Leaving Strasbourg I look up at the ceiling at the train station and see it is wooden and painted with a flower design, similar to the one in Aleppo.
The old part of the station is covered over with a glass structure. It’s a bit like a glass dish placed over a piece of aged Roquefort.
Pulling out of the city we pass timber framed farm houses but none of the shacks improvised from boards and plastic sheeting which sprout on the edges of Belgrade, Bucharest and Istanbul.
My journey to Strasbourg will be on the Orient Express.
Agatha Christie was a frequent visitor to Syria with her second husband, Max Mallowan. He was an archaeologist and worked on some of the country’s most famous sites. He is honoured in the National Museum in Damascus.
Murder on the Orient Express was reputedly written at the famous Baron Hotel in Aleppo, Syria.
Travelling by train you feel right in the landscape of a country, the routes tend to be less built over than road routes. Riding through the snowy mountains of Bulgaria and Serbia with the thin firs coated white on one side just a few feet away is almost tactile. It’s like you can feel it as well as see it.
Night time in a worn out little sleeping car is less fun. It can be claustrophobic to have nothing to look at but the tatty walls and your own face reflected back at you in the darkened windows.
Once it’s light, the vista opens up again. With the day you are right back in the frame and at a human level. You can see the people on the platforms, see their mouths move as they say and kiss goodbye.
It turns out I’m travelling in a first class cabin from Ankara to Adana overnight. The train’s very plastic and modern, a new Pullman model. I sense this train guard won’t be offering me beer and cigarettes nor chucking me under the chin and swapping salary details, like his counterpart Vali on the Bucharest to Istanbul service.
The journey’s the duller for it.
Arriving in Adana at nine, I head for the nearest cafe and ask for tea and where to catch the bus to Antakya, also called Antioch.
Asking for directions, help, where to find an internet connection, bureau de change or the train station has worked so far. It does again and they kindly draw me a map to the Otogar shuttle service stand.
It’s a special pleasure to wake up and not know quite what you will see when you draw up the blind of the carriage window
As we pass through farms of orange and lemon trees near Yenice the morning air smells of marmalade.
Next stop Adana and then a bus into Syria.
Istanbul’s the first stop off on this trip I’ve been to before. It’s a relief to arrive here, not just because it’s familiar but the journey through Romania and Bulgaria has been long.
I’m woken at four am by border guards. They slam open the door of every single compartment and shine torches around the carriage. Apparently there’s a strong history of smuggling on this route.
Just over an hour later we get off the train at Kapikule on the Turkish side to collect police stamps in our passports and some of us pay for an entry visa at a small glass kiosk on the concrete platform.
The girl in the American couple behind me tells the boy, ‘It didn’t cost two-hundred dollars to get in and at least we’re still alive.’ Her scant comfort makes me think of my friends at the Syrian Embassy and their high visa charge for those coming from the ‘rich’ USA.
The whole experience makes me feel more like a refugee than a tourist.
On the train to Budapest, my phone lights up and switches to the T-mobile Hungary network. No one’s asked for my papers so it’s the only way I know for sure we’ve crossed the border.
A woman sits down opposite. Because her outfit is of shiny, black, synthetic fabric and round metal studs on jeans, boots and bag, I think how typically eastern European she looks.
We pass wind turbines, their blades disappearing into the mist at the highest point of their rotation.
T-mobile beeps through a text message. It’s the Syrians. I should be able to pick up my visa in Budapest.
In my mind this trip went perfectly smoothly and punctually like this: Leave London St Pancras at 10.00 am – arrive in Brussels 1.30 – take the Thalys train to Cologne an hour after that. Spend a few hours in Cologne, get something to eat and see the cathedral before catching the night train to Vienna.
In reality every single train is running late. It means taking a local service from Achen full of people in fancy dress heading to Cologne. The only seat left among the teenagers in furry yellow chicken costumes and women dressed as princes or card sharps is next to a Frau of more than a certain age. I take it and suffer her disappointment on learning I don’t speak German. I suffer my own disappointment on realising this deficiency is going to seriously hamper my eavesdropping habit.
I do know a bit of German, so to make it up to Frau Disappointed I tell her I’m going to Vienna and ask how long it will take to get to Cologne where I have to change trains. ‘Long’ she tells me, rolling her eyes, tutting and generally using the international language of delayed and annoyed travellers.
“What time is your train to Vienna?”
‘Eight’, I say, ‘eight’. I can’t remember how to say o’clock or hour.
In any language, knowing the numbers, hello and thank you get you a long way. She’s so pleased to be able help she risks a smile and reassures me I should make the connection in Cologne. We’ve used about ten actual words repeated in German and French plus a lot of nodding and pointing to communicate all this.
Her jollier contemporaries across the aisle, dressed as harlequins, have been listening in. They’re satisfied with my travel arrangements too. ‘Carnival’ they say. Their destination was already pretty clear from their glittery outfits. They share a packet of glucose sweets with us.
I make the connection in Cologne and bed down on the City Night Line to Vienna.
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Hello, Sarah, I'm back to London. Finally, finally :) My shoes are still fine. I can have spare shoes now. But socks...I
You got home in on piece! Missed you, will call soon xxx
Thank you for reading this far. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I certainly enjoyed doing it.
Fascinating stuff, Sarah, which I've greatly enjoyed. I look forward to meeting up with you again one fine day.
Welcome home Sarah! I've enjoyed your holiday lots! Lx
