Romania reunion

Seven of those of us who walked together in Transylvania last year met up in the Malvern Hills this morning, for a stroll Southwards towards Eastnor. The view from the Herefordshire Beacon wasn't as extensive as it might have been, with the mist slow to clear, but it was a pretty perfect day for a walk nevertheless.

The Evenlode

Yesterday, we did our Romanian reunion walk, postponed from February because of flooding. Where I stood to take this photograph (looking from Gloucestershire into Oxfordshire) would have been under water three months ago. Even now, it's boggy.

Eleven of us set out from Kingham Station up the West bank of the Evenlode to Oddington, before crossing to Adlestrop and on to Chastleton. After such a lunch as we were treated to, there was a generally glad acceptance of the offer of lifts back. A brilliant outing.

Colourful Clifton

This was supposed to be the day of our Romania reunion walk in the Cotswolds. In the wake of last week's storms and flooding, and with rain forecast for this week, we postponed it - needlessly as it turns out: today has been sunny, still and only occasionally showery.

From Bristol Temple Meads, I cycled along discrete paths all the way to Edmund's boat, a lovely scenic route. Then, with the boys, we explored the harbour, altogether a safe place. It helps that Bristol has a green Mayor of course.

The inspector on my Cross Country train back to Cheltenham blotted a happy day out by rushing through the train, banging his machine into my shoulder with malice aforethought: I am not in the habit of sending irate emails to Customer Relations, but this afternoon I broke with habit.

Eponymous

I suggested a Cotswold walk to my Romanian walking companions of last May, who took up the idea. The date was fixed for later this month, but in view of the great rains I thought I had better investigate the state of the footpaths leading from Kingham Station, our rendezvous.

A pretty path normally runs North along the West side of the River Evenlode: after 400 metres it disappears, currently: the river bank is now no longer visible. So what remains is a walk along the road through Kingham village, till you reach a path across to the edge of the Daylesford Estate.

A series of more or less colourful owners have held Daylesford over the years. Warren Hastings, impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanours" in India; Harman Grisewood (not the actor); the 2nd Lord Rothermere; Baron Thyssen, and now the Bamford family. Princess Margaret's son has a cottage on the estate.

Walking through, it all reeks of expenditure - most visible through the sculpture and horsiculture - but, no arguing, it's well kept. My photograph shows one of the products that secured the Bamfords' position in the world doing its work, no doubt with a view to making things - ultimately - even more beautiful. I had to traipse through the mud meanwhile.

"Along the Enchanted Way"

My room-mate Mark was tucked up with this book during our week in Transylvania last May. I found a copy recently in the Cheltenham Library, and have just finished reading it.

The author, William Blacker spent some years in Romania until a decade ago. For much of the time, his home was in one of the Saxon villages with a gypsy girl by whom he had a son: he gives the village a spurious name, but that son could I suppose be known to one of the boys in my photograph, taken in Malancrav.

It's a curious book: part travelogue, part confessional, it falls between various stools, while still remaining quite a good read. I felt I was being invited to share the sense of sadness that seems to pervade the author's view of life in Romania. But I didn't myself experience that sense - instead coming away exhilarated by my temporary immersion in such another world with its beautiful people.

More photobooks

It's no doubt sad to admit it, but this retiree looks forward keenly to the courier's arrival with a package containing photobooks. Four of them were for the inaugural Transylvanian Book Festival: it starts on 5th September. Having repacked them for Romania, I trotted along to our post box, but the opening was too small. And so, to the post office, where I was asked, "What's in this then?". Well, we are after all in Cheltenham, home of GCHQ.

The other photobook that came this morning was my seventh volume of blogposts (cover as above). But I'm not too happy about the reproduction of many of the photographs. Hmmm, I'm reluctant to change publisher (from Blurb), but may just look into the alternatives.

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I had been photographing churches: that was on my Wednesday circular walk, which started at Nympsfield. Clockwise, we followed a path down and then up into Uley, climbed steeply from St Giles' Church to Uley Bury, and then back through the woods above Frocester. Six of us this week. A lovely day for it - no rain. No landscape photography as I'd forgotten to charge my camera battery.

