4
With my new bagful of tricks and tips from the flight-free sages at the ready, it was time to put them into practice somewhere new – namely, the European destinations I’d have thoughtlessly jumped on a kerosene-guzzling short-haul budget flight to reach in my previous life as a frequent flyer.
And, while the prospect of embarking on a journey that involves twenty-four hours on trains might not normally fill me with joy, after spending the entirety of 2020 in Blighty I felt a tingling anticipation before my first-ever interrailing experience. Yes, a full ten years older than most people who would engage in this sort of travel – people with young, lithe bodies that require a mere two hours’ sleep to keep functioning – I was going to be riding the rails across Europe for the first time.
Not only was this going to be an adventure, it was also to be an adventure at a time when almost no one else was having adventures – thanks to the pandemic – thereby securing me bragging rights for at least a month. I boarded the Eurostar at 10.24 a.m. on a Thursday in the knowledge that, if all went to plan, I would be in the sun-warmed port city of Rijeka, Croatia, the same time the following day.
Connections are key; it’s amazing how far you can get in a day by train if you time it right. The first part is easy – London to Paris, a hop so swift that I have never once done it without saying, ‘wait, are we in France?’ twenty minutes after coming out the other side of the Channel Tunnel. Before you know it, we’ve arrived – and I set foot on foreign soil for the first time this decade.
It’s a brief walk from Gare du Nord to Paris Est to pick up my next train, but I find it strangely disorientating. There are so many people – many more than I’ve been accustomed to seeing in London while Covid restrictions reign. It is hot, and I am carrying three pieces of luggage, and my laptop is very visibly peeking out of the top of my tote bag as if to say ‘bonjour!’ Skittish and sweaty, for some reason I feel like I am going to be mugged, especially with my phone in my hand and my eyes glued to Google Maps – the epitome of a wide-eyed, idiot tourist. I seem to have morphed into one of those people I hate: convinced that ‘abroad’ isn’t safe, that foreigners aren’t to be trusted. Is this what happens naturally after ten months without travelling? Have I already become so close-minded?
I feel much happier once aboard my second train of the day, whizzing its way from Paris to Karlsruhe in south-western Germany, where it’s a quick change for the onward service to Munich. I’ve opted to spend the day working to make the most of the fallow time and am struck by just how delightful an experience this is when ensconced in an airy, well-ventilated carriage on a wide seat with shockingly decent Wi-Fi and a tray table expansive enough to fit my hulking laptop. I wish I could tell you that I spent the time looking out upon the frankly lovely views of rural France and Germany, but there really is nothing to prevent me from actually doing my work – no ‘dog ate my homework excuse’ that will allow me to bunk off for the day.
On the third train of the day, Karlsruhe to Munich, there are little carriages big enough to hold six passengers apiece, with a sliding door to enter. I feel like I’m riding aboard the Hogwarts Express. There’s this to say about German trains – they really do appear to run with staggering efficiency. On the second leg the train leaves a minute early, which is just bad manners in my book (I picture a harried, unkempt passenger sprinting through the station, relieved that they’ve just managed to make it on time, only to find their chariot very much does not await).
I arrive at Munich on time (of course) with two hours to spare before my final train, the big one: an epic ten-hour overnighter all the way to Croatia. I take a leaf out of the Man in Seat 61’s book – the rail travel expert offers impeccable dining suggestions near stations alongside all the practical train info – and head to the Bierhaus and eatery Augustiner-Keller, a ten-minute stroll from the station. It is, as expected, a marvellous decision: speedy service, a convivial atmosphere and reassuringly hefty German fare that sticks to the ribs – the perfect pre-sleep cuisine. I order myself a Käsespätzle und Radler, which comes out in around ten minutes, ideal for anxious travellers desperate not to miss a connection. I’ve got ample time, and yet my eyes keep twitching back to my watch every thirty seconds or so. It’s perhaps a sign of my inexperience as a train traveller; Greta probably swoops into the station with five minutes to spare like the cool, clued-up Gen Z-er she is.
Sated and increasingly sleepy, it’s back to face the Nightjet. Side note: I simply adore the names they give to sleeper trains. They always sound romantic, selling you a story that is so much more appealing than, say, the 13.24 fast train to Norwich. I have yet to find one that fails to stir something in the soul: the Night Riviera, the Berlin Night Express, the Euronight, Hellas Express, Intercités de Nuit and, best in show, the Santa Claus Express, which winds its way from Helsinki to Lapland.
Sleeper trains used to be de rigueur across Europe – the natural way of traversing the Continent in comfort and style. Then low-cost aviation arrived, heralding a new era of easy travel, and these services were stripped back as travellers increasingly picked plane over train. But the promising news for those dabbling in the flight-free lifestyle is that sleepers are very much back in vogue: numerous new European night-train routes are slated to launch in the next few years.
