Italy by train
19th – 26th July 1997
Foreword
02 Apr 2026
These are from 31 pages of handwritten notes from July 1997, written across the trip itself – in hostel common rooms, on trains, on a station floor at 2am. I was 26, living in Reading UK, working for ICL on a project called OpenPAS.
I’ve always loved train journeys since I can remember. Having travelled all over the UK by British Rail, I planned this trip to experience a train journey in mainland Europe as much as to see Italy.
Unusually for me, I wrote this not as a letter. It is somehow easier to write letters. Easier to write when the recipient is fixed in my mind. But this one wasn’t – there’s no Dear Amma & Appa, no sign-off. It was written to be sent but reads more like thinking aloud. The purple ink of Venice and Rome gives way to red somewhere around Naples.
The itinerary
Itinerary on google maps created in 2026 – back when I travelled, there was no google maps of course 🙂
Eurostar London to Paris, overnight couchette Paris to Milan, local trains Milan to Venice, Venice to Rome, Rome to Naples, Naples to Florence via the Circumvesuviana and Italian Eurostar, then a planned couchette Florence to Rome to Milan that went badly wrong and became an unplanned night on the floor of Milan Centrale, then TGV Milan to Paris, Eurostar home. Eight days, seven train rides, one night in a station. The cities are almost like chapters between trains; the train windows are where some of the best looking-out happens – the Adige in full spate somewhere north of Verona, the Po winding back and forth across the flat plain, the Italian countryside coming through the tunnels after Bologna looking uncannily like Maharashtra, the Alps from the TGV appearing first as distant white and then suddenly close, their green tops in cloud.
The rail adventure begins
19 July 1997
The story starts the day before: my last day on OpenPAS. The project was not over; I was working on bugs till the last minute, literally. I wasn’t happy to leave, but that’s how I left it.
I took the 13:41 from Reading to Waterloo and pottered around Waterloo International for a long time before the Eurostar. It is a lovely station to potter – airy and purposeful, full of people going somewhere European. Boarding was shockingly easy; I half expected the ritual of airports, and got instead passport stamps and a seat. I didn’t fall asleep, surprisingly. It was daylight outside and I enjoyed the sights as we sped through the South English countryside.
The channel tunnel was an anti-climax – nothing marks the significance of being under hundreds of metres of water. After the tunnel the train continued on the same side of the tracks (!), but I thought it was running faster than before. And it was: it had just reached its peak speed of 300kmph, and the speed was really felt inside.
Paris was a change of station – Gare du Nord to Gare Lyon by metro – and then the overnight train to Milan at 22:05. After some gesturing and questioning I found the right platform and my couchette. Very much like the second-class berths on Indian Railways – more precisely, like the ladies’ compartment, with a door to every bay of six berths. I shared with two Italian ladies and three little girls, all angelic-looking and well behaved. Border control was even more minimal: the TT collected everyone’s passports and tickets for bedtime reading, and that was that. I had a top berth. I stood at the window trying to look out past my reflection, gave up after a while, and went to bed – to the comforting and familiar rhythm of sleeping in a train.
I woke at 7am as the train pulled into Torino. The good ladies were herding the children out. I had the bay to myself till Milano, which came at 8:45am, the sun streaming in and making the compartment look beautiful.
