"Long train coming": Travelling by train

almost 2 years ago

First day of August and I'm trying to organize our holiday as our leave (mine and my partner's) starts this week. This time our choice was made not so much based on the destination, but on the means of transportation that will get us there. Once again, this year we will travel by train to visit several cities in Central Europe.

It's not our first trip train. We are quite the train enthousiasts, so whenever we are given the chance we use it for our trips. In fact, looking through our old photos I found a route we had taken a few years ago during one of our trips to Bulgaria. We had crossed the country using trains from South to North, making it a unique journey that we still remember with nostalgia.

Every time I enter a train station every time I behave like a small child who is in front of his favorite playground. I want to see it all, film it all. I like the swarm-like crowd, people looking for the platform to get on, the notice boards, the clocks that are sometimes stopped, showing the exact same time every day. But what I like more is the architecture and the interior design of the stations. Some are modern and seem somehow remote and cold where others are like ornaments of classical architecture.

This hall makes me imagine all the farewells that took place in this station. Or the feelings of hope and joy that accompanied an arrival.

Then, the route itself takes you elsewhere literally and metaphorically. You get on board, find the right carriage

(even though the trains I have travelled with so far, were usually empty, because people don't prefer to travel often on trains that aren't as fast as planes or buses) and settle yourself in the comfortable seats of a coupe.

As you watch through your window, you can see the landscape dancing in front of you. Hills and mountains, lakes and rivers, trees and bushes passing by (or are you passing them?)

The train moves rhythmically and moves you along towards your destination. Rhythmically you feel the repetitive movement of the wheels, the monotonous rocking that sometimes lulls you. Slowly but stedily is set on the tracks taking every minute closer to it. You might think that you will be late, or that, by using the train, you will waste your precious time, as our busy lives have taught us, to run to catch up with everything.
Sometimes, however, not only the destination is so important, but also the journey itself, which will be loaded with experiences and images, that you will get to know new places on your way.

As Cavafy, the Greek poet, wrote in the well-known poem "Ithaca":

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time...