Austria’s national railway company, ÖBB, will kickstart its new programme with an overnight link between Vienna, Munich and Paris, plus a sleeper connecting Amsterdam and Zürich with a stop at Cologne. A new Nightjet train from Zürich to Rome, via Milan, is also planned, alongside routes between Berlin, Paris and Brussels, plus one between Zürich and Barcelona. Meanwhile, Snälltåget will run night trains from Sweden and Denmark to several Austrian ski resorts, as well as a sleeper from Stockholm to Copenhagen, Hamburg and Berlin. And new operator European Sleeper, working with Czech company Regiojet, is set to launch an overnighter from Brussels to Prague, via Amsterdam and Berlin.
The more these networks get expanded, the broader the horizons become for us terrestrial travellers, enabling us to cross multiple nations while unconscious and wake up somewhere entirely new.
The way to do night trains, as anyone will tell you, is to book a couchette – a sleeping berth with a bed. That way, you can tell yourself you’re not spending the night on a train – goodness me, no! – but, rather, a sparse yet comfortable travelling hotel. The way not to do them is to book a seat. But I am left with little option – I’m travelling on an Interrail pass, and when they go to make the reservation, there is no room at the couchette inn. I try to convince myself that I am getting the full Interrail experience this way: I am Julie Delpy in Before Sunrise, drifting around Europe on the cheap seats while still looking impossibly sexy in a dishevelled sort of way and chatting up Ethan Hawke. That’s plausible, right?
Signs are looking good – it’s just me and a lone man in our six-seater cabin. However, this potentially suave travelling companion can only speak Slovenian and German. I can only speak English and un peu de français, so our love story gets as far as conveying where we are getting off the train and ends abruptly there.
Unlike Julie Delpy and all manner of other budget rail travellers before her, I do not view the fact that I’ve only got a seat as some kind of impediment to doing things properly. While my fellow passengers attempt to get some kip using rucksacks as pillows while still fully dressed, I brush my teeth, cleanse, tone and moisturise, and change into loungewear as a stand-in for full flannel pyjamas. My Slovenian looks at me in utter bewilderment as I reverently unpack my sleeping mask, neck pillow, melatonin pills, cashmere socks and travel towel, which doubles as a blanket. (I draw the line at spritzing my White Company lavender sleep mist on the grounds that it might just be too much for him to handle.) I pop on my wireless headphones and start up my best-loved ambient melodies.
Well, Mr Slovenia can smirk all he wants – it works. We’re lucky enough that the train is half empty, the result being that we can each spread out on our respective rows of seats. With armrests up and the neck pillow transformed into a regular pillow, it’s not so far off the experience of sleeping in a bed. I drift in and out contentedly, floating on a haze of excitement that I will wake up in a foreign land.
The biggest disturbance, in fact, comes courtesy of the train guards, who seem to change after each stop and have therefore concluded they must recheck everyone’s ticket at regular intervals. The interruptions feel incessant. The first time it happens I am understanding, the second time, perplexed, the third time, irked, the fourth time, just plain angry. Surely there must be a better way! I want to wail, but I am too tired to figure out how to say this in German/Slovenian/Croatian, so settle for grumpily going back to sleep instead. That’ll show ’em.
The other intrusion comes on the border between Slovenia and Croatia. Embarrassing as it is to admit for a travel journalist, I had somehow forgotten that the latter wasn’t part of Schengen, meaning there are passport checks either side of the border, undertaken by police who board the train and make their way along each carriage. It’s fairly disconcerting, let me tell you, to be awoken by an officer carrying what appears to be a gun and demanding to see your ID in the middle of the night.
What makes it so jarring is that I’ve just spent an entire day on trains in different countries without ever once being asked to show my passport. It highlights just how gloriously liberating the concept of Schengen is – that, once I’ve boarded the Eurostar, I can whizz across France, Germany, Austria and Slovenia, all without having to prove who I am or why I’m there. It’s such a smooth, joyful and inherently welcoming experience for the traveller. More than anything, it makes me feel keenly the loss of the UK removing itself even further from this delightfully convivial concept of open borders thanks to Brexit. I hate the thought of suddenly being subject to questioning upon entry to any EU country. ‘What is your business here?’ they will be fully entitled to ask. ‘How long are you staying? Where are you staying? Do you have enough money for that length of time? Where are your euros? Do you have six months left on your passport?’
We have lived for so long without such restrictions, that I think most people will have forgotten – or, like me, aren’t old enough to remember – what life was like before. Our world is shrinking just that little bit more, and I am already in mourning.
Despite the aforementioned incursions, I wake at around 7 a.m. feeling, if not quite perky, well rested enough to greet the new day with anticipation. I change, brush my teeth and hair and watch the sun rise over misty fields, tinging the sky a delicate shade of rose-petal pink. The train meanders its way through northern Croatia at an unhurried pace, and I look out over landscapes far greener than I’d expected. Then, suddenly, there it is – the sea! The deep blue of the Adriatic twinkles at me flirtatiously, and I feel fabulously far from home.
