Touring: 28 trains later

Dave Richardson jumps onboard a Great Rail Journeys escorted tour to Switzerland and, with only one 10-minute delay, discovers travel that runs like clockwork

It was good of the hotel manager to invite us for a welcome drink, but we didn’t expect him to turn up in cloak and deerstalker hat sucking a long curling pipe. He didn’t say, “Elementary, my dear Watson” – but he really looked the part of Sherlock Holmes. His appearance was appropriate, as the Park Hotel du Sauvage in the Swiss resort of Meiringen is where the great fictional detective stayed the night before his “death”. Built in grand Belle Epoque style in 1880, this was our base for seven nights on Great Rail Journeys’ Jungfrau Express escorted tour.

The next day we took the first of many mountain trains, up to the Reichenbach Falls above Meiringen. A plaque marks the spot where Holmes and the dastardly Professor Moriarty plunged to their deaths in a story called The Final Problem, but as all Holmes fans know, it didn’t happen. Author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, although bored by his creation, had to bring Holmes back from the dead by popular demand.
There’s also a Sherlock Holmes museum in a former chapel next to the hotel, and the Holmes connection certainly added mystique to the holiday. Most people came for the scenery, and fortunately everyone enjoyed rail travel as there was plenty of it.

Tour manager

As on nearly all Great Rail Journeys’ European tours, the holiday started with a Eurostar train from London St Pancras. After taking five trains with one overnight stop, we arrived in Meiringen a leisurely 26 hours later. The tour manager plays a huge part in any escorted tour, and ours – an avuncular chap in his sixties – looked much like a typical client. He had plenty of responsibility looking after our large group of 38, including one with obvious walking difficulties. The age range was typical of escorted tours, mainly from mid-forties to mid-seventies. He did his best to integrate the group including three travelling alone, and gave out the first of his daily handwritten bulletins at St Pancras with details of train times and stops. A tour manager needs to be friendly but also authoritative, and he fitted the bill perfectly. He had a half sympathetic, half bemused expression which said, “I share your pain” – and that first appeared in Paris. The only problem I found was that you have to heave your own luggage on and off trains, although this was done for you at hotels in Meiringen, Cologne on the return trip, and at Brussels when changing to Eurostar.

Switzerland

We had to take a coach between stations in Paris, and due to station restrictions it was parked some distance away meaning elderly people had a struggle. But this was forgotten when we reached Switzerland, the perfect destination for a rail holiday as public transport – including lake steamers and buses – works so well. It’s a country of green meadows, steep mountains and placid lakes, and on all our excursions around the Bernese Oberland we saw fat, contented cows, and wooden houses with window boxes full of flowers. Highlights were a lake cruise from Lucerne; a trip up Rothorn mountain behind a gutsy little steam engine; and finally a trip up the Jungfrau, one of Europe’s highest mountains at 3,454 metres. The railway here is carved out of tunnels through the mountain, and on a clear day the views from the top are sublime, if very chilly.

Just one 10-minute delay

Only once did the tour nearly descend into chaos, as even the Swiss are prone to human error and seat reservations failed to materialise on one of four crowded trains used to reach the Jungfrau. Texts flew furiously back and forth to Great Rail Journeys’ HQ in York, and the tour manager’s “I share your pain” expression became set in stone. “There’s only one thing for it – use your elbows!” he declared. By the time we returned to London after 10 days, we had taken 28 trains (four of them optional) and only one had been late, by 10 minutes. By now we were firmly with the escorted tour mentality, and looked in vain for the tour manager to give us our tickets and lead us into the Underground. Suddenly we had to think for ourselves – and it didn’t come easily!

On track: more rail facts

Great Rail Journeys uses first-class travel wherever possible, including Eurostar. Another of its brands, Treyn Holidays, uses standard class travel and tourist class hotels, and it operates a rail and hotel booking service for independent travellers (www.railselect.com).

Other operators specialising in rail holidays and selling through agents include Ffestiniog Travel’s See the World by Rail (www.festtravel.co.uk), French Travel Service (www.f-t-s.co.uk), GW Travel (www.gwtravel.co.uk), Orient-Express (www.orient-express.com) and Dertour (www.dertour.co.uk). Explore (www.explore.co.uk) also has a rail brochure.

Group sizes vary, but are generally between 10 and 40.

Book it

Great Rail Journeys’ Jungfrau Express is priced at £1,598-£1,628 for 10 days including breakfast, dinner and all excursions, with one free day. Departures are weekly, with a few exceptions, from May 6 until September 30, 2010.
www.greatrail.com


:Article Source:ttglive.com