travellin light

Trains & things

I remember my first train journey when I was about 9 or 10. Mum took Sandra and I to Edinburgh for the day. The train was a big event, as was the zoo and the present we got before we came home. I chose a “teenage doll”. She didn’t have a name as we were long before Sindy!

Well, the Eurostar is right up there with that childhood memory. I was so impressed with the comfort and efficiency. We left on time. I was immediately surrounded by French voices. I hadn’t realised how much I have missed that these last few years. And it was so fast. Less than an hour after leaving Julie at St Pancras I realised we were in France. A few quick texts confirmed that we had made France faster than she had reached home.

We whizzed through Northern France, stopping briefly in Lille and were in Brussels in no time where we switched to a German ICE and were on our way to Koln where we had plenty time for a look at the Cathedral and dinner of Schnitzel and Salat. And I have to say another spacious, comfortable, FAST train. It does make you wonder why it takes more that 3hrs 30 minutes from Inverness to Glasgow!

We hit it lucky as the Moscow train was not busy. John and I had a compartment to ourselves. And single travellers even had their own compartment. A good time to take the sleeper to Moscow.

By the time we woke up on Thursday we were going through Poland. You may anly get a snapshot of the countries you travel through but you certainly see the differences. The Belgian houses have their distinctive roofs and criss-cross patterns. A lot of the Polish houses are of vivid colours: orange and lime green being favourites. Others are left as unrendered block, giving them an unfinished look to our eyes. Poland is incredibly flat but trees break up the landscape and, judging by the railcars loaded with logs, provide a valuable economic resource.

We had a bit of excitement at the Polish / Belarus border when border guards and police boarded the train. I think there may even have been other uniforms but there were certainly two dogs: an evil looking alsation and a deceptively cuddly looking black lab. John reckoned the alsation was after the semtex and the lab the drugs! I have no idea but there was a man taken away in handcuffs. It’s just as well they were not trained to sniff out the NRT or we might have been with that man! Almost three weeks now!

Brest, on the Belarus border brought more fun. Russian railways use a different guage to the rest of Europe and Asia so they have to change the bogies. There is a huge shed with all the machinery to lift the carriages and swap the undercarriages. In this case size does matter! We stayed on the train during this procedure but needless to say, John wanted to see how it worked and get some photos. As he stood at the end of the train a Belarus man handed him a 50 (BR) ruble note pointing out the picture of the fortress which was the site of great heroism by the Soviet forces against Hitler. Obviously a great source of pride to the locals and a touching gesture..

Whilst we shunted about a bit during and after this procedure some enterprising local women came on the train selling produce. They spoke no English and there was much hilarity as we struggled with my 10 Russian words but we ended up with some birch sap juice, some Belarus beer and potato pancakes.

More of the language fun next time.

Shirley & John

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