Finally, the Nightjet trundles into Rijeka station, where I wheel my suitcase across the tracks and look up in wonder at the sign that tells me I’ve made it, five minutes later than expected. Some twenty-three hours after setting off from London, I am in a Croatian city by the sea. It is 30°C. I am deliriously excited.
Everyone I tell that I travelled to Rijeka by train is surprised. Wait – make that utterly dumbfounded. ‘What? Are you crazy?’ they ask, looking at me as they would a phantom, or a cow with two heads. I got the exact same response when I previously shared some of my travel plans on social media; native Croats kept popping up in disbelief, telling me unequivocally that I should avoid the train at all costs and that overland transport in Croatia was, in no uncertain terms, shite. When I explain that the Nightjet isn’t in fact a Croatian train at all – that it’s operated by an Austrian company and had made its way from Germany – there is at last a glimmer of understanding. ‘Ah, it’s international. That’s why you’re here on time.’ And with that, order is restored to the world.
It’s why Rijeka makes one of the best destinations in Croatia for non-flyers – it’s the end of the line on the Nightjet (along with Zagreb, the final stop on the other branch of the service). Want to carry on to more popular coastal spots – Split, perhaps, Šibenik or Dubrovnik? The transport options become domestic and, therefore, infuriatingly slow and unreliable, according to locals. But it’s not the only reason I was drawn here.
I love me an underdog. When it comes to travel, give me your second cities, your third cities, heck, your fourth and fifth. It’s what’s so worthwhile about the European Capital of Culture scheme: each year, it plucks two usually lesser-known cities from obscurity and thrusts them into the limelight, gifting them a wodge of cash in the process for legacy venues that last long after the year itself. In return, the cities lay on a rich programme of cultural events encompassing art, music, theatre, dance and literature, all of which draws in higher than usual numbers of tourists and helps put the place on the map.
That’s what usually happens, at any rate.
The recipients of the 2020 accolade, Galway and Rijeka, had just enough time to announce their heady year of performances before coronavirus muscled its way in and shut everything down. The northern port city of Rijeka at least managed to fit in an opulent opening ceremony before everything went south; pity poor Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, which was forced to cancel even that.
Rijeka is Croatia’s third-largest city, and when I tell people I’m coming here, nobody has ever heard of it. Despite its plum position by the Adriatic Sea and its convenient rail links, it is not a place that traditionally attracts too many holidaymakers. The city itself is an alluring blend of contradictions: pretty, dilapidated, open, stubborn, charming, gritty, laid-back, hard-working. Rijeka’s tagline for its 2020 bid, Port of Diversity, could scarce be more apt.
You might not think it from the wide, pedestrianised Korzo main street, where everyone strolls at a leisurely pace – stopping to greet familiar faces every 10m or so in an expressive and melodious Croatian that sounds almost Italian – but this was always a city built on industry. Dirty, noisy industry at that: paper mills, sugar refineries, torpedo factories – the modern, self-propelled variation of the weapon was invented in the city – and, of course, the shipping business, still going strong today. You also wouldn’t think it from the temperament of the locals, an intriguing combination of extreme friendliness and contrariness with a propensity to complain (‘if the rest of Croatia goes right, we go left’ my guide, Sandra, tells me), that it was the very first fascist state, set up by Italian poet and army officer Gabriele D’Annunzio in 1919 at the end of the First World War. He and a band of nationalist intellectuals staged a curious coup, striding into the city unopposed and claiming it as their own. Initially humoured by Italy only because it was, understandably, a wee bit preoccupied after the war, their independent state became something of a unique social experiment, where intellectuals, artists and political oddballs gathered to … well, have a good time and do whatever the hell they liked (D’Annunzio’s motto became ‘Me ne frego’, which roughly translates as ‘I don’t give a damn’). Amazingly, it survived under his rule for around fifteen months before he got the boot by the Italian government.
It’s hardly surprising the residents themselves didn’t put up much of a fight – the city has passed through so many hands that inhabitants must have been hard-pressed to keep track. Much easier to go about their daily lives and let others worry about governance. Sandra tells me that her grandmother lived in the same house for her whole life – and in that time lived in seven different countries.
For a long time the city fell under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and was of supreme strategic importance as a means for landlocked countries to reach the sea; Rijeka was the jumping-off point for the rest of the world. Then came the French. Then Austria again. Italians. Briefly the Germans. Then it was part of Yugoslavia. Finally, in 1991, it became part of independent Croatia. For various periods in its history it was declared a free and independent state too, and was frequently caught in the middle of international turf wars in which rival empires laid claim to it.
