Grand European Tour – We Head Back to Blighty!
This is the last in a series of blog posts detailing our 10-county trip around Europe on trains, buses, cars and ferries. All the posts highlight what we got up to (without the boring bits) along with some tips and helpful overviews should you wish to visit the destinations. You can see all the posts from this trip here.
The next day, Rome was, as usual busy. So after struggling to get a taxi for a while, we finally made it to Termini (the main Rome railway station), in time for our daughter to catch a train to the airport, and for us to catch the high-speed express train to Milan. The Frecciarossa or Italo high-speed Rome/Milan train is a relatively new route, and takes about 3 hours, reaching speeds of 300 kph. It was a very tranquil journey, you don’t notice the speed at all unless you are running parallel to an autostrada for a while and realize how quickly you are passing the nearby cars.
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USEFUL RESOURCES – EUROPE
Accommodation: Booking.com
Activities: Get Your Guide
Flights: Skyscanner
Trains: Rail Europe
Bus: FlixBus
Car Hire: AutoEurope
Milan – Highs and Lows
On arriving in Milan, the first thing that hits you is how awesome the railway station is. On this trip, we had visited a lot of railway stations – the good, the bad and the ugly. Milan railway station, is, without any exaggeration, a beautiful building. It blew us away.
On leaving the station, we realised we were hungry, and made a schoolboy error – the one where you end up going to the first place you came across! On this occasion, it turned out to be touristy, expensive (even for Milan!), a bit pushy, and had mediocre food. By the time we ordered, we had realised our mistake – but obviously, it was too late by then.
To compound our mild irritation, we watched as the waiters tried to drag in every passing tourist, whilst at the same time informing the people who wished to pay that it was cash only, as their credit card machine was on the blink – this was irritating a lot of the tourists, who understandably (especially in a post-pandemic world) would want to pay with credit card. Maybe we’re a bit picky – but good customer service would have informed prospective diners of the credit card issues before they ordered.
We were in a similar position, with very little cash on us, so after checking the credit card machine really was on the blink we decided to pay with the only note we had on us, a 50 euro note (to pay for our 2 sandwiches and 2 small beers). Unfortunately, it turned out to be a forgery. So Barbara had to trot off to find an ATM, while I was held hostage at the restaurant (only kidding). Anyway, it wasn’t the most auspicious start to our overnight in Milan.
Our accommodation for the night – Vietnamonamour, however, was friendly and a little quirky and so makes our Top 5 Places we stayed on our trip list.
Google Leads The Way
Even our evening meal in Milan, went a little awry. We found a small little restaurant with great reviews on TripAdvisor not too far from our accommodation, so we let Google maps lead the way, and were soon settled down having a nice meal. It wasn’t until about halfway through the starter that we realised we were actually at the wrong restaurant, the one we’d actually been heading for was about a hundred yards further down the street! Oh well, maybe we’ll try that one on our next visit.
Strasbourg – Small and Perfectly Formed
We were up bright and early the next morning to catch our first connection, that would deliver us to Strasbourg later in the day. After boarding the very comfortable 9.10am at Milano Centrale railway station, we were swiftly on our way through the Alps, changing at Ath-Goldau and again at Basel before our final train of the day delivered us to Strasbourg on time at 15.39.
This was our first visit to Strasbourg, but it won’t be our last. It is a beautiful town, and small enough to easily explore by foot, which of course, we did, at the same time sampling the occasional local beer for which this part of the world is well renowned. Unusually for this trip, we had opted for a hotel and here we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express which is within walking distance from the old town, therefore very convenient for a quick overnighter.
Paris – But No Time to See The Sights
The next day, we said goodbye to Strasbourg and set off on the final leg of our trip, detailing on our Interrail pass that today we would be using our inbound journeys from France to England, which was a similar procedure we had to do at the start of our journey. I must admit we felt a little sad that this trip was coming to a close.
Getting back to England proved to be very straightforward on this day, but obviously it was going to be another long day. We’d toyed with the idea of putting in another overnight in Paris to break it up, but it hardly seemed worth the cost for a night, as we wouldn’t get much opportunity to actually see Paris. So off we went.
The high-speed train to Paris was a little late, but we’d given ourselves a little time in Paris for just such an eventuality, so it wasn’t a problem.
On reaching Paris Est railway station, the signs are pretty straightforward to get to Paris Nord – there are a couple of walking routes, we took the shorter one which includes some steps immediately after you leave the station. We could have taken the Metro but it’s only one stop and didn’t really seem worth it.
Eurostar – Back to Where We Started
The check-in at Paris Nord for the Eurostar was a civilised affair, and the departure lounge was comfortable and relaxed, unlike when we’d caught the Eurostar from London at the beginning of our journey. There was just time for a coffee and we were on our way back to Britain via a great bit of engineering and 50-kilometre tunnel running under the English Channel. Sometimes, technology is a wonderful thing.
Disembarking at St. Pancras International, just left us with a short walk across to Kings Cross where we hopped a train back to Yorkshire via a change in Doncaster (where coincidently Jarvis Cocker of the group Pulp got on the same train!). An hour or so later we were truly back up North, and oddly enough the statue of Philip Larkin was still at our home station to meet us, he still looked like he was going somewhere but had moved. We, on the other hand, were not going anywhere for a while, but we’d certainly moved.
Top Tips – Europe
Use Omio to compare buses versus trains, very useful.
For Hotels including self-catering apartments we use Booking.com, where you can filter by review score and many properties have a pay later/late cancellation policy should your plans suddenly change.
Check our resources page for more budget tips and discounts from our days in transit!