We settled into our seats - comfortable, spacious, a dim lamp illuminating the table between us - and stored our luggage away in our very own luggage rack directly behind where we sat. We were facing each other on two single chairs, our picnic lunch spread out on our table, uninterrupted views out of the window of the journey from Geneva to Paris. The 3.5 hour train journey seated in first class flew by in the blink of an eye and valley views. Our tickets cost around £50 each. I’ve paid more than that to sit on the floor of a dirty old train from Manchester to London.
Flashback a few years. One of my favourite ever journeys: snuggled up in bunk beds with my boyfriend on the sleeper train from Helsinki to Rovaniemi. Being slowly rocked to sleep in comfort and waking up 550 miles further north. Or travelling to Primavera in Barcelona via London, Paris and Aix-en-Provence with a group of friends via various trains where everything was smooth sailing, beautiful views and didn’t cost very much money at all. Or that time I took the train from Budapest to Zagreb back in 2014 and we were treated to free wifi and comfy, spacious seats the entire journey (two things we still don’t have in the UK).
I love travelling by train in mainland Europe, and it is something I am committed to doing more of going forward. We all know why travelling by train rather than plane is better for the environment - but it is also more comfortable, more convenient and the views out of the window are far, far better. So why isn’t this something we all do more often?
This is the first time I’ve used someone else’s photograph on here, but I realised I have no photos of trains. Photo by Sara Groblechner on Unsplash
A note on sustainable travel: I am vocal about wanting to fly less but I also very much admit that I am far from perfect. I still fly. Going forward, I want to make more of an effort to travel to my destinations by train, even if that means flying in one direction and returning home by train (as I did on my recent trip to France). The main thing that puts me off taking the Eurostar more often is that booking trains back home from London is the most expensive part of the journey and adds another 4 hours onto my journey. But as I travel more and more for work purposes, I am going to choose trains over planes whenever I can. I also pledged many years ago never to take an internal flight.
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