Apologies for the impromptu history lesson, but I’ve always found that a city’s past, besides being interesting in and of itself, helps shape its present character. To the casual observer, modern-day Rijeka seems scrappy and resilient. Its people may carp and complain, but they’ll always put up with the next thing that’s thrown at them with a wryly smiling stoicism because, despite being fiercely independent, the city has had to endure countless interlopers over the years. They’re survivors, all of them, who’ve retained a heartening openness to and tolerance of visitors born of being a port city: facing the sea, welcoming the rest of the world in.
Each new regime has left its mark in a fascinating way, the architecture being a case in point. Wander down a street with coloured shutters, Juliet balconies and cypress trees lining the way, and you could be in the middle of Tuscany. Turn the corner and you might see an ornate former theatre painted in pastel shades that is unmistakably Austrian. Round the next bend, a brutalist office block is straight out of former Yugoslavia. The mixture creates something completely unique.
Unusually for a city by the sea, Rijeka is not a tourist town. Industry has always been the main money-maker here, meaning it’s never been a destination that had to pander to visitors. It doesn’t mean that holidaymakers aren’t welcome – just that the place has a refreshingly authentic life to it that doesn’t revolve around newcomers. The sea feels strangely hidden away, too, due to the layout of the city. And yet the nearest beach, Sablićevo, is a mere fifteen-minute walk from the city centre. It may be September, but the sun feels summer-like and scorching, and I alternate between lying on a wooden platform shaded by steps and taking dips in the glass-clear Adriatic. I’ll tell you how clear the water is – mere metres from the shore I look down to see fish shimmying around my calves. I duck under to ogle them in awe, a shoal of hundreds suddenly flashing electric blue as they all turn at once on an invisible cue.
But culture is what I’m here for, and culture is what I get once I manage to peel myself away from the seductive pull of the water. The city managed to keep an impressive amount of its 2020 programme going, even though it was mainly only enjoyed by locals. The big-ticket items are two exhibitions, housed for the year inside a trendy-looking waterfront warehouse. One is all about the modern history of Rijeka and its place in a fast-changing world.
But it’s the upstairs exhibition that really wows: ‘The Sea is Glowing’ is a range of mainly video installations, ostensibly exploring invisible economics linked to the sea, but somehow managing to encompass the increasingly confusing digital world we find ourselves in. I spend hours there in the soothing half-light, semi-delirious from lack of sleep. Glassy-eyed, I finally follow my feet outside to find a stage has been erected by the quay, on which a band is playing aggressive rock. More unexpected culture from the little city that could. I stay and listen for a spell in the bath-warm evening air, before I realise I could be asleep at my three-star digs, the Hotel Continental, and hightail it outta there.
The city’s legacy building from its Capital of Culture year is a total renovation of the old sugar refinery, now rather grandly dubbed the Sugar Palace. The next day I’m privileged to get a sneak peek inside the building, where the finishing touches are being added to what will become an extensive and permanent city museum detailing Rijeka’s complex history. The interiors are suitably majestic, with sweeping staircases and high-ceilinged halls. The curator tells me that throughout its turbulent history, Rijeka’s main problem was that it was ‘the wife that everyone wanted’ – a very badly translated version of a Croatian expression that basically means everyone fancied a piece of her. I may have only been here for twenty-four hours, but I can already see why.
It turns out that, while it may not be the most tourist-focused of Croatia’s coastal cities, Rijeka has plenty to suit visitors. Fresh seafood abounds, with squid-ink risotto, fresh calamari, shark and ray adorning plates at much lower prices than in the other coastal darlings; the coffee is excellent, having become a staple during the city’s time under Austro-Hungarian rule, with a lazy café culture to match. The cultural offering continues at the city’s new modern art museum, its maritime museum and Peek and Poke, a quirky little museum where I lose at least an hour playing Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Street Fighter on old games consoles. Phenomenal views are on offer, too, for those bold enough to venture up the hill to Trsat Castle. From its lofty height 138m above sea level, you can drink in a new perspective, seeing how the river cuts through the heavily wooded valley to make its way, glinting, back out to sea.
Guide Sandra says you can follow the river bed, which dries up after a couple of kilometres, inland on a hiking route that leads you into the middle of the wilderness within an hour or so. It’s one of many things I won’t have a chance to do – two days is ‘NOT ENOUGH’ to truly experience Rijeka, she tells me repeatedly. But, sadly, it’s all I’ve got. There’s just time for a final Aperol spritz at a seafront bar as I watch the sun set over the harbour before it’s back to the station, where I’m plunged into darkness, stumbling my way down the platform to find my return chariot to Germany.
