Those of you who have read my previous blogs and comments know that I am an organising queen, and my forte is holiday planning. I also dislike flying, partly for the experience, but mainly for its environmental impact. Ironically, in the UK it is far cheaper to fly abroad than to take a train or a ferry. Fortunately I’m in the extremely privileged position to be able to afford to pay for my principles and my taste in this instance.  

Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand that those who are working and have a limited amount of leave, want to get directly to their destination as quickly as possible. I also appreciate that those on a limited budget are obliged to make economic decisions on how to spend their free time.  

However, we are both happily retired, so we can take as many days as we please, and we choose to consider that the holiday has started the moment we close the front door behind us.

I had originally planned an absolute mega day, full of jeopardy, but managed to soften it slightly by going to London the day before the morning Eurostar, when I found a very cheap Travelodge a short walk from St Pancras (not the one directly opposite that costs an arm and a leg). Thus I took a train and tube ride out of the stress mix.

In London we found a nice pub that did good food and enjoyed our first night away. The next morning, bright and early we got our Greggs porridge and tea and an M&S yogurt each before entering Eurostar lounge. The train to Paris ran smoothly and we easily negotiated the metro to get to Gare de Lyon, so we had nearly an hour to choose our lunch. We found a supermarket in the station and chose some ready meal poke bowls.  I thought the total spent was rather steep, but then discovered we had bought sufficient for our evening meal too… and the next day’s breakfast! The train to Milan was a joy, watching the countryside roll by, as the flat lands became hills and then mountains, with tunnels through them. I love the sense of progression of train travel, giving substance to the journey.

Fortunately the train arrived in Milano Garibaldi on time and the single stop metro ride to Milano Centrale was easy. We already had our food due to the earlier double shop so we could get straight onto our night train to Bari. The night trains are good fun. They’re not posh. There is no lounge car to imagine you’re on the Orient Express. The cabins all saw much better days at least 50 years ago, but they are clean, comfortable and do the job. I had treated us to the top level which means that we get slightly wider bunk beds and a teeny basin in our cabin allowing us to clean teeth etc without queuing in the corridor.

So the day I had been nervous about worked out perfectly. I suffer from low level anxiety and two station changes in big cities gave ample opportunity for disaster. One delay could have thwarted the whole plan. But it didn’t. We arrived in Bari in the morning, popped down to the port and left our bags in Left Luggage and enjoyed our day. I bought a sunhat and we had TWO ice creams each. I could completely unwind the knots in my stomach before catching our overnight ferry to Greece.

Susannah

A Moodscope member