a collection of building which began as a fortress in which the citizens could try to hold out in the event of an attack on the their town when it was situated between two warring dukedoms but which become surplus to defensive requirements when peace broke out between those families. We were shown around by a young member of the Rovellotti family who have had premises in the former fortress since its founding in the medieval period Two generations of the family and a couple of other employees currently run the wine-making business and we sampled four varying wines accompanied by light bites to suit them - trying to keep consumption of food as low as possible because of what was to follow ... but needing something to stop this being nothing but wine, and before noon, too!

This followed by a drive through the countryside (which was possibly gorgeous but most of us slept through most of it after all that wine) and lunch, a generous lunch, with wine, at Cascina Monchucchetto, an agriturismo even farther south. The views from the agriturismo were fantastic but it was so hot in the sun that we did not want to enjoy the sun for long. It was necessary to go a bit steady on the food and wine as well after the morning's indulgences at the winery. No dinner was necessary that evening.

We spent some time that evening packing our bags, for this was our last night in Stresa: the next day we would begin the journey homeward, and although it would be quite possible to get home in one day (as we have done from, say, Neuchâtel when travelling on our own), we still had one more interesting place to see.

Burgundy

We were all taken by coach with our luggage to Stresa railway station where we caught a Geneva-bound express through the Alps to Lausanne where we changed trains for a Paris-bound TGV as far as Dijon, a city we had never visited before. We arrived in Dijon on-time mid-afternoon and after finding our room at the hotel, the Oceania le Jura, a short walk from the rail station, we set off for a stroll in the city centre. We bought a gift, mustard, of course, for our kind neighbours who have kept our plants watered in our absence, and by then a little rain had begun, so we started back in the direction of the hotel, past the miniature version of the Arc de Triomphe which graces the city centre, and went for a drink in the hotel bar. By the time I had ordered the rain was very heavy and we were soon joined by other members of the tour who had baled out of walks around the city centre, looking considerably more bedraggled that we were. Later we heard tales of those who had ventured farther and who developed a sudden need for coffee or for prayer, sheltering in a café or the cathedral ... 

The evening meal was a fixed menu of local specialities at a nearby restaurant and the eggs in a burgundy sauce were especially good in my opinion, as was the cassis-flavoured sorbet with which we finished. Unlimited water, and coffee, were included but we had to buy the wine and I must say that for a cheap house red the wine was magnificent. My opinion of Burgundian cuisine and wine has been enhanced by this visit. We brought a selection of mustards home for ourselves, too.

The rail station at Dijon has a large cylindrical booking hall very reminiscent of Charles Holden's inter-war designs for the London Underground, in white concrete rather than brick as in London. We were back there in the morning to take a TGV train to Paris (it was the same service, earlier in the day, as the one on which we had arrived the previous afternoon from Lausanne). This time we arrived at Gare de Lyon and Great Rail Journeys had provided a coach to take us through the streets to Gare du Nord, where we arrived neatly in time to check in for our Eurostar train to London. By the time we had all been through passport and security checks (and, like London, this all seems to have become much slicker now) it was almost time to board: I don't think I sat down in the departure lounge at all!

Taking a seat on Eurostar now I almost feel like I'm already home even though I still have two more train rides after this one and a time zone to cross! The light meal, lunch to us, was soon served and we had our final conversations with the people who had shared (some of) our adventures of the past week and a half and before we knew it we were in the familiar space of St Pancras station. It was a long walk from the last coach of the train to the exit, but that did mean that we got to enjoy the vast and glorious railway station that London St Pancras has now become. We walked across to Kings Cross and although I had booked seats on a train to Peterborough at 16:06 we had a look at LNER's app and saw that pairs seats were still available on a train that would be leaving in about twenty minutes, and hour earlier than that, so I reserved a pair of seats on that, cancelled the ones I already had and by then its platform was announced and we took our places. Again, a light meal was served, although I kept the pudding course to eat later at home since it did not seem long since Eurostar had fed me! There were only four minutes in the timetable between the arrival of this train at Peterborough and the departure of the train to Stamford, so we knew we might not make that connection. The idea was that we would shop at Waitrose in Stamford if we got it and in Peterborough (it's right by the station) if we didn't! As it happened our train from London slowed down to a crawl on approach to the station and we began to give up hope of getting the tight connection (so tight it was not advertised) but by being first at the door, and choosing a door near the footbridge steps we were able to get over the bridge and be going onto platform 7 for the Stamford train just as the whistle blew, and the kind dispatcher had the doors opened for us to board. For whatever reason it was still held at the platform for several more minutes, so perhaps the haste was not necessary after all ...

