Is there a greater sensation for a traveller than when a prepare speeds out of a tunnel? The sudden flood of sunshine, that howling rush of air. Clearly, it’s not simply me who thinks trains are the brand new (previous) planes, with 2025 having seen a 7% rise in UK prepare journey, and extra Europeans than ever seeking to hit the rails.
It’s late December, and I’m heading out on a slow-train journey throughout the historic railways of the Swiss Alps and the Italian lakes. It’s a visit of roughly 1,800 miles (2,900km), crossing 5 international locations, virtually fully by scenic daytime trains.
What is evident from the off is how straightforward, and barely disorientating, one of these prepare journey may be: drifting via stations, throughout platforms and over borders, it’s onerous to consider we’ve hit three international locations in lower than a day – the UK, France and Switzerland – such is the benefit of every passport cease. Gone are the sweaty finger scans of airport border management, changed by essentially the most well mannered immigration police I’ve ever encountered. “You’ve travelled so much,” one says, with a wry smile and a German shepherd, to which I reply “legally”, simply to cowl my again.
Exterior, the French countryside quickly blurs into Swiss hills, all behind a skinny veil of white, wintry gentle. The fields, with their clumps of naked timber, appear suspended in mid-freeze, as if bracing for the complete blast to return. As we roll into Zurich, we catch our first glimpse of the milky Alpine peaks.
That is the fun of prepare journeys: the steadily shifting scenes, the rise and fall of the panorama, leavened like contemporary bread. Subsequent morning, we’re greeted with crisp blue skies for our mountain ascent by way of one in every of Europe’s most historic prepare routes, the Matterhorn Gotthard railway. The unique line opened in 1882 and was the railroad that modified Europe, slicing a path via inhospitable mountains and remoted villages.
We catch one of many historic trains (the IR46) – eager to keep away from something routed via the Gotthard base tunnel, which bypasses the wonder. In summer time, a vacationer prepare – with greater home windows and an even bigger price ticket – takes the very same route, famously depicted by JMW Turner and described in awed phrases by Goethe. “Right here,” he wrote, “it’s essential to undergo nature.” Although it’s the cafe automotive promoting Swiss espresso at eye-watering costs that forces me to revise Goethe: right here, it’s essential to undergo inflation.
Telephones duly on cost (as is slow-train journey etiquette), we sit again and gawp out of the window for 3 hours, consuming Swiss truffles because the tracks snake the mythic Alps by way of the well-known Gotthard “spirals” – corkscrew tracks constructed contained in the mountains for a gentle ascent. It’s the stuff of oil work all proper – vertiginous gorges, frothing rivers and snow-capped peaks.
At Göschenen, we go for a lunch cease by way of a brief, even steeper rack-and-pinion route excessive into the previous garrison city of Andermatt, now reinvented as a classy ski retreat. Up right here, the snow is thick. Between that and the darkish Alpine stone, it’s as if we’ve stepped out right into a monochrome {photograph}. A comforting lunch on the wonderful Biselli, together with a number of glasses of Swiss Ticino crimson (liquid lunch being one other perk of slow-train journey) takes the sting off a dense mist that has crept over the remainder of the day’s rail route. Fortunately, Italy quickly pushes again, with clear skies and terracotta valley cities, and – similar to that – one other border is crossed, bringing with it a welcome drop in the price of a cappuccino (from €5 to €2), loved whereas skimming the sting of the ice-blue Lake Lugano.
By nightfall, we’re at Lake Como. Baggage dropped, we catch the final of the sunshine with a straightforward passeggiata (stroll) around the perimeter of the well-known lake, mercifully missing its high-season crowds. Ornate road lamps line the water’s edge like washed-up pearls and, within the distance, the funicular as much as the hillside city of Brunate shines with a string of golden lights that dangle down the slope like misplaced jewelry. It’s onerous to think about Como every other manner.
Subsequent morning, having acquired into the swing of slow-train transience, we pack up in report time and take espresso on the station. For our ultimate cease, we’re heading within the path of a much-needed metropolis. Ditching Milan – Italy’s least attention-grabbing metropolis – we roll into Turin, one in every of its most underappreciated.
Stepping off the rickety regional prepare at Torino Porta Susa, what we discover is a vibrant, easygoing pupil metropolis that seems contentedly trapped in some sort of temporal ragu; a spot the place Nineteen Twenties artwork deco neon indicators cling to 18th-century baroque buildings that home classic outlets run by college students dressed as if they’re within the Nineties.
Miraculously, all this gels, and the coed cohort rub alongside simply nice with their extra conservative elders, united beneath the spectacular porticos that run, unbroken, for greater than 18km and are lined with boutiques and historic espresso bars. We spherical out our first evening with an aperitivo on the traditional art-school hang-out Caffè Università, with its frayed edges and charmingly outmoded each day buffet.
Subsequent morning, Turin’s enviable portfolio of museums and galleries beckon, most free to enter with the Torino card. Right here, the time-warp vibes proceed inside the hovering spire of the Nineteenth-century Mole Antonelliana, now housing the excellent Museo Nazionale del Cinema – certainly, the one neoclassical constructing that’s house to an xenomorph egg from the movie Alien? Likewise, one other repurposed constructing, the Lingotto advanced, boasts an much more outlandish upcycle: the well-known Fiat check monitor on its roof has been reimagined as La Pista 500, a panoramic backyard stroll, the place artwork installations dwell alongside the historic skidmarks. Proof that Turin will not be considering merely preserving historical past, but in addition evolving.
With a chill within the air, we duck in for an ideal meal on the unassuming but wonderful Osteria Rabezzana, a part of the Mangébin circuit that promotes Piedmontese delicacies. The brasato al barolo (beef braised in barolo wine) and native agnolotti del plin (beef- and cabbage–stuffed pasta) are wonderful. This family-run restaurant and vineyard opened simply after the second world battle, and judging by the convivial environment – stuffed with native individuals on workplace festive outings – it has served town effectively ever since.
Subsequent morning, we’re up and out to catch the 7.36 TGV all the way in which again to Paris. Drifting out and in of sleep, we soak up a final glimpse of the Italian Alps. By the point we attain our Parisian pit cease, day is folding in on itself, and shortly sufficient, we’re slumped again on the Eurostar, flanked by luggage of clinking wine bottles cushioned by crushed panettone. Homebound and heady, we reluctantly plunge again into the black of the Channel tunnel, leaving all that gentle behind us.
Transport was offered by Interrail; passes permitting seven days of journey inside one month are £255 youths, £339 adults, £305 seniors (under-12s journey free). Return Eurostar from London to Paris begins from £78. Lodging was offered by The Dwelling Resort Zurich (from £165B&B), Hilton Lake Como (from €270 B&B), NH Assortment Torino Piazza Carlina (from £203 B&B) and 25hours Terminus Nord in Paris (from €179 room-only ).
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