17 August/18 August 2019 ★ FTWeekend 7Travel
The modern
Grand Tour
Interrail| After exploring Europe’s railways in her youth,
Joy Lo Dicotakes a return trip with her teenager, and
traces the history of the continent’s much-loved rail pass
J
olt, creak, jolt. The train was
curving around the lower Alps
and shook me out of my sleep.
In the bunk above me, my teen-
ager George snuffled and slept
on, determined not to be disturbed by
the wondrous sight of the morning’s
first light hitting the mountains.
The sleep was deserved: we had been
living out of backpacks for the last week,
our Interrail passesnow heavily inked
with train times andstamps, and we
were bothfffeeling a bit ragged.eeling a bit ragged.
We would be pulling into Venice’s
SantaLucia station in a couple of hours. I
went to find the steward to beg for coffee,
and returned to my bunk and my copy of
The Radetzky March, Joseph Roth’s exqui-
site tragicomic novel about the end of
the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Forthe 10 days of our trip,Ifound
myself living in multiple time zones: the
shiny present of Europe;the 19th cen-
tury of the novel;and my own past,
remembering myyouthful discovery of
the continent by train.
Our first stop had been Krakow, a
place I’d last known well when I lived
there in the late 1990s. I’d just finished
my A-levels and Poland then was in its
own post-Communist adolescence, ach-
ing to be westernised and cool.
The babushkas I remembered from
that era had mostly gone. One with rust-
coloured hair survived at the train ticket
office, refusing to acknowledge travel-
lers who didn’t speak Polish or French.
But Krakow had got its wish: Zara and
Nike stores had taken possession of the
historic city centre. In the Old TownSquare we came across a faded trace of a
lost world: Noworolski, the Viennese
café where intellectuals oncegathered,
had survived, although it now thrived
on gullible tourists prepared to payout-
landish prices.
After two days of walking the city,
George and I took the night train to
Prague. Putting together an itinerary
was itself part of the holiday. George had
been wide-eyed when I first suggested
Interrailing. What was this magic ticket
that could get you anywhere? A map
came out, various ideas were thrown
around, some wildly optimistic — Stock-
holm to Athens — before we settled on
an arc from Krakow, down into Italy,
and then swinging back into London.
For five travel days in the space of a
month, tickets were £200 for George on
a youth ticket and £250 for me. How
does one react to this freedom to travel
wherever one wants in Europe on a
whim, to follow the wind? By meticu-
lous scheduling and mapping down to
the minute and metre, of course.
Every seat reservation was booked in
advance, so too the cheap and cheerful
hotels and also, in the spirit of the jour-
ney, hostels — surprisingly smart these
days. I had hoped George might talk to
some of the other teenagers travelling,
forgetting that teenagers don’t speak —
English or anything else.
Interrail was once cool, for several
generations even a rite of passage. It
arrived in 1972, to mark the anniversary
of the Union Internationale des
Chemins de Fer, an international rail-
way standards body that was foundedthat underpinned the Roth novel: all
tracks led toVienna. The Austro-Hun-
garians were deeply proud of their rail-
way tracks, running across the empire
from Krakow to Trieste.As Roth put it,
from a scene set on the eastern frontier:
“It was the last of all the monarchy’s sta-
tions; nevertheless, it too displayed two
pairs of glittering rails ribboning unin-
terruptedly into the core of the empire.”
Vienna’s old stations have long since
given way to the shiny new Vienna
Hauptbahnhof, opened fully in 2015,
and designed to be Europe’s crossroads
again, with through-tracks heading
north, south, east and west. It remains
one of the most popular destinations for
Interrailers, just behind Hamburg, Paris
and Berlin.Interrailhas had a bumpy ride over
the years. After the peak of 1991, it
slumped. The outbreak of the war in
Yugoslavia explained the initial down-
turn. Then, in 1993, the EU liberalised
the airline market and prices dropped.
Backpacks were ditched and young peo-
ple acquired suitcases on wheels,
becoming enamoured with the sup-
posed glamour of plane travel. At its
nadir in 2005, Interrail sold an unfash-
ionable 100,000 passes.
But in recent years, that has reversed.
The “flight shame” movement that is
gripping Sweden has helped Interrail
sales rise there by 40 per cent from 2017
to 2018. Across Europe, sales haverisen
to 300,000 again, with the majority of
pass-buyers asked saying they were con-
cerned about their carbon footprint.
