Category: Surface travelPage 2 of 2

Posts about the joys of keeping as close to the earth’s surface as possible while travelling

Surface travel – Münster to London

Overview Six trains and one monorail Leisure 709km £130 Today I take my journey home from Münster to London via a different route from my way out. Outbound…

Surface travel – London to Münster, Westfalia

Overview London – Harwich – Hook of Holland – Den Haag – Enschede – Münster Six trains, two buses and a ferry. Leisure 365 miles. £90. When I…

Eiffelovercast #4 – Crossing France very very fast: a paean to TGVs

Ever since I saw my first one zoom past as a boy I’ve loved TGVs. In January I travelled from one side of France to the other and…

Packing lists are sexy

I love packing. But until four years ago, I hated it. I would put off packing my bags, leave it to the last minute, forget things, bring the…

Follow the deer tracks, who knows where they’ll lead

Every time I go to the woods I find new insight or inspiration that I can use in my teaching. Today’s comes from deer tracks. I know the…

Building the Forth Bridge on Stage

For my first time on stage at Science Showoff back in November 2011, I decided to recreate the famous public demonstration conducted by engineer Benjamin Baker to reassure…

In Praise of Euston Station

I know it is not often that you hear people say this, but I do really like Euston station – from an interpreted transport perspective, it is a…

Negotiating the lifts at Kings Cross

Pushing a pram, as is my new daily habit, has made me much more aware of the relative accessibility or inaccessibility of London. Today I decided the best…

Travelling on Eurostar with a baby

This week we took our 5-month old by Eurostar to Paris. The experience of travelling with a baby is adding a new perspective to my journeys. Long-distance train…

Tips for riding the Caledonian Sleeper on a work trip

This is only the second time I have taken a night train as part of a business trip. As we slip into Edinburgh in the early morning, having…

Going full circle on the Overground

I feel like a bit of a wally standing here in the rain at Clapham High Street Overground station. There are many shorter ways to get me home, which…

Train + bike: the easy way to get to a festival

Last year for Cloud Cuckoo Land and this year for Shambala, I’ve taken the train most of the way, and covered the final leg by bike. Often the…

Hello St.Pancras

For all the publicity in London about the opening of the new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras, passengers leaving Paris on its inaugural day wouldn’t have been any…

Au revoir Waterloo

Last Tuesday evening I bid farewell to Waterloo International, the last day that Eurostar will serve this station before it transfers to St Pancras ‘in the (other) heart…

Iran diaries* – the omelette hall of fame

Every omelette* has a story to tell. The first omelette was in Istanbul. It was on a Wednesday morning, having just arrived by train by a round about…

Finishing my course – travelling to Iran by train

Since my last post, I have been rather busy!  The lack of posts on this blog since then can be attributed in part to the large amount of…

Metro entrance – TGV promotion on stilts

Going home from work is always such a pleasure when it’s such a beautiful day… On my way home through Gare de Lyon I saw three stilt walkers…

Things to do in Paris ⋕1: Go to Lyon

This Monday I did “le pont”, which is when French employers give their staff an extra day off between the weekend and a bank holiday, in this case,…

Flying the TGV from Paris to Strasbourg

It’s not just about the trains.  It’s about the track, the gentle curves, the tunnels, the soaring bridges… click this link to fly the route of the TGV…

Trainspotting: TGV at 578 kmph

Choose life, choose reducing your carbon footprint, choose highspeed train travel instead of flying Thank you SNCF, for making trainspotting cool, at least for a day. Yesterday, a…

TGV in 354mph record attempt – 1pm

As part of the preparations for the eagerly anticipated TGV Est-Européen, which will operate from June 10th between Paris and Strasbourg, the SNCF are hoping to break their…

Sofia to Bucharest

Thursday 2nd November – Friday 3rd November The platform at Sofia station from which my train was due to leave was lit only by the dingy light coming…

Sofia

Thursday 2nd November Regular readers of this blog may be either frustrated that I have not posted any entries recently. Or thy may think I got lost in…

Belgrade to Sofia

Wednesday 1st Novemeber – Thursday 2nd November Half an hour later than expected the Belgrade Sofia express night train creaked its way out of the station in the…

Belgrade – day 2

Wednesday 1st November Having decided upon taking a detour via Bulgaria, I embarked upon finding out some basics about the country before my train that evening. My first…

Belgrade

Tuesday 31st I first went to Belgrade in this summer enroute to Greece with Mary so I already knew bearings in the city. After a very agreeable lie…

Balkans by rail: Vienna to Budapest

Monday 30th October I must have slept well in my reclining seat as I completely slept through Munich and Saltzburg, although I had been aware of many different…

Balkans by rail: Paris to Vienna

Sunday 29th October The Gard de l’Est is my favourite of Paris’ railway stations because of the desitnations on its departure boards: Strasbourg, Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna……