One of the joys of travelling overland is that each point of your journey is connected to the previous point, which is connected to home. So home remains like the view in your rearview mirror until it is just the horizon, until it is gone.
Sometimes I imagine this connection as a ball of yarn spooling out behind me, which gradually thins out until at some point it is left trailing somewhere in the distance ready for me to rejoin it on the way home.
I secretly quite like it when train timetabling leads to a 5am get-up. An early morning start has a quiet thrill of holidays-to-Devon-past, a fizz of anticipation reminiscent of Christmases. But at the same time, I think I am at my happiest most of the way through a journey because it is like being most of the way through a book, now well-acquainted with the characters and starting to race towards the end, not because you want it to be over but because you’re in the contented rhythm of turning pages.
My travels were precipitated by a work week in Rome. Due to some rockfall on one of the trainlines between France and Italy, getting there was not as straightforward as it might have otherwise been. But the line closure and rumours of a French general strike meant I got a day in Menton with Sarah and Chris, with blazing 24 degrees sunshine, a walk round the old town, and a falafel wrap on the beach for dinner. The subsequent 6:30am Italian-train equivalent of Cross-Country, a 7 hour journey from Ventimiglia to Rome, wasn’t a bad way to travel either.
I hadn’t particularly planned any sight-seeing for Rome because I didn’t want to be disappointed when I then needed to prioritise work, but this also had the effect of making all the extra moments feel particularly special. Siman became my inadvertent travel-agent-in-chief, taking me up to Janiculum Hill and then tipping me off that in going through Milan on my return journey I would be close-by to Lake Como.
The joy of my half-spontaneity and remaining energy made for a lovely afternoon in Lake Como. I wandered along to the furnicular railway I didn’t know existed, travelled up to Brunate and then spent an hour walking back down to the train station to get home to Milan via poetry way and the changing light.
Here’s my favourite poetry way poem:
On the pit of an apricot
Alda Merini, translation by Susan Stuart
on the first thought that pops into my mind
I establish reason’s big toe
so I can touch your eternal feet.
The following day I went to All Saints’ Anglican Church Milan, before soaking up some sunshine on a walking tour and heading towards my overnight Flixbus which would take me back to Paris.
I really like the moments of encounter you have while travelling. Discovering Alda Merini’s poetry and then learning about her life was one such moment, going to the Bourse de Commerce in Paris was another.
I planned my visit to the Bourse de Commerce courtesy of a recent train journey in which I learned a lot about architecture. The conversation had praised the work of Tadao Ando (“it’s exceptionally hard to do simplicity that well”, “who would have thought of putting that much concrete in a building like that”) and I wanted to go and experience the space for myself.
Sure enough, the space was beautiful. I struggled to care for any of the Pinault Collection, which is theoretically why you might want to pay EUR 14 for a ticket, but the delirium of an overnight coach journey mixed deliciously with a pastry breakfast and cultural sampling of architecture.
My train companions had been right, Tadao Ando can even make the barest of bathrooms beautiful.
thejoyofrachel 