Italy by train. Since I won’t fly this seemed the most practical means of my family getting me there! How did it go and what did we learn? Clearly the journey is part of the holiday. I’m not making the claim its faster than flying on a long distance trip like this. London→Paris is faster. Maybe even Paris→Barcelona, but Scotland to Rome – no way. We also stopped on the way down in Paris and Milan to break the journey on the way out. The idea was to spend a bit of time looking around Milan but we had to go onto Rome on an earlier train due to floods. However on the way back we did Turin/Edinburgh in one day. It was a long day but nevertheless it is possible to do it in one day (15 hours). However in general you should consider the journey part of your holiday and take a break somewhere nice. A last very important point is that neither is it cheaper than flying either – perversely. In fact a lot more money.
First the planning. The go to resource for initial advice is https://www.seat61.com/. This has the practical details and advice to get anywhere in the world by train. But commercial on-line booking sites such as Trainline https://www.thetrainline.com/journey-planner work throughout Europe. This makes things very much easier.
On the way down to Italy by train we went through the Gotthard Base Tunnel (the worlds longest rail tunnel) under the Alps. I love sitting and looking out of the window and loose myself in my thoughts. I find it very relaxing. The scenery both there and back and in between was stunning. I’ve flown over the Alps and had a great view of the mountains, but it’s luck as to whether you will see anything from a plane even in daylight hours. On a train as long as its light you should get a reasonable view.
Another lesson from our trip is that cancellations and late trains don’t just happen in the UK. It’s far easier to list those trains that were on time. The final one in the UK and the Rome to Assisi parts were. Some of the other journeys made up some time by the end but generally Italian, French and even Swiss Railways ran late. It’s not even that there’s a lot of traffic on their lines (the exception being Switzerland) – in Italy and France trains going the other way were surprisingly rare compared to here. They also seem to be in denial about punctuality, either not mentioning it all or downplaying it. The French TVG to Paris on the way home being an honourable exception. A full confession there – but then it was half an hour late so it was difficult not to fess up.
Moving onto comfort – a big surprise was Italian trains don’t provide food. The high speed ones have vending machines – but that’s it. The regional ones didn’t seem to offer anything. We had a meal on Swiss/Italian train from Zurich to Milan. Mine was passable, my wife’s and daughters good. The old regional trains on the Italian network (1980’s vintage coaches with a sign saying not to use the toilets in stations) have no wifi although there are charging sockets.
Which brings us neatly to another conclusion. High Speed rail sucks money out the rest of the system. A lot of the French and Italian systems are older and more run down than here, although investment in Italy railways was happening – particularly at stations where many were having their platforms rebuilt. The high speed link from Milan to Rome is a case in point. At Bologna and south a whole series of high speed tunnels have been built and this doesn’t come cheap. I’m a big supporter of high speed, but not at neglecting the rest of the network.
There is also high speed and high speed. The French run their TVG’s over very slow bits of the network. In one place it was single track. I think this is a deliberate policy to spread the benefits of the networks as wide as possible. If so its a good one. The train to Milan from Zurich went very slowly in parts too. The fastest part of this journey was the new tunnels – where the train maxed out at 200km/h.
What the French have definitely done is cracked the toilet test. In a train moving at 300km/h (almost 190mph) you can go to the toilet without cracking your head open. Italian high speed trains are almost as good. I really liked the design of the newer TVG’s where between the ends of the coaches by the extensive luggage space there is a side on seating area facing the windows on the second level (get seats upstairs the views better). This is to make phonecalls or use laptops.
All in all though the train aspect of the trip didn’t detract from a great holiday – but added to it. A should add every rail network has their foibles and the above are observations rather than full blown complaints. I’d recommend train travel as a way of going on holiday and one last thing to say is that there are many sleeper services throughout Europe now re-opening.