Winterrail – a magical winter journey

I’m sitting on the Eurostar heading home. Music of Peterisk Vask in my ears, one of the revelations of this trip, transporting me instantly back – to a special concert in an Innsbruck concert hall, and also to the sparse, white, perfect snow of Latvia.

The journey is over and reality beckons soon. The train carries us back – back to a world of family and friends and music and work – but also back to a world of demands and to-do lists and busy, hurried weeks. I know it will be fine, but every fibre of me is fighting against it right now; the urge to get off this train and jump on the next one available into the unknown is so strong.

How to begin to summarise the trip of a lifetime, a journey that has reached from the frozen forests of Finland to the turquoise seas of Sicily? A journey south of such variety and beauty? Our adventure exists in my mind a series of astonishing, individual experiences, which burn so brightly. But even within such a diverse trip, there are threads – visible and invisible – which bind together all those places. Threads which maybe become clearer as the journey becomes ever more distant.

A connected journey

When you travel by land and by sea, there’s a physical link which remains unbroken through the journey. You feel, see, and are physically part of, every mile of that journey. Travel by train is wonderful. It’s truly a fantastic way to see a whole continent. You sit in your window seat and the world delivers itself right to your chair. A grandstand view of the changing landscapes and cultures of the countries we’ve travelled through.

You never know what you’re going to get in a train. They’ve been calm and quiet, loud and jarring. Half-empty carriages, and journeys with a cacophony of phones and music and (honestly) the snooker on full volume. Spotlessly clean – and quite the opposite. Modern and shiny, with phone charging and free drinks. Old, rattly and uncomfortable. Sleek double-deckers and little regional trains with slam doors.

Top train prizes must go to Finland and Lithuania. Finland for its calm, tidy, clean trains and the lovely ‘relax’ carriage with its free tea and coffee station. The most peaceful way to travel.

Lithuania for the friendliest and nicest travel of the trip. Crew announced by name over the tannoy. Free tea and GF brownie. The remarkable Christmas train, with decorated trees in the carriages, fairy lights twinkling. I still wonder if I dreamed this one; it surely only exists in fiction.

Some routes are specifically labelled as scenic. The Bernina route will live in my memory for years to come as one of the most astonishing days ever. It still makes me grin. But really, almost all trips have been scenic. Every journey in the Nordics and across the Baltics gave us hours of gorgeous, perfect winter white to sink into, broken with tiny villages and picture-perfect cabins. The hills and mountains of Austria, along the shores of Lake Como in Italy, following the rivers Inn and Salach and Tiber. Tracks by the sea so close you could taste the waves. Cutting through mountain gorges so narrow you could touch the frozen sides. Even the industrial routes through towns and cities show you life in another country and a glimpse into someone else’s world. Every journey can be scenic if you have time to let it.

My world on my back

The first few days, I wondered what we’d done. 11kg in my rucksack and more in my day sack on my front – and that was before we started needing to carry food. Constant ache of back and shoulders, daily stretches to cope – should we have brought suitcases?

The answer is that I’ve got stronger, my body has adapted, and I adore my rucksack (Olaf the Magnificent. It’s a long story). Travelling by rucksack has allowed us to walk across early morning cities instead of booking a taxi, giving us precious moments in quiet streets. It’s made it possible to walk snowy paths and icy cobbles, feeling the city physically under our feet. We carried our rucksacks on trains and buses and ferries and funiculars, easy on, easy off. 500 feet up the side of a cliff in Taormina. Through deep snow in the hilly parks of Tartu. In and out of apartments, up many, many flights of stairs in tall blocks. Along icy paths in Vienna, and finally down to the sea in Syracuse.

Packing back up to leave took me ages at the start. By the end: minutes. Sending home two boxes of unneeded cold weather gear was also a game changer and allowed me and Olaf to bounce around Italy feeling physically and metaphorically lighter. By the end of the trip: 9.5kg, everything I need in it. What will I do with a big house of possessions?

