April 30 and May 1, 2024
I was packed and ready to leave on my 2024 adventure. After the pandemic interruption I was now back on track with annual big trips. My official destination this time was Slovenia, with Switzerland and a few other things thrown into the mix.
How did I end up with Slovenia? It was never on my future travel list. When it comes to travel destinations, my mind works in mysterious ways, or it could be our connected world. I think it had been a Facebook ad about bike touring that caught my attention. I often click on travel posts and had been looking at e-bikes, so Meta knew my interests. I was soon planning a Slovenian bike tour, which made little sense when you consider the limited amount of cycling that I had done over the past ten years. Yes, I had finally taken my bike, hidden in the corner of the garage all those years, for a tune up and out for a few rides. But I was not ready for a multi-day tour, certainly not early in the year when I would have had limited chances to do riding. Late March and April is the time of year other places in the Northern Hemisphere call spring, but around here it is more like winter. Winter ends in June, and then we have summer.
During my brief flirtation with the biking plan, I had learned that Slovenia is a beautiful little country with a northern border in the Alps and a tiny bit of coastline on the Adriatic Sea. It has a charming capital and great food. Slovenia also met my criteria of being a bit of an under the radar travel destination. Travel articles referred to it as a “hidden gem”.
I decided that even if I would not do a bike tour, I would still go to Slovenia. I could do some hiking and enjoy some great meals, and just maybe do some of that bike riding.
Once I had a destination, I then had to think about how I was going to get there. Most people would just check the airline schedules. But not me. I wondered, “Where are the trains in this adventure?’ My last two trips had included a lot of train rides, across the US and Canada and then across Turkey. How could I fit some of that into this trip?
The first step for anyone thinking about a train trip is a visit to a wonderful website, “The Man in Seat 61”. The site is full of great information about passenger trains in countries around the world. I then went to the Eurail site to check out train passes and began working with its online app for trip planning.
There are agencies that specialize in self-guided train journeys, and I found a trip that looked good with a company called Byway. That trip included trains through Switzerland and a stop in Venice. Once I read about the Swiss trains, I decided that I had to take a few, not just one to get through Switzerland, but a big loop through the Swiss Alps.
My trip had now become Slovenia and Switzerland.
All the time I was trying to do this on my own but was really confused by the European train network. There are multiple train companies across more than thirty countries. I finally began working with an agent at Byway, and he put together an itinerary for me. But, thanks to my main destination of Slovenia, we could not get it finished. Slovenia might be a great place to visit, but it is not a great country for train travel. I contacted some local companies for help, and they advised me to rent a car, which I did not want to do. Byway had me taking some buses, but that meant that I would miss some of the places that I wanted to see.
By this time I had begun to understand the trains and thought that I could do the reservations on my own, so although I really liked my agent and felt a bit guilty, I finally told him that I was going to book everything myself. I could then do the Slovenia portion later.
My major step to independence was the purchase of my Eurail pass. I took advantage of a sale and bought a one-month Global Senior Pass for $745 US. I did do some calculations which appeared to show that I saved a fair amount of money as opposed to buying individual tickets, but I tried to forget about that. The decision was made. I now owned the pass and had the right to ride on the trains for a month, which gave me a great sense of freedom. I did not have to worry about buying tickets. I could just walk onto the trains.
But it is not that easy. I couldn't always just walk on. There is a big caveat. The high-speed trains require seat reservations. The most expensive were on the Eurostar, where I paid a total of $79 US including fees for the train to Paris and then back from Brussels. All the others were less than $25 US, some as little as 3 Euros. Rather than cost, the main downside is that seats can be limited so you must book in advance, especially if you are using the pass. I bought my seat for the Paris train two months in advance but was too late to get a first-class seat. There goes some of that freedom.
I learned that seat reservations should be purchased on the websites of the train companies, not the Eurail site. That saves a booking fee and allows for choosing specific seats. I ended up using the sites of Deutsche Bahn, ÖBB, Eurostar, Rail Europe, and Trenitalia to research, book, and change seat assignments. I had a spreadsheet with all my trains showing which ones required a seat reservation, recommended a seat reservation, or were just walk on. I was busy.
I spent a lot of time on the Swiss Federal Railways site planning my Switzerland train adventure, even though I never paid for any seats. I avoided the tourist trains that required seat reservations, instead taking the regular trains that were included in my pass. I will explain all that later when I am writing up my days in Switzerland.
I bought a mobile pass, so everything was officially paperless, although I will admit that I printed out my seat reservations. Once purchased, everything is done through a phone app which includes an activation for daily travel. The app served as my ticket for the trains.
After much effort I ended up with the following route which took me through Paris and Munich to get to Slovenia and then returned to London via Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Belgium.
My Eurail app showed 32 trains, 9 countries, and 4,500 kilometres.
I still needed to reserve 19 hotels. That was not as technical as the train reservations but was still quite time consuming. I will admit that I used some of the hotels that had been recommended in my Byway quotation, but I still looked at other options and chose several new places. I booked them with Booking.com which allowed me to keep track of everything on its phone app.
As for the last bit of Slovenia planning, I booked a car transfer from Ljubljana to Piran with a couple of stops along the way.
All seemed fine until shortly before my departure date. I began to receive alerts about my train into Slovenia which would take me from Villach, Austria to Lake Bled. At first it was delays caused by track work. Then the train was cancelled. There would be no trains to Slovenia over the weekend. I could go to Slovenia on Friday or I could go on Monday, but I could not go on the Saturday as planned. I decided to shorten my stay in Munich to just one night and go to Slovenia on Friday. I never figured out how to get my 5 Euro seat reservation refunded.