I don’t know what’s happened to me over the last thirty-six hours, but when I ask a train guard whether there are any available beds on board, and he says yes, for the modest upgrade fee of €60, I baulk and politely turn it down. Perhaps the very fact of interrailing reintroduces the natural thriftiness of student days. I return to my cabin, which is hotter than the sun but, as yet, unoccupied by any fellow passengers, and think about what I’ve done. I’m still not sure I’ve made the right decision as the train trundles off into the night and the air-con finally kicks in; I’m even less sure when a well-built German woman in a leather waistcoat and huge work boots (which she doesn’t take off) gets on at some point in the middle of the night and proceeds to spend the entire journey slowly moving the zip on her bag back and forth, possibly to soothe herself, possibly to drive me insane.
Either way, it is something of a relief to pull into Munich station at 6.10 a.m. – although it’s admittedly a less-than-ideal time to arrive anywhere. What is open at 6.10 a.m. on a Sunday in Munich, you ask? Bugger all. I head to my hotel in hopes that they might look kindly on me and let me check in early, but that also incurs an extra charge, and my inner student once again stubbornly folds her arms and gives a sideways look to camera. OK, fine. Time to get creative.
After some flustered bag repacking, I leave behind my monster of a suitcase (one of the lesser-spoken benefits of travelling by train rather than plane – the unlimited luggage allowance) and head out, back on yet another train, in search of an activity unaffected by the earliness of the hour. This time it’s a local S-Bahn service that thankfully only takes fifteen minutes. I alight at Fasanerie, exiting the train into what appears to be some kind of rural idyll – I can hear birds singing and little else as I stroll past the level crossing and out to the main event: the Fasaneriesee lake. Nature thankfully doesn’t keep Sunday opening hours.
It is beautiful. The kind of beautiful you try, and fail, to capture on your not-really-good-enough camera phone, so when you show people later they don’t quite get it. There is a hazy, pale amber hue to the sky as the sun slowly rises, but I’m not the only early bird – there are joggers, walkers, mums in hi-tech work-out gear pushing sleek, expensive prams. All of which leads me to the ultimate conundrum: how to avoid flashing strangers while changing into a swimsuit in public? Oh yes, I didn’t come here just to take in the view – I’m getting in that water, even if it means risking public nudity. If I were German it would be fine, of course; I’d simply strip down where I stood without the merest hint of shame. But I am British, and therefore my only option is to scramble into some bushes and do the ungainly ‘naked dance’ while praying no one comes past at that exact moment. Embarrassed about being so embarrassed, I shuffle out of my barely hidden changing area, still feeling hideously exposed. It’s a strange sensation to be striding forth in a swimming costume, cap and goggles while all about me are clad in expensive athleisure wear.
I take my first few steps into the water, still feeling foolish as I stumble slightly over the uneven ground, the only swimmer in sight. And then I plunge in, soft as a sigh, arms taking lazy strokes through cool, clean water, and I don’t care what I look like anymore. As I swim, the sun draws itself higher in the sky and my cheeks warm. I pass ducks and swans, who glide past, haughtily indifferent, but no one else. I feel like if I could stop time and just live in this one moment – far from coronavirus, far from the threat of climate crisis – I would.
But I can’t, so I paddle back to reality, do the getting changed dance all over again, and sit on the banks of the lake, contentedly munching on a stale but tasty breakfast brioche that I’d purchased the day I left London – a lifetime ago now. My lake-cooled skin tingles in the warm glow of the sun, and I feel like I am glowing too. The next twelve hours in another new city lie ahead of me, brimming over with potential and promise.
By the time I get back to the city centre, Munich is just about waking up. I take myself for coffee and waffles at Bean Batter, a café near Central Station recommended by a friend; I cruise the Marienplatz and am standing in front of the Rathaus (town hall) in time for the endearingly out-of-tune glockenspiel for the midday show; and, as it’s a knockout of a day, with the last hints of Indian summer in the air, I head off in the direction of the Englischer Garten (a public park which derived its name from the informal landscape style popularised by Capability Brown in England in the eighteenth century). On the way, a not-unattractive young man matches my stride and strikes up a conversation: what am I doing here in Munich? I immediately assume he’s trying to rob me rather than, say, chat me up, and I cling onto my rucksack a little tighter. It’s not that this kind of thing never happens to me anymore, just that it rarely happens when I’ve spent the night trying to sleep on a train seat before going for an outdoor dip, and neglecting to shower, brush my hair or apply make-up. There is still pond scum between my toes. I answer him politely nevertheless, chirping, ‘for tourism!’ and wonder why English suddenly sounds like my second language.
‘But Germany is awful. Why would you come here?’
‘What do you mean, it’s “awful”?’
