00:00Hello and welcome to Travel Smart, your weekly guide to travel from the
00:05independent. We aim to inspire, entertain and inform you about the industry of
00:11human happiness. As you probably already know, The Independent has always
00:16championed sustainable travel and in this episode we're celebrating our
00:20favourite way to travel around Europe, by rail!
00:35Besides limiting the environmental impact, you enjoy the best views,
00:39including some inaccessible by any other form of transport. As well as spectacular
00:45vistas of coast and countryside, you'll also get right to the heart of Europe's
00:49most alluring cities. And right now there are more opportunities to travel at high
00:54speed for less. Where better to start than Eurostar? Trains run from London
01:00St Pancras International to Paris and Brussels in just over two hours and
01:04Amsterdam in less than four hours. Because Eurostar is so popular and has
01:11limited departures, fares tend to be high. But if you book well ahead and are
01:16flexible about dates and times, you can find tickets for as little as £39 each way.
01:23The ideal place to begin a continental rail adventure is France, where TGV
01:29high-speed expresses have been running for over 40 years.
01:39For all intercity trains in France you need to book a seat, but for the slower and cheaper
01:45TER trains, Transport Express Régional, you can just turn up and go, often at very low fares.
01:54The line along the French Mediterranean coast all the way from the Italian border
01:59to the Spanish frontier is a joy with frequent cheap trains.
02:05Spain has lifted the crown from France for Europe's most extensive high-speed network.
02:11It also has intense competition, with four different operators on the flagship Madrid to Barcelona line,
02:18forcing fares down to as little as £15 for the two-and-a-half-hour trip between Spain's two biggest cities.
02:26Yet the most alluring journeys are very low speed, on the tangle of narrow gauge lines along the coast of northern Spain,
02:35from San Sebastian to Bilbao and onwards to Santander and La Corona.
02:42Italy has an excellent high-speed network too, with lots of competition particularly on the main
02:48line between Milan and Rome. But if you've got a bit of time, then how about taking just the old
02:56classic Trenitalia trains. They will run much more slowly but through more wonderful countryside
03:04with fewer tunnels and they'll also offer an excellent fare with no need to book.
03:10My dream trip is from Genoa to La Spezia, carving along the Mediterranean coast.
03:18I also like the trains in the deep south, around the province of Puglia and over to Sicily,
03:26reached on Europe's only surviving train ferry, which is actually carried over the Strait of Messina.
03:35Going east from Italy the speed and the cost of trains goes down. Through Serbia you can follow
03:42some of the route of the original Orient Express, but considerably more slowly than that celebrated
03:49transcontinental icon. In recent years overnight international trains have been making a comeback
03:57with Austrian Railways night jets operating on a range of routes
04:01and new competitors like the European sleeper moving in.
04:05You can usually choose from a private cabin or a seat where you'll sit up all night.
04:10The other option is a couchette, which is a bit like a hammock in a compartment sleeping six.
04:17Switzerland has a good claim to offer the most scenic railways in Europe
04:21with the Glacier Express the standout, taking all day from St. Moritz to Zermatt
04:28and now offering the height of luxury in excellence class, in which you'll get a five-course meal
04:35as you trample through the mountains.
04:39One European country deserves a very special mention, Luxembourg, where they abolished railfares completely in 2020.
04:49And despite the diminutive size of the Grand Duchy, you can make some really good money.
04:55Despite the size of the Grand Duchy, you can make some really good journeys with buses filling in the gaps.
05:01And they're free too.
05:03Once you're into Scandinavia, things change. Fares are higher and trains less frequent due to the sparse population.
05:11But you can travel all the way into the Arctic Circle with the link from Luleå in Sweden to Narvik in Norway,
05:20the highlight of many a pan-European rail trip.
05:26So Simon, a viewer from Scotland has asked, given the high cost of railfares at the moment,
05:34would an inter-rail pass be a good option?
05:37Inter-railing, this wonderful half-century-old idea that you can travel far and wide across Europe on the railways,
05:47is certainly a good option for a number of people.
05:51If you want to do lots of high-intensity travelling, it can be very good.
05:55As long as you can bear with the idea that you're going to have to, in places like France and Italy and Spain,
06:03pay extra for reservations, which I find is actually very tedious.
06:07I much prefer it in countries like the Netherlands, in Germany, Austria, where you can effectively just turn up and board any train.
06:16Are there any countries you would recommend visiting with an inter-rail pass?
06:20I would strongly advise you, if you want to pick one country to explore, that would be Switzerland,
06:26because the trains are normally very expensive, but they're also very scenic.
06:30And the alternative for that is to have the Swiss day pass, a bit of a niche product,
06:35but that also will enable you to explore that great country in detail.
06:41Thanks very much, Simon.
06:44If you have a question that you'd like to get answered by Simon,
06:47feel free to email us at
06:54That's it for this episode of Travel Smart Weekly.
06:57For the next episode, we'll be doing plenty more travelling by rail.
07:01Hope that you will be too.
07:03Meanwhile, of course, you can go to independent.co.uk forward slash travel
07:08for the latest travel news, reviews and advice.
07:12And perhaps check out my daily travel podcast.
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