As much as it is a rejection offlying, I
suspect it is also driven by a nostalgia for
a slower world. A plane bumps down on
the tarmac near a city in a postmodern
way — you cannot describe how you got
there. But the train, tugging its way
around the topography of Europe, the
unfolding of the landscape, the continu-
ity of nations — what a way of seeing the
world for a child.And the oldies are wis-
ing up, too. A quarter of passes are taken
by travellers over the age of 26 and a fur-
ther 11 per cent by senior citizens. The
firstgeneration of Interrailers must be
back on the tracks again.
I was surprised when an Interrail
spokesman told me that, while demand
is growing in many other countries,there has been no boom for tickets in the
British market, though we have tradi-
tionally been one of the largest purchas-
ers of passes, currently accounting for
16 per cent of all those sold. Perhaps it is
the exchange rate, Interrail suggested
politely from its headquarters in the
Netherlands (it is co-owned by Euro-
pean railway and shipping companies).
Last week, our relationship with Inter-
rail was almost dealt a fatal blow. Brit-
ain’s Rail Delivery Group, which over-
sees UK passenger trains, announced
that the Eurail group, which runs the
Interrail programme, had decided to
end the UK’s membership from January- The two bodies had been in dis-
pute about changes to the pass.
Given the timing, it felt like another
blow to our relationship with the conti-
nent, but the decision was quickly
reversed after a public outcry. Grant
Shapps, the new transport secretary,
even intervened, calling the move
“counterproductive”.
But Brexit will affect young Brits who
will miss out on the EU’s offer of 50,000
free passes a year to 18-year-olds from
member states under its Instagram-
friendly DiscoverEU project. No EU
membership, no freebies.
By now the train had pulled into Ven-
ice and we backpackers were feeling
smug as we watched those with over-
packed wheelie suitcases struggle on all
the stepped bridges.
Ilooked up the Union Internationale
des Chemins de Fer. It was born out of a
postwar peace conference. The break-
down of trust, the new nationalism and
borders bisecting lines, meant that
cross-continental trains were almost at
a standstill. Unaligned bureaucracies, a
blizzard of paperwork: nothing worked.
The UIC was charged with the standard-
isation of sprockets and suchlike, pas-
senger regulations, customs proce-
dures, but its underlying concept was
grander: to make Europe flow again,
once again.
The map of European nations had
been radically redrawn after the first
world war, but the map of the iron rib-
bons connecting its cities didn’t budge.
The thousands of miles of train routes
had become supranational.
Interrail turned those intercity pas-
senger lines into an adventure map for
young people.It has become both a verb
and a badge of honour. Say “I went inter-
railing” and you will find a shared his-
tory with Europeans who did the same
when they were young. The destination
didn’t matter. The experience did.
interrail.euIn Venice, we backpackers
felt smug as we watched
those with suitcasesstruggle over the bridges
Above, left to
right: posters
used to
advertise
Interrail in 1972,
1982, 1983
and 1985Below, clockwise
from top: Joy Lo
Dico about to
depart Krakow
Glowny station;
inside a sleeper
carriage from
Krakow to
Prague;
departing
Venice for Milani/DETAILS
Francisca Kellett was a guest of White Pearl
Resort (whitepearlresorts.com), which offers
suites from $570 per person, full-board, and
includes various activities such as snorkelling,
surfing, sea kayaking and fishingT
his is a story about a road.
First, there was no road,
just scrubby paths through
the bush. Then the
Portuguese came, cutting a
long, sandy gash through the landscape.
Time passed, civil war raged, nature
fought back; the road dissolved, until
there were just muddy potholes and
water-filled ditches. When the Chinese
arrived, everything changed. Their vast
machines and workforce flattened the
soil, laying out mile after mile of
perfectly flat tarmacadam — a straight,
gunmetal-grey slash, all the way from
Kosi Bay, on the South African border,
to the capital, Maputo.
“This road is better,” says our driver,
with typical Mozambican restraint, as
we head north at a brisk pace towards
Maputo. He’s right. I once drove on the
old road, backpacking 15 years ago
when gruelling journeys by 4X4
seemed fun. This is nothing like that.
It used to take six hours, often more,
an arduousgrind followed by a two-
hour wait for the ferry that trundled
across Maputo Bay. Now, it takes 90
minutes, a smooth zip through
scrubby, sandy landscapes, past little
villages of brick and corrugated iron,
and one enormous factory. As weapproach, it’s clear the entire complex
— machinery, buildings, huge hangar —
is empty. It’s vast and spooky, like an
abandoned film set. “They ran out of
money,” says our driver. Not the
Chinese, though, who have granted
numerous loans in exchange for
building contracts for government
buildings, the national stadium, and
thenew Maputo-Catembe suspension
bridge, costing $725m. And the road.