Sławomir Mrożek died a week ago: his obituary is in today's paper. The RSC brought to the Aldwych his play Tango, "a modern-day Hamlet", as described by Michael Coveney. It followed the playwright's exposure in the same theatre with his double bill in Peter Daubeny's 1964 World Theatre Season. (I remember those long thin instruments with earpieces we were given in order to hear the translations.) The image of Michael Williams and Robert Eddison tangoing as the curtain fell still remains with me even after 47 years.

"A window on Romania"

Last week, I received my latest Blurb effort, containing images mostly not included in my earlier Romania book. It might - Caroline's suggestion - be the beginning of a series, as I always seem to have windows on my mind when I go on holiday. There could even be A window on Gloucestershire in the pipeline. Who knows? Ah well, it keeps me busy.

Blurb's best customer?

Another of my photobooks has now arrived, from blurb.com. I designed this to give a copy to each of those who walked with me in Romania last month, as a souvenir; and I have now prepared a somewhat fuller version of the book for - hopefully - public purchase. The image above is of the cover of the (rare) first edition, and here is the link to the Blurb bookstore for the revised edition - its cover subtly different for ease of recognition by me.

Though I say it myself (I would, wouldn't I?) I think it's my most successful print-on-demand book yet.

Last post from Romania

It's been an interesting week, walking in the forests and meadows of Transylvania, and spending the night in Saxon villages where the clip-clop of horses is more common than the screech of tyres. We have seen some excellent preservation, but it's the tip of an iceberg. No Saxons will be left in 50 years, and the gypsies, for all their ability to work with animals, aren't going to maintain the Saxon heritage in its richness. So, we have been in a vanishing world.

The animals are what most evokes it: cows, sheep, goats, ducks, hens, dogs, cats and especially horses. Many wear red cockades - to ward off the evil eye, we are told.

What a chancel ceiling Biertan church has! We arrived in the village yesterday evening, at the end of our five days of walking. Not that we did a lot of walking on our last day: we started by revisiting Floresti in the minibus, for a demonstration of the art of barrel-making. (The barrel-maker was away taking his child to hospital when we arrived there on foot the previous day.) All very interesting, but long drawn out: I found the two small puppies playing around the feet of some members of the audience an enjoyable distraction. On the information we were given a barrel-maker might earn all of €75 a week, which seems little enough on which to run a VW Golf and rent a satellite TV.

When we eventually escaped, Gabriel drove us to the outskirts of Nou Sasesc, where we began walking towards Copsa Mare. Descending into a broad valley, we came across a table and benches under some trees. It was a little early for lunch, but clearly this was the place for it. Why, there was even a row of hooks for our hats and bags. What we hadn't bargained for was that we were trespassing on a vast ladybird convention: they got into everything, including of course the food. And they weren't the red and black ones we are familiar with, quite charming in ones and twos, but black and white and in their millions. Yuk. It was left to Jill to lighten our mood with a story about - rather surprisingly coming from her - knickers.

It started raining as we neared Copsa Mare, John once again lifting our spirits with ice creams from the village shop. The large fortified basilica has an elaborate main altar above which hangs a painting of an unusual subject, Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well. And around the altar, there are copper (or bronze?) reliefs, each with a fairly crude representation of a biblical scene - the adoration of the child Jesus by the shepherds; Jesus' baptism in the Jordan; the entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday; the angel's announcement of the resurrection; Jesus' ascension etc. Quite a moving series for all its simplicity. The minibus met us, so we were spared a short but steep walk up and over into the narrower valley containing Biertan - and an even more imposing fortified church. Getting out of our minibus, with its darkened windows, I was immediately importuned for money - the first place this had happened so overtly.

We dined below the church, in the Ungerlus "medieval" restaurant, and stayed nearby in the very comfortable Ungerlus Pension. Our room not only had its own bathroom, but a bath! Though it overlooks the main road, there's no traffic, and you can hear the crickets cheeping. For dinner, there was chicken soup with noodles, and then Dorada with spinach: one of our best meals. (Beer to drink, and good conversation at our - the less intellectual - end of the table.) I could however have done without the faux-historic paintings, helmets etc. that surrounded us.

