Page 58Escape
J
R.R. Tolkien writes in The
lord of The Rings: ‘not all
those who wander are lost.’
This is a good line to remem-
ber on a series of random rail
journeys in europe.
Serendipity is what it is all about. Who
needs plans? let the tracks take you(^) wherever they go. When i set off with a
month-long interrail pass along europe’s
railway lines last year, i had an eventual
destination — Venice. But that was it.
let what would happen, happen. From
london Victoria to Dover and onwards via
Calais into France, Belgium, the nether-
lands, Germany and beyond i went, reach-
ing the Black Sea in Ukraine via Poland.
out-of-the-way spots i had never heard of
INTERRAILING FOR GROWN-UPS
— Vrbas in Serbia, opole in
Poland, Zidani Most in Slovenia
— came and went. encounters
with poets, professors, drop-outs
and dreamers were to come — as
well as a fair few rail enthusiasts.
Trains are a sociable way of
getting about.
After 15 countries on 38 trains,
covering 4,000 miles, i made it to
la Serenissima.
Why should interrailing be the
preserve of students? After all, the
all-europe version — the Global
Pass — offers rides on mainline
trains to 40,000 destinations in 31
countries, from norway to Greece,
or from lithuania to Portugal. Here
are a pick of the rides i discovered:
BRUGES TO LIEGE
RAilWAYS helped forge national
identity in Belgium in the 1830s.
Travelling from the Flemish north
to the Wallonian south you sense
this, setting off from Bruge’s Art
Deco station and passing through
pancake-flat landscape to Ghent
and Brussels. Carriages have plush
seats and conductors are chatty,
wearing comical orange uniforms.
TIME: 2h 4m
DISTANCE: 120 miles
FARE: £18 (belgianrail.be)
LEIPZIG TO DRESDEN
GeRMAnY’S leipzig station is
one of the world’s largest. From
here you catch a red Deutsche
Bahn train past crumbling
Communist-era factories and then
a series of obscure towns: oschatz,
Glaubitz and Priestewitz. Dresden-
neustadt station has lovely
Meissen porcelain artwork and a
moving memorial to Dresden Jews
deported to concentration camps.
TIME: 1h 24m
DISTANCE: 69 miles
FARE: £29 (bahn.de)
KATOWICE TO KRAKOW
THiS journey between katowice
— a coal mining hub in southern
Poland — to the ancient city of
krakow with its magnificent
market square, castle and lively
nightlife is intriguing.
Catch a performance by the
Polish national Radio Symphony
orchestra in katowice before
boarding one of the orange trains
to krakow. Then slowly rattle
across an eerie industrial land-
scape potted with mine shafts.
TIME: 2h 3m
DISTANCE: 50 miles
FARE: £5.40 (omio.com)
LVIV TO ODESSA
lViV is a beautiful Ukrainian city
with a fine opera house, baroque
churches and bars serving cherry
wine. From here, catch the sleeper
to odessa with its Black Sea
beaches. Relax in lviv station’s
Soviet-era Hall of enhanced
Comforts before setting off.
TIME: 10h 31m
DISTANCE: 515 miles
FARE: £14 (uz.gov.ua)
VRBAS TO NOVI SAD
noT many tourists make it to
Vrbas, a sleepy town in northern
Serbia. But it’s got a relaxed centre
with a cafe culture and makes a
pleasant pitstop. The journey to
novi Sad — with its grand castle
and popular summer music festival
— is on graffiti-covered trains.
TIME: 48 minutes
DISTANCE: 27 miles
FARE: £1.35 (srbvoz.rs)
ZAGREB TO ZIDANI MOST
BeGin in Croatia’s capital and
cross into Slovenia, passing gently
rolling hills and following the Riva
Sava. There’s a lovely little chapel
on the platform at Zagreb, and
Zidani Most station is wonderful,
too, right by the Sava and with a
little cafe (home to a white cat).
TIME: 1h 25m
DISTANCE: 50 miles
FARE: £7.75 (hzpp.hr)
INNSBRUCK TO VERONA
THe Brenner Pass between inns-
bruck in Austria and Verona, italy,
opened in 1867 and was a key
Austrian empire hub. From inns-
bruck you roll past the city’s ski
jump and rise into the mountains,
crossing into italy at 1,370m. enjoy
Alpine scenery with lakes and cliffs.
TIME: 3h 32m
DISTANCE: 171 miles
FARE: £38 (oebb.at)
n Month-long, unlimited-
travel Interrail passes from
£610 (interrail.eu). Slow trains
to Venice by tom Chesshyre is
published by Summersdale
at £16.99.
Make tracks for these
little-known train
journeys and discover
Europe in a new light,
says Tom Chesshyre
Sublime scenery: With Interrail you can enjoy lines such as the Semmeringbahn, Austria
What’s it REALLY
like to fly in BA’s
newest planes?
Picture: IMAGEBROKER/ALAMY
IS IT a case of the more things
change, the more they stay the
same? Because, while there’s
big excitement about British
Airways’s new A350s, which come
with ‘suites’ in business class, the
legroom in economy is, well,
exactly the same as on the air-
craft the planes are replacing.
Seats are slimmer, too, with
ten across, rather than the
traditional nine in economy —
as I witnessed this week on the
inaugural flight to Madrid.
But, on the positive side, the
A350s offer a far more attract-
ive experience, wherever you
are seated. There is 40 per cent
less noise and the planes burn
25 per cent less fuel; the air
quality is much improved and
the ambient lighting is a
welcome addition.
The new planes are part of a
£6.5 billion investment by BA over
the next five years, with 18 A350s
to be pressed into service by the
end of the year — on the Dubai
route next month, followed by
Toronto, then Tel Aviv and Banga-
lore. As long as the pilots are not
on strike, of course.
There are 56 ‘club suites’, 56
seats in World Traveller Plus and
219 seats in World Traveller. For
those who can afford business
class, the suites come with their
own privacy doors, 40 per cent
more storage, longer beds,
fluffier White Company duvets
and bigger television monitors
that no longer need to be swung
into position.
There will also be no more
embarrassing climbing over
total strangers if your flat-bed
seat is next to a window, because
all the ‘suites’ have direct access
to an aisle in a clever herring-
bone layout.
MARK PALMER
high flyer: Mark in window seat on BA’s A350
РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS Daily Mail, Wednesday, August 7, 2019