Maybe I should have stayed with Byway.
It was April 30, my planning was over, and my day of departure had arrived. It was rainy and foggy all day long. Zoe was unsettled. How did she know? It was too miserable for our customary walk.
For several years I have complained about our lack of a direct flight from St. John’s to London. I have had to fly backwards to Toronto before turning around and flying the “right” direction to get to the other side of the Atlantic. A six-hour flight became two flights and a layover. We once had a direct flight with Air Canada. I took it a few times and was booked on it in 2019. Then the Max 8 planes fell from the sky. Air Canada had to cancel its scheduled flights and never brought them back.
But this year was different. Thanks to a subsidy from the Newfoundland government to Canada’s number two airline, WestJet, we were now being offered a three days a week flight to London, with the first one scheduled for May 1. I jumped on that and booked my seat. I then found out that two of my neighbours were also going to be on the plane, one going on to Germany and the other to Portugal. We were all taking the first opportunity to escape.
The flight was scheduled for 12:15 am. Po had agreed to drive me to the airport but wanted to leave early so that she would not be driving late at night. That was too early for my neighbour, and he volunteered his wife to be our driver. The fog was really thick. I was relieved that Po was not driving but wondered if we should have just booked a taxi.
Of course we did make it to our little airport, and Susan made her way back home safely. She is a Newfoundlander.
WestJet was going all out with its inaugural flight and provided some goodies with little Union Jacks to commemorate this great day in Newfoundland aviation history. Amelia Earhart would have been proud. You can look that one up.
What WestJet did not provide was an on-time flight. It had been delayed in leaving Calgary which made us late when we finally boarded our full plane. I was impressed that WestJet had outfitted the Boeing Max 8 for a trans-Atlantic flight and made it look just like a plane going from Saskatoon to Winnipeg. It was basic. We had to provide our own entertainment since the plane had no system. There was little room between the seats, but I was okay with all that since it was only going to take a little over five hours to get to London.
We took off almost two hours behind schedule, but that did not worry me. I was spending the night in London, so I had many hours before my train to Paris.
I managed a little sleep, but soon the lights came on, and we were served a breakfast of chewy eggs and bacon. It was quite salty, but I had missed my airline eggs on my flight from Toronto to London the year before, so I was happy to get them.
It sounds like I almost I enjoyed my flight. I have experienced worse. It was short.
Post Brexit UK immigration is easy for Canadians since we are now family, included in the lines for UK citizens. The EU folks were in a line with the rest of the world. I had learned my lesson the year before so I could put my passport in the reader correctly and walk in without talking to anybody.
We had arrived at Gatwick’s North Terminal. The train station is in the South Terminal which meant a quick trip on the airport train. That train did not count as one of my 32. It is a small airport, such a different world from Heathrow.
With all my train connections, I wanted to have internet access throughout my trip, so I had bought a European Sim Card online. I now needed to swap out my Canadian Sim card. The coffee shops were upstairs so I settled for a seat in the corner and did everything on my lap. I managed with the little cards and was welcomed to my UK network. My promised data arrived a moment later. It was easy and great while it lasted. I would miss it later when it went away.
It was also time to activate my Eurail pass which I was going to use for my trip into London on the Thameslink Train to St. Pancras Station. I had chosen a hotel near St. Pancras since that is where I would catch my Eurostar train to Paris in the morning.
I was all connected and good to go.
The Gatwick train station is in the lower section of the South Terminal. I had read that my pass might not scan, so I was not surprised when it would not let me in. I showed my phone pass to the attendant, and he waved me through.
I had noted from the departures board that there would be an earlier train leaving from the same location as mine. I explained that to a confused lady from Florida. I felt like an experienced London traveller. We sat together on the train, and she told me that she was visiting her daughter who now lives in London.
It took 45 minutes for the train to reach St. Pancras Station.
It took me less than 10 minutes to walk to the Swinton Hotel. I was given a friendly greeting and went up to my very basic room.
I had an afternoon in London and wanted to do lots of walking and a bit of sightseeing. I had tried without success to book a few places, including the Tower of London, but I did get a ticket to visit the Tower Bridge. That was my goal as I set off on my walk.
My last meal was my breakfast of airline eggs on the plane, so I stopped at a café and had a savoury pastry and a latte.
I was on time for my appointment at the bridge. It was interesting, but I was not sure that it was worth the rush.
I walked back along the River Thames. I had thought that I would eventually take the Underground back to my hotel using the London Oyster card that I had saved from last year. The I realized that the card was back at the hotel. I kept on walking.
I lined up my photo of this sculpture. This guy stood there posing for me. I did not see anyone else taking his photo. "Okay, I thought, I will take his photo."
There was a Georgian restaurant near my hotel which I knew had to be my place for supper, but I was told on my arrival that they were fully booked. I begged. "You have to let me eat. I was in Georgia, etc." I was given a table but was told that I had to be out in an hour. It was not my last such dining arrangement on this trip. The meal did not disappoint.
I made the short walk back to my hotel. I doubt that anyone cares, but my watch was counting. I had walked 21,395 steps that day in London, about 17 kilometres.
I was tired but looked forward to my first real train the next morning, a big one, the Eurostar to Paris where I would connect with another high-speed train to Munich.
This featured blog entry was written by Bob Brink from the blog Searching for Magical Moments.
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