Back in Stamford we took the familiar walk across the Meadows and stopped for tea at the open-air Italian restaurant at the Sheepmarket square, a last little glimpse of Italy as we made our way home. While we had been away there had been a heatwave at home, and we were actually less hot (high twenties Celsius) than England, and specifically Lincolnshire, had been. Now both places were beginning to cool down and autumn looked like it was coming at last!

Tulips In Amsterdam

By Train to Amsterdam for the Tulips

Ever since Eurostar started their through service to Rotterdam and Amsterdam we had thought of making this trip. Yes, we could have travelled to Amsterdam any time we wanted by changing at Brussel Zuid, but the start of the direct service gave us the nudge to get on with it. A pandemic intervened, prevented travel for a while and made it difficult for a while longer, but eventually we were in a position to plan a visit to the Netherlands by train. As a native of south Lincolnshire, born in the former County of Holland, I was keen to visit Amsterdam in the spring, ideally the first week of May, at the likely height (depending on the weather) of the tulip season. Until recently the (now) District of South Holland in Lincolnshire had shared tulip production with the Netherlands and Spalding had been the centre of the industry with a show ground at Springfields and an annual parade of decorated floats. Spalding and South Holland now concentrate on food production and tulips are largely the preserve of the Netherlands, although daffodils are still grown in Lincolnshire. Missing the sight of tulip fields and regretting that Springfields is now little more than an "outlet centre," I wanted to see Amsterdam and the Keukenhof Gardens, so, threading my way between King's Day in the Netherlands and the Coronation of our own new King in England, I made the arrangements to spend two complete days in Amsterdam by rail. One day would be spent tripping out to the Keukenhof, the other would be unplanned so that we could do whatever felt right on the day.

I booked the trip with Planet Rail. I had never used them before but have seen them on social media and thought it would be worth a try. I had looked at booking direct with Eurostar, who also book hotels, but Planet Rail were somewhat less expensive and offered a hotel in a more suitable part of Amsterdam city centre. Planet Rail offer unescorted package holidays without specific dates: I just looked at their website for the package I wanted and telephoned to ask if any suitable dates were available and what the cost would be. It was all very satisfactory so I paid the deposit and waited for the dates to come round. This would be our first international rail adventure of 2023.

Although our chosen train to Amsterdam did not leave St Pancras International until 11:04, we decided to travel to London by LNER the day before and stay overnight in our usual pre-departure hotel, the Premier Inn, near the station, and spent the afternoon (and a great dinner!) with our family in west London before the good night's sleep that Premier Inn always affords us. The time before Eurostar check-in was not wasted: I had some personal banking to do (paying in a cheque - how quaint is that?) and that gave us enough exercise walking to a branch and back, just neatly taking us to the earliest check-in time.

Arriving soon after check-in opened, we had very little queueing and were soon scanning our printed-out tickets at the gates and having our luggage checked for security: as frequent travellers by this route we are now familiar with the process and sail through easily. There was modest queuing for the passport control as the French border police now have to stamp UK passports and we can no longer zoom through the EU lane ... but it was only a little queue and we were soon sitting in the Station Pantry café to have our breakfast - as soon as the preceding train to Paris had departed there was plenty of space. No sooner had we finished our breakfast than the train began boarding and we made our way up to the platform. There is no rush: everyone has a reserved seat and everyone (well, almost everyone!) is already either waiting or making their way through security and passport control.

Travelling Standard Premier, as we generally do, means that there is a bit more room to manoeuvre in the aisle and more luggage space per passenger, so boarding and taking our seats was a relatively relaxed affair: again, there is no rush as boarding begins at least twenty minutes before departure. Planet Rail had managed to book for me a pair of single seats facing across a table - club duo, I gather it is called - which is our preferred seating the travelling as a couple, and there were small luggage racks nearby that just took our cases nicely. Altogether the atmosphere in these coaches is very relaxing and pleasant and we soon felt at home. The first few miles were in tunnel under east London, with a brief flash of daylight as we passed through Stratford with its unused international platforms, then we were out into Essex as the light meal service began before plunging under the Thames and emerging once more in Kent. 

The train slowed for the Channel Tunnel and then soon stopped at its first calling point, Lille Europ. There were stops also at Brussels and Rotterdam before we arrived at Amsterdam Centraal. Beyond Brussels there was another drink and a snack; having had beer (a London craft ale) and coffee with the light lunch I opted for wine with the snack (which was only a very small bag of mixed nuts). When the stewards came to clear away my empty little wine bottle they left me a full one but I could not see myself finishing another couple of glasses of wine before Amsterdam and I kept it in my hand luggage for later in the tour ...