Locals are pleased about the road,
not just because it has cut the travel
time to the capital, but because ita spa, a smart restaurant, breezy suites
with private plunge pools and a cool,
whitewashed beach bar.
We rest up here for a few days, gazing
at the ocean from our terrace, padding
along the vast beach watching crabs
scurrying to the sea, heading out on a
“sea safari” to spot dolphins and
snorkel over coral reefs, the swell
making the parrot fish sway from side
to side. Our butler, Lino, from Maputo,
is charming and efficient, bringing us
gin fizzes at 5pm and organising a
beach picnic — huge Mozambican
prawns and steak-stuffed prego rolls —
which we eatin the soft sand. There is a
good wine cellar, a large infinity pool,
and a reading room with fresh-baked
cakes laid out every day, but really,
everyone comes for the beach. The
waves are considerable — perfect for
surfers, although there are none.
We are reluctant to leave, but this is a
story about a road, not a beach. We
leave behind the ocean viewsand head
north. The road cuts through Maputo
Special Reserve, stocked with antelope
and elephant; we spot giraffes
meandering between the trees. Signs
warn that elephants can, and will, roll
your vehicle if you get close. Cows
wander into the road, but no elephants.“What the Chinese will take from our
country, we don’t know,” says our
driver. The road project created 3,000
jobs for locals, but there are rumours of
fishing rights and access to diamond
mines being exchanged for the loans.
Chinese sand mines in the north are
reportedly responsible for landslides.
“African presidents are selling their
countries to the Chinese,” he says. In
September, President Xi Jinping
pledged $60bn to Africa in investment
and loans.
But then this road wouldn’t be here
without that investment, nor the new
suspension bridge, which looms into
view as we approach Maputo. It opened
on November 10 and is impressive —
Africa’s longest at just under 3km, 60
meters above the bay. We make it to
the airport (big, shiny, also Chinese-
funded) in an hour, making me think
of the weeks I once spent here, hitching
and hopping on local buses to travel a
few miles a day.
Mozambique has changed; it’s
changing. The new road isn’t even the
beginning. “It’s easier now,” says our
driver, as he heaves our suitcases out of
the boot. “It will bring good things. But
maybe it will bring bad things, too.”
Francisca KellettPOSTCARD
FROM...MOZAMBIQUE
after the first world war, and offered
unrestricted second-class railway travel
for a month for under 21s, across 21
nations. Tickets cost £27.50. Demand
was high and it became an annual offer-
ing. The age limit was raised to 26 in
1979, and adult passes were finally intro-
duced in 1998.
There was one particularly iconic
Interrail poster of a shapely derrière
clad in jeans, with a pass sticking out of
the back pocket. A more realistic depic-
tion would have included an oversized
backpack, but the romance was real: for
many teenagers, Interrailing would be
their first real trip abroad without their
parents. It became a modern Grand
Tour —only with shared showers in hos-
tels and gallons of continental beer. In
1991 it reached a peak: 400,000 passes
were sold across the 29 participating
European countries.
Once in Prague, I dragged George off
to see the original site of the English lan-
guage bookshop The Globe, where I had
met my first proper boyfriend. Five
years ago Erasmus, the European uni-
versity exchange scheme, announced it
had played cupid to so many love affairs
between students, it could claim a mil-
lion Erasmus babies. I don’t expect
Interrail could put a number on the
hearts broken on station platforms,
Brief Encounter-style.
From there, we boarded a morning
service to Vienna. With our backpacks
and scuffed shoes, we felt scruffy on the
sparkling new Czech RegioJet. It even
had a fresh orchidin the toilets, the sort
usually to be found in fancy restaurants.
Without planning it, George and I
seemed to follow the same lines as thoseMatthew Cookopens the country to South Africa. It
means access, more tourists, more
hotels, more infrastructure, more jobs.
“If the tourists come, the jobs come,”
the driver says.
For now, there are hardly any
tourists, and just a few hotels aimed at
scuba divers, strung along a wild coast
of crashing surf, sand dunes, papyrus
and mahogany trees. The smartest
resort is White Pearl, locally owned and
offering stylish, contemporary
accommodation on the long, empty
stretch of Ponta Mamoli beach.There’sРЕ
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