You could arrive in Paris by airplane Charles de Gaulle Airport outside the city at Roissy. It's mean, functional and could be anywhere. Or you could arrive by train at an impressive city centre station like Gare du Nord or Gare de Lyon, with all the romance and sense of occasion that goes with it. Pity there's no longer any steam, but we can dream, can't we?
Arriving by train in India is even more of an occasion, and you could happily spend a month doing nothing else, whereas Delhi's Indira Ghandi Airport is like any other airport in the world, paranoid about security and mind-numbingly boring.
Travel by train is exciting, romantic, and an adventure. Some of the advantages it has over air travel are as follows:
- You get to keep your possessions with you at all times
- There are no unreasonable queues, having to show up three hours before departure
- You don't have to have a stranger run his hands all over your body before you board
- There is always something to look at through the window
There are others, but I've already convinced myself!
Some of the most exciting and adventurous routes I know of are:
- Istanbul to Aleppo (Syria), the original terminus for the Orient Express
- Delhi to Kolkota, most of it along the Ganges
- St Petersburg to Odessa on the Black Sea, via Moscow and Kiev
There are thousands more.
Check out Seat 61 for inspiration and information and let your mind run riot.