About four hours after departure from St Pancras, but five hours on the clock because of the change of time zone, we arrived at Amsterdam Centraal and had most of the length of the train to walk to the exit. Unlike St Pancras and Paris Nord we needed to have our tickets handy to leave by the normal barriers at the exit from the platforms and we were soon out, through some building work (yes, they're improving the stations here, too!) and on to the streets of another of the world's great cities. It was a kilometre or so to our hotel, easily navigated using Apple maps on our iPhones, but everyone else seemed to be walking the other way - perhaps arriving at office closing time was not so smart a move ... 

It was sunny and warm now as we plotted our way through the tramlines in Dam Square and across to the street called Singel ("canal," I understand) alongside the oldest canal in Amsterdam where or hotel, the Hotel Estheréa, was located. We checked in and were taken to our room by a porter who also took our luggage and showed us the room. The room was compact (and the toilet and shower were particularly compact!) but well-appointed with plenty of power sockets, coffee machine - which we never used - free bottled water, lots of lights, air conditioning and lots of storage.

We went downstairs where complimentary tea (and other hot drinks) and biscuits were available and then we set off looking around the local area for somewhere for a fairly light but preferably Dutch dinner. We finished up, after a couple of false starts at places either closed or no longer doing food, at a brilliant Proeflokal ("local trial") bar on the next canalside: here we were able to try local food and local beer and had a great time, surrounded by lots of people from many countries all conversing in English because that's the language everyone knows. 

Dinner on the first night

Line of shuttle buses at Europaplein

Wednesday, the first full day, was the day set aside for the visit to Keukenhof. Everything was booked in advance by purchasing online a pair of "Tulip Festival Cards," which were not cards at all, really, but a set of online documents and apps which provided all that we needed for a two-day tulip festival visit: a day ticket for the Keukenhof Garden at a specified time (I specified 11:00 to give us time to get there), a two-day public transport pass and guided tours of the gardens and of Amsterdam for download to our iPhones. The public transport passes had to be collected by scanning the codes on my iPhone at the office, or a machine, at Centraal station before we started, so we allowed a few minutes for that and then caught the Metro to Europaplein where a dedicated bus service was provided to shuttle visitors to Keukenhof: it all ran very smoothly and exactly as described on Keukenhof's helpful website.

At the Keukenhof entrance we simply showed the two tickets on my iPhone for the barcodes to be scanned and we were straight in, greeted on arrival by a magnificent display of tulips. We had timed the visit just right: the first week on May can go either way with respect to the weather, but usually is somewhere within the "window" for tulip blooms whether the season is late or early. As it happened, for 2023 is was just right, a little after the midpoint and with sunny weather, pleasant but not too hot.

We saw varieties of tulip that we have never seen before, some resembling carnations, some roses. Some short, some tall, and all sorts of colours, along with daffodils and narcissi (which are known by the same word in Dutch) and hyacinths, another Dutch speciality. The gardens are laid out on a huge scale and act as a showcase for the bulb industry, just as Springfields used to do in Spalding.

"Lunch" consisted of a big piece of Dutch apple tart at one of the many refreshment facilities around the gardens and by lunch time it was warm and sunny enough to sit outside, whereas our morning coffee had been taken indoors. We visited some of the indoor displays as well as covering all the outdoor ones, and standing by the boundary of the garden we looked out over the colourful fields where tulips were growing, once a familiar sight back in Lincolnshire, too, but no longer.

Following the purchase of gifts at one of the souvenir shops we made our way back to the bus terminal outside the entrance building to queue, briefly, for the next bus back to Europaplein. Buses were there waiting their turn to load and as one filled up the next took its place and the orderly queue moved along all the time. At Europaplein we went to the Metro and used the same pass to board the next train back to central Amsterdam. We had supper in the hotel bar that evening (there is no restaurant but the bard snacks are pretty substantial!), boosted by a salad in our room from the nearby supermarket and the wine I had been given on the train the day before.

That man Gormley gets everywhere

Thursday was the day for which we had no definite plan before we came to Amsterdam and we decided on Wednesday evening that we would visit Lelystad in the Flevoland polder. I had been there on my field course to the Netherlands for my Town Planning degree fifty years earlier when it was very new, and Alison had studied the polders for her A Level Geography, so we both had an interest. Our passes covered the train ride out from Amsterdam (every half hour) but we discovered that we had to pay - using contactless, just like at home, for buses within Lelystad. We tripped out to the coast and looked around at an outlet centre - we were trying to track down a tulip vase as our souvenir - and then strolled along the waterfront and saw the replica ship Batavia. In the distance a river cruise ship was making it way towards Amsterdam, past a vast Anthony Gormley sculpture.