Making it all work

There’s a less glamorous side, but nonetheless fun, to a journey like this. We wanted to be unplanned and spontaneous, to travel light, and I’m so glad we did it that way. It allowed us to follow our noses, move and stay based on our energy, and choose our route based on what the journey was calling for next.

However, the payback for that is a lot of trip admin as you go. Researching and planning routes, finding trains, figuring out seat reservations in each new country. Booking accommodation, planning activities. Figuring out food (a bit more complex when you’re gluten free), from the joy of foreign supermarkets to the challenge of working out what’s actually open in January (answer: often, not a lot!). So many train picnics (big shout out to station supermarkets).

The washing – pretty critical when you’re travelling light. A sudden love for hotels with heated towel rails, taking clothes into the shower to wash, lovely apartments strung with a clutter of wet clothes drying on our trusty travel washing line.

I’ve been amazed at how our travel energy has kept going. Each new place seems to have reset the meter and recharged my bounce. We’ve learnt how many one-night stays we can handle in a row (3), balanced early morning starts against afternoon crash outs, and remembered to seek out some vegetables occasionally to offset too many cheese+meat+wine bar dinners. The long travel days can be tiring, and I’ve definitely frayed at the edges some days. But each time, a sleep, a coffee, and the promise of new magical moments have been all I’ve needed to get going again. I’ve loved waking each day full of bounce and excitement, raring to get going and find the day’s adventures waiting for me. What a privilege to get to feel that way for 6 full weeks.

Travel deep

With a journey this long, there’s a danger you could just ‘skip through’. Drinking the coffee, ticking off the main sights and moving on. It was important to both of us that we found a way to do more than that.

We definitely drank the coffee. There’s a joy in finding a cafe to call home and becoming part of a city for just a tiny moment.

By looking for ways to go deeper, we’ve had incredible experiences and got to sense a little bit more of what makes each place tick. Respect for communities living lives in frozen lands. New perspectives on World War II. A small understanding of the utter horrors of decades of occupation in the Baltic states – and the indominitable spirit that shines through in each of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania despite that.

We visited Etruscan caves and learnt how they held out against a Roman invasion. Saw some of the most beautiful art you could hope to see – from the well-loved to the new and exciting. My first ice hockey match. Churches and cathedrals and chapels. An organ recital and a symphony orchestra concert. Hunting for bronze dwarves. Fell in love with libraries – from the modern in Helsinki and Riga to the ancient in St Gallen.

Outdoor adventures, from snow shoes to ice skating with the locals on a Sunday morning, kick sledding across a frozen ocean and hiking by frozen rivers. I

If I look for a thread to tie it together, it’s finding a sense of place, and trying to learn a little more about the unique life and spirit of each city and country we’ve visited. From top to toe, a reminder of how incredible people are – and how warm, kind and welcoming.

Winter

At the heart of this trip was not just a journey, but a journey through winter. I’ve always loved cold, outlying places, the bleak and magnificent and dramatic. When we were planning our adventure, I wanted to lean into that, to see winter as something to explore and to love, not to run away from.

Winter has given us all that and so much more than I could ever have anticipated. If there’s one true thread of pure, white silk running through this journey, it’s the sense of a changing winter, beautiful and magnificent from the frozen tip of the journey to its sunny toe.

From the snow of the far north and its biting, brutal-yet-magical cold, to a sunny, vibrant winter in Sicily, there’s been beauty in every step. If I try to pull together one overarching feeling from this incredible, diverse, insane and wonderful trip, it’s that winter is truly magical if you’re lucky enough to be able to sink into it. Winter in all its many forms – I’ve loved it.

Winter the bold. Shining snow and deep blue sky. Crisp, snow-coated mountain ridge lines, frozen lakes and sparkling trees.

Winter the delicate. Hazy light of a half-morning. Pastel colours; a palette so fragile you feel it could break. Tiny snowflakes seemingly hanging in the air as they fall so gently. Frozen water droplets, soft breath in a freezing morning. Intricate frost patterns and perfect fine icing on tree branches.

Winter the heavy. Never-quite daylight and a smudge-grey pencil palette. Colour removed, detail removed, landscapes two dimensional, endless-night skies thickened with snow. Rivers: frozen. Lakes: frozen. Sea: frozen.