‘It’s just the worst place for a holiday. You could go to Italy, Spain, Greece …’
Now, I don’t completely dispute this young man’s point. If I were to pick a top holiday destination, it certainly wouldn’t be Germany. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the place but, when you have the whole world at your disposal, it would be pretty far down the list for most travellers – and so when you fly, you usually don’t choose it. You plump for the top-tier, strictly A-list destinations, and bypass all the bits of the world that aren’t considered the ‘best’. But, as my suitor grumbles on and on about his ‘lacklustre’ home nation, I have a sudden Damascene moment: this is where train beats plane. If I were flying, I’d never have come to Munich and had an extra day of delightful discovery. I’d have gone straight to Croatia and back, no dawdling, no distractions. But travelling by rail, when my journey took me through the city not once, but twice, it would have been churlish not to stop off and explore. Travelling by train meant I got to see somewhere new that I might never have got around to visiting otherwise; and that is a beautiful thing.
Rant over, he makes his move: ‘Would you like to sunbathe with me?’
‘Um … No thanks.’
Perhaps I should have embraced the adventure and said yes. But it was so long since I’d slept – and making small talk with a stranger who wanted to badmouth the lovely city I was exploring with fresh, unjaded eyes was about as appetising as most German food (I’m sorry, but I won’t be dying on that particular hill).
The English Garden is simply magnificent. It’s one of Europe’s biggest urban parks, and a high point is the freezing-cold River Eisbach – literally meaning ‘ice brook’ – that runs through it. This fast-flowing channel gets big enough waves at one junction that people go there to surf; at other spots, they come prepared with giant rubber rings and hop in, using it as an all-natural river-rapid ride. Others dunk and leave, using it as a cooling-off point on a sunny day.
I set up camp on its banks for an exquisite form of people watching bordering on the absurd. At one point, a group of grown men enter the current atop hot-pink unicorn inflatables, beers in hand. At another, an extremely fat, extremely naked man with tanned skin the colour of a polished conker strides in, hands on hips, submerges himself, and strides out again (rather neatly proving my point about Germans’ comfort level with nudity).
The sun flashes off the teal-coloured water as lovers, friends, children and families all come to take a turn about the park using the Eisbach’s fast-flowing current. I’m tempted to join them, stopped only by the fact that my passport, phone, purse and all my train tickets are in my bag – the heart-stopping anxiety of leaving them by the water’s edge while I head off to who-knows-where would most definitely outweigh the enjoyment of doing so.
Having sampled a few of the city’s highlights, my gaze is pulled more and more frequently to my watch, as I await the hallowed hour of 3 p.m., when I can check into my hotel with impunity and, I’m not ashamed to admit it, take a nap. I wish I was still young and energetic enough to ‘push through’ the exhaustion barrier but, alas, I know myself. I have reached a stage in life where a bad night’s sleep can’t just be brazened out – it is a debt that must be repaid, swiftly and in full. I head back to my crashpad, nonchalantly breezing in at 3.01 p.m. as if I hadn’t been waiting outside for five minutes, counting down the seconds. I’m directed up to a chic, modern room where, once inside, I only have eyes for the expansive bed. Hello, big boy. I fall upon it, fully clothed, and only wake when my alarm tells me it’s time for dinner.
It may be touristy but, heck, I am a tourist, and so I make a beeline for Hofbräuhaus, an iconic beerhall where there are huge steins aplenty and oompah music plays relentlessly in the background. Due to my aforementioned aversion to bratwurst served in various ways, I instead order two pretzels the size of my head and spend the evening eating my own bodyweight in salty bread washed down with Weissbier. The atmosphere is lively and convivial, and I feel the blissed-out, tired contentment of flying – or should that be train-ing – solo. Sharing experiences with someone else is all well and good, but the feeling of freedom that accompanies the lone traveller, master (or indeed mistress) of your own destiny, picking and choosing what you do and where you go without consultation or lengthy debate, is truly liberating.
The following morning, Munich proves itself a worthy tourist destination once again: there is a real-life breakfast buffet at the hotel. Yes, in days gone by this would hardly be worthy of comment, but during a pandemic? I thought I’d never see one out in the wild again. There’s a one-way system in place and mandatory gloves and masks, but I’m free to construct my own carefully curated plate filled entirely with beige foods – croissants, pastries, waffles, pancakes and muffins – with no one to judge my life choices. I could not be happier.
With that, it’s time to get back on the rails. The journey to Paris would be entirely uneventful were it not for one key element: the second leg is on board a double-decker train. Is there anything more exciting? Well, yes, if you’re from a country that has double-decker trains. But when you hail from a place where the term ‘double decker’ exclusively applies to chocolate bars and buses, it is a thing of wonder. I sit atop the second tier, at the height of trees and giants, and, looking down upon the world with a smug benevolence tempered by mild disdain, wonder if this is what God must feel like …
Damn, I love Paris. It is the only city in the world where I feel giddy as soon as I arrive, with the thought ‘I’m in Paris! I’m in Paris! I’m in PARIS!’ running circles in my head. I feel like I’ve snuck into a celebrity party whenever I visit, all glamour and champagne and great lighting, and at any moment someone’s going to realise I don’t belong there and throw me unceremoniously out the door.