Returning to Amsterdam we looked for a canal cruise and saw a boat just loading near Centraal station with room for us at a decent price, and took our seats. There are numerous operators and routes and they all seem to cost about the same, and this, Rederij Kooij, was the first one we saw, with a boat about to depart, so we did not do any "comparison shopping" but just went for it and were very happy with our one-hour tour with its commentary in four languages.

We visited a Delft Blau shop and bought the tulip vase we'd been promising ourselves! (See picture at the heading.)

We had booked dinner at the only time we could get (17:00 - very early indeed for us) at a recommended restaurant serving typical Dutch food, so we were soon back at our room getting ready to do out. I had hod no lunch and needed the tea and biscuits at the hotel to keep me going ... and then off by tram to Moeders (Mothers) for our early dinner. This was an enormous meal. How come the Dutch keep so slim? It must be all that walking and cycling, I suppose, and we did a fair bit of walking after this meal.

First we took a tram to the other side of the city centre and had a look around the Jewish quarter. This was not a former ghetto like that Jewish area in, say, Rome, and neither was it the location of Ann Frank's house. But it was an attractive part of the city and pleasant for an evening stroll. We walked back to our hotel, dodging events taking place in Dam Square and then had a good night's sleep ready for the trip home tomorrow.

We left on Friday, but not until after noon, and before our 11:00 check out we went on another walk, this time around the Museum Quarter, although we did not have time to visit any museums, and all were very busy in any case.

Catching Eurostar at Amsterdam is much like taking any other train: you scan your ticket at the same ticket gates as everyone else and go to platform 15, a platform used by other trains as well as ours. The only difference is that there is a dedicated waiting room equipped with security scanners and the passport controls for both the Netherlands (on behalf of the European Union) and the United Kingdom. Once through those checks we were able to wait in the departure lounge, which did not really seem quite big enough for the number of passengers waiting ... perhaps this service is more popular than the company anticipated? In due course the train arrived at the platform and we all poured out of the waiting area to join it. Again we were travelling in Standard Premier and there was no rush. Although it also made calls at Rotterdam, Brussels and Lille we were never disturbed: I think seats must be allocated in blocks for each boarding point, which must also make it easier for staff. In this direction the light meal is not served until after Brussels, which is rather late for lunch, and I wished I'd bought something to tide me over. There was a cup of coffee and a small bar of chocolate, very nice but not very filling, soon after leaving Amsterdam. Lunch was most welcome when it did arrive!

This time, as an afternoon meal, a specially-decorated cake was included to celebrate the coronation of King Charles III of England, which was to take place on the following day - a rather nice touch.

There was a track fault somewhere on the high speed line to Brussels and so we were diverted onto ordinary tracks and lost over twenty minutes, some of which was made up by reducing as far as possible the stop at Brussels Zuid, requiring the crew change to happen very quickly. A little more was made up elsewhere but we were still late into London. This did not affect our plans for the onward journey, though, as I had allowed plenty of time.

There was some further delay on arriving at St Pancras because a travelator from the platform to the exit was closed for maintenance and everyone was having to use one escalator; being late, our train was swiftly followed into the station by another from Paris whose passengers also needed the same way out. It took a while it was safe and simple enough with everyone being patient. (We have been known to be off the train first and out to the exit before anyone else was off the platform, but we were in no hurry this time and had been travelling right at the rear end of the train, again!

We had left Amsterdam in gorgeous sunshine, as it had been for most of our time there, but on the way back rain began quite early and continued, on and off, for most of the way. In England there was only intermittent drizzle in London as we waited in the First Class Lounge for our LNER train back to Peterborough. We were taking the same evening service as a few days earlier on our way back from a visit to our friends in Croydon, the 19:06 bound for Lincoln. We know this makes a good connection for Stamford at Peterborough. Again, a light meal on the train and we were soon at Stamford where, although it was not now raining, we took a taxi home from the station: with our luggage this felt like a good way to end the trip.

It had been a highly successful trip: we had seen the tulip fields and the gardens and we had started exploring Amsterdam. We had tried out the through service and found it excellent, but I shall remember to take a snack on board for the return trip next time - and there will be a next time because we really have to explore Amsterdam properly now that we have found out how easy it is to get there and back. Next time we need not go at the height of the tulip festival and will visit some of those museums, booked in advance like the Keukenhof was this time.