Winter the sensory. The crunch of boots and YakTrax on ice-crusted snow. The bite as your boot grips rather than slips. Frozen nostrils, bone-deep cold on exposed skin. The taste of snow, the tingle of snowflakes landing on eyelashes. The hush of a city in falling snow, noise deadened, calm restored. The stamp, stamp, stamp, kicking snow from boots to stop yourself sliding. The visceral hit of steamy warmth walking into a cafe from the biting cold air outside.

Winter the magical. The incredible light when everything is white, white, white. Nights in the forest lit by the moon and its snow-reflections. Spruce under a heavy coat of Christmas-cake icing. The ephemeral tint of pastel pink in a sky where the sun never rises. Green dancing lights, a fairytale in a blackened sky, and a starscape to make you feel so tiny and yet part of something so big. Winter that makes you breathe in deep and fill yourself with wonder.

Winter the calm. Part-closed cities returned to their locals. Empty streets and seats in often-packed cafes. Space to enjoy museums and galleries alone. The smile and warmth in the greetings of people unhurried in the off-season. Empty seats on trains, no queues at ticket offices. Room to be and to enjoy.

Winter the meditative. A palette of white, white, grey, white passing train windows. Trees and fields and lakes and rivers – all white. Snow blurring the horizon between white sky and white ground – a passing picture of calm, senses unloaded, time to sit and to think and to rest an over-busy mind. Nowhere to be and nothing to do; no lists, obligations, hurried musts. Today’s to dos: be warm, breathe deep, watch and hear and feel and be.

Winter the intimate. Two caught close under an umbrella. Beauty more small-scale in the rain, found in puddle reflections and street-light glow. Winter found in the small gestures. Help on with a coat. A shared search for a warm cafe. Linking arms to avoid sliding in the ice. Everyday moments pared down to essentials to avoid the biting cold or the pouring rain.

Winter the colourful. The return of sunshine, flowers and fruit. Tracing a journey south, noticing the first birdsong, the first flower, the first trees without snow, the first flowing river. Walking on ice-free pavement. Watching the daylight return, and then gradually begin earlier and fall later. A slow shedding of layers: the first day without a hat, the ditching of the thick gloves, a day sitting out without a coat. Sunlight on your face – at first cool, later warming the skin.   

Above all, for me very personally, winter the still. Despite the constant movement, the energy and excitement and bounce, not to mention the 4,000 miles, my overwhelming feeling has been a sense of stillness. Leaving behind all the day-to-day demands of life, the emails and messages and planning and to-do lists, and the constant sense that I should be doing more, right now. Instead, the chance to breathe and think and sit by a window while the world dances by. I hope to find a way to hang onto a little piece of this when I’m back, and to always remember that there is magic in stillness as well as in movement.

My final thought. If you’re going to have the adventure of a lifetime, choose your travelling companion carefully. Six weeks of the ups and downs of travelling, living out of rucksacks and in tiny rooms strung with today’s washing. 

My recommendation: pick a traveling companion who will hike with you in the snow, walk in the rain, sit in the sun. Someone who will hold your hand to stop you falling on the ice and who knows you need cake before you do. Pick someone who will proof-read your blogs (except this one! typos all mine) and listen as you get excited about snow – again. Pick someone who can start a fire to cook sausages in -20, can persuade a Polish train guard to make an Intercity wait for you, and who carries half a kilo of Mozart Balls and 3/4 of a bottle of good white wine in his daysack (cork firmly back in). Above all, pick someone who says ‘yes, why not’ to the biggest and craziest adventures and who makes every day of it a joy. Thanks Tim, you’re the best.

And so there we have it. 4,000 miles over 6 weeks. 10 countries, 42 train journeys, 2 ferries, 3 long-distance buses. More than 30 miles walked across cities with rucksacks on our backs. One absolutely epic, beautiful, perfect adventure. If you catch me with a distant look on my face and probably a smile too in the coming weeks, you’ll know where my head is. The journey of dreams, memories to last a lifetime. Winter. Heaven.