The French even manage to make face masks look chic, and in September 2020 they are wearing the heck out of them – inside, outside and everywhere in between – with a diligence that makes me realise just how lax we’ve been in the UK. They only seem to take them off to smoke (this is still Paris, after all).
I wind my way to the once-seedy-now-cool Marais district and check into Sinner, a hotel so sexy I feel like I need a cold shower five minutes after entering. The dark-lit lifts have glowing red ceilings in a pattern reminiscent of confessional booths; the blackout corridors lead to uplit red doors with black iron fists for knockers; there is free perfume to spritz and complimentary lube in the bathroom. Everything about the place screams, ‘Go on, have some sex!’ and I feel the shine is taken off my whole solo traveller bit, just a little. Still, I make use of all the amenities (barring the lube), even listening to the in-house hotel radio station as I primp and preen, ready for a Big Night Out à Paris.
A red button-up blouse, red lipstick and shades – hell, the only things missing are a string of onions, baguette and beret. I take myself for a stroll to the Louvre, where I join the well-dressed set for a drink opposite the famed glass pyramid as the sun sinks low in its reflection. One of my favourite bits about travel is the ability, just for a day or two, to pretend you are an entirely different person with an entirely different life. Right now, I am sampling ‘carefree woman in red who sips gin cocktails on a late summer’s eve, and orders in impeccable French from behind giant sunglasses’.
It’s a good fit, but not one I can keep up for long. Despite eighteen months of diligent Duolingo lessons, it turns out my français is just fine until anyone asks me anything even vaguely unexpected, whereupon I crumble into dust.
But I soldier on regardless, giving up my pescatarianism for the first time in years to order steak frites at Bouillon Chartier, a restaurant where the waiters exude a kind of gruff charm comprised of giving every impression they would rather be anywhere else while simultaneously scribbling orders on the tablecloths and serving up your dinner within minutes.
Half a bottle of wine in and I’m feeling a rosy glow when I make the questionable decision of finishing up with a baba au rhum. They don’t mess around when it comes to this booze-filled dessert – it is literally some cake, swimming in eighty-proof rum and, after two spoonfuls, I note I have tipped over from warmly tipsy to quite possibly drunk. I’ll only really know once I get outside.
I weave myself through the tables, feel the fresh air hit me and, giggling uncontrollably as I spot a cat in a shop window, conclude that, hey, drunk it is. But what a city to be drunk in! I stumble my way back to the Marais, smiling at everyone I see and forgetting that the gesture is completely meaningless, hidden behind a face mask.
Slipping into my hotel, I note it has somehow become even sexier in my absence – incense-like smoke is pouring forth from the restaurant, setting the tone for either an orgy or a child sacrifice. In fact, they’ve used the same incense you get at Catholic churches to complement the whole ‘sinner’ theme, and having spent every Sunday of my childhood dragged to mass on pain of death, the smell evokes a heady mixture of boredom, nausea and the sensation of busting for the loo but having to wait. Maybe not so sexy after all.
The following morning, it is 34°C. The Indian summer and/or irrevocable climate change-induced temperature is a little too spicy for my tastes – especially while having to wear a face covering for most of the day – but I gamely kick off my tour early with a trip to the Picasso Museum. From there I pop in for an obligatory but lacklustre macaron at Ladurée, feeling more basic than an episode of Emily in Paris, before wandering along the Seine, where it’s so quiet that I finally take my mask off and let the breeze airdry the sweat from my face (a sensation that’s a lot more enjoyable than it sounds). Striking out east, I make my way to my most hotly anticipated activity – a dip at the Josephine Baker, an outdoor pool slap bang on the Seine. You can look out over the river in between lengths, and then sun yourself on the upper deck – all for €4.
Where else to go in the City of Love when the mercury rises and you are very much alone? A quiet and shady idyll, cooled further by the icy hand of death, is what I plump for. Morbid as it sounds, the Père Lachaise Cemetery is the perfect place to wait out a heatwave; in the shadow of majestic trees and, well, yes, mausoleums, I wander pathways of the dead, perfectly at peace. Not dissimilar to Highgate’s famed cemetery in London, the place has its own fair share of famous incumbents: Jim Morrison is probably the weirdest celeb corpse, but less unexpected residents include composer Frédéric Chopin, singer Edith Piaf, playwright Oscar Wilde and novelist Honoré de Balzac. Despite it holding the title of ‘most visited necropolis in the world’, attracting some 3.5 million visitors a year, it is blissfully quiet.
Joining the land of the living again for my last ninety minutes, I stop by a quintessentially Parisian restaurant terrace for tuna steak and a glass of coldest rosé while I soak up the sun. I am already experiencing the peculiar internal tension that comes when the end of a trip is in sight – slight relief to be returning home to the familiar, coupled with sadness to be dragged back to reality and, in this case, quarantine, where nothing unexpected is likely to happen to me for some time.
But such is the life of the frequent traveller. I grab my luggage and head back to Gare du Nord, actually fairly excited at the prospect of looking out of the window at rural France rushing by as evening falls. There’ll be a light dinner and, more enchantingly still, mini bottles of wine to choose from. It feels like the chicest of treats in the way a short-haul flight never does.
Making my way up to the Eurostar terminal, I’m a little confused. There aren’t a lot of people. In fact, there are just two young men sitting morosely on their suitcases. Hmm. I stride confidently towards the doors, to find they are locked. Now, at this point, the savvy traveller – or just a person with a baseline amount of common sense – would wonder if perhaps the train wasn’t running. They might use their phone to take a gander at the Eurostar website, or even settle for asking one of the depressed-looking gentlemen outside the terminal. But none of this occurs to me – the rigid thought I am going home this evening refuses to buckle, even under the weight of mounting evidence to the contrary – and so I descend and look for another way up. There are lifts that take you inside the Eurostar terminal, circumventing those pesky locked doors. Ping! I am on the other side, though in truth, there’s no one here either: no passengers, no staff, no one manning the border-control check points. I find myself stubbornly wrestling a very large, wheeled suitcase through the cordoned-off security section and press on blindly until I reach another set of locked doors. It is only at this very late stage of the game that my brain finally fizzes half-heartedly into gear, managing to throw up the rogue thought, ‘erm, maybe the train isn’t happening?’
A very kind French woman finds me in my fevered wanderings and confirms that, yes, she believes Eurostar have been cancelling a lot of the scheduled services. ‘But … but I’m going home!’ I say with the guilelessness of a child. It’s as if I simply can’t comprehend that, after travelling for six days on trains, all the way to the Balkans and back, this is the hurdle that’s going to stop me from completing the perfect itinerary.
‘It happened to my daughter too – perhaps you can get a flight like she did?’ she says, the unwitting temptress here to test me. Ha! Not today, Satan.
Still deep in my frugal interrailing mindset, I leg it to the nearest and cheapest accommodation option. As I’m handing over the exceptionally reasonable fee of €25, it hits me that this may be my first-ever hostel stay. And I feel a weird rush of, yes, excitement at the prospect. It’s not that I’m some highfalutin traveller who demands all the trimmings – just that, having spent the last eight years in travel writing, I usually get offered rather smarter places to lay my head. Somehow, the whole hostel thing had passed me by.
Well, I’m not ashamed to admit it – I was impressed. A clean bed, enough sockets, serviceable communal showers, and all of it bright, modern and fit for purpose: it was excellent. I realise I sound like someone’s mother telling their Gen-Z, tech-savvy kid that you can ‘order things online, you know, over the internet!’ and you are most welcome to roll your eyes.
There’s nothing to be done but embrace my unexpected final night in Paris. I shower, trowel on some make-up over the day’s sunburn and head west, with no real plan. After the evening I’ve had, I fully expect to be disappointed – to come across nothing but seedy-looking places or empty bars with overpriced drinks. But the god of good vibes is smiling on me, and within fifteen minutes I’ve rounded a corner onto a lively outdoor terrace lit by a neon sign, with a live band playing upbeat swing. It feels like a caricature of a good night out in Paris and, as I grab the last available table and order a champagne cocktail while the music plays and the crowd claps and cheers, I think this, if you could distil it, would be the pure essence of bonhomie. The ‘bad luck’ of having my final connection cancelled suddenly flip-reverses in my mind, feeling instead like a stroke of sweetest serendipity.
The next morning, everything runs like clockwork. There are actual Eurostar staff at the terminal (always a good sign), border-control agents, the works – with the only added hassle being the long and complex passenger locator form, necessitated by the pandemic, that must be filled in by all travellers entering the UK. After the small matter of providing a lock of hair, my dad’s death certificate and the rights to my unborn first child, I am allowed onto the train. Big blue skies and wide green fields shimmer past as we race cross-country, and I feel I am returning after weeks away rather than days. The come-down after this exquisite high will be brutal – I’m now duty bound to quarantine for two weeks, missing the last gasp of summer and the first glorious taste of crisp, bright autumn. But, right now, whizzing along Teflon-smooth tracks as the sun filters through the carriage, going off the rails was undoubtedly worth it.
Carbon comparison
200kg of CO2e for a flight London Gatwick–Rijeka;
65kg of CO2e for a flight Rijeka–Munich;
110kg of CO2e for a flight Munich–Paris;
55kg of CO2e for a flight Paris–London
= 430kg of CO2e1
31.6kg of CO2e for a return train London–Paris;
38.2kg of CO2e for a return train Paris–Munich;
47.4kg of CO2e for a return train Munich–Rijeka
= 117.2kg of CO2e2
Carbon emissions saved: 312.8kg of CO2e