We shared our earlier visit to the church, completed in 1522, with a large crowd of Japanese. You approach it via a long covered staircase. Biertan was for 300 years the seat of the bishop of the Lutheran Church of Transylvania. It's now on the UNESCO World Heritage list, with its stone ribbed vaulting, 28-panel altarpiece and a sacristy door with no fewer than 19 locks. From under the roof, you get a clear view of the steep terracing rising above the village: now overgrown, it was for centuries used for wine growing until Communism put an end to that.

The Eastern Bastion of the fortress around the church was not only for defence, but also a prison for men and women who had announced they wanted to divorce: they were kept there with only bread and water, one plate and one spoon, until they changed their minds. It's said that in 300 years only one divorce was recorded.

This morning, Gabriel drove us South a short distance (7 kms.) up the valley from Biertan to the smaller village of Richis. I had been expecting, having seen the original itinerary, to walk through it, but there was clearly a change of plan. Our friends Lucy and David Abel Smith have a house in Richis, and had told us about Herr Johann Schass, the guardian of the fine church. Though we didn't identify which their house was, his eyes lit up when I mentioned their names. As well as frescoes the church contains a number of Green Men: all had been thoroughly painted over at the Reformation and rediscovered only quite recently. Richis' altarpiece is 18th Century, and so built by Lutherans: it's odd therefore to see statues as you would in a Catholic church. One of them represents John the Baptist, pointing to an image of the crucified Christ (as in Colmar's Isenheim altarpiece). The figure of the Baptist was originally given bare legs: these however were covered up with trousers on behalf of a later generation of more readily scandalised parishioners.

Herr Schass, very aged, and with his voice "turning again toward childish treble", sat on the threshold of the church fondling its very large key. pointing out gleefully the sin holes adjacent to the entrance door: sinners were required to atone by rubbing with their finger until they had made a hole in the stone, he said. There must have been many such in the village, judging by the number of holes. Ionut finding some of his jokes hard to translate, was helped out by two Saxon ladies, visiting from Bucharest.

From Richis it was not a long drive to our final destination, Sighisoara. Nicholas and I have now left the rest of the party staying there, and are on our way by the night train to Budapest. But we had plenty time enough to explore the centre of what is a fine old town, birthplace of Dracula (alias Vlad the Impaler) who is naturally much in evidence in the souvenir shops, of which there are plenty. Climbing the 17th Century clock tower - it houses a museum - gave us (along with a horde of other tourists) a good bird's eye view. We also visited the Church on the Hill, approached by an even longer wooden staircase than Biertan's. A collection of painted altarpieces from other churches has been gathered together inside: the curator gave us an excellent talk about it all, in English. Unusually for Romania, no photography was allowed.

After a spell of calm weather, with only lightish rain since Thursday, the heavens opened as we came down. Kind Ionut was waiting at the foot of the covered staircase with umbrellas to save us getting soaked en route to the restaurant. (Lunch was again fish, but not as good as last night.)

I haven't mentioned - and I should do so - the church at Malancrav, which impressed me when we visited it yesterday morning. Although it was in course of restoration, the 16th Century altarpiece covered in plastic, we were yet able to admire the even earlier frescoes on the North wall of the nave and the chancel walls and ceiling. The temptation in the desert is portrayed graphically, with three devils climbing over Jesus' body, seemingly suspended from a spike - presumably on the Temple roof. It's just one of many memorable scenes (though sadly difficult to photograph).

Nicholas, Mark and I were staying in number 276 Malancrav, a beautifully restored MET guesthouse. Nicholas had two rooms, with three beds to choose from, none of them big enough for him (a tall man): two were in chests of drawers. However, he was right beside the bathroom we all shared: we had to walk outside to get to it - or there was an outside loo at the back if we preferred. (I didn't.)

We were looked after by Michaela and one of her seven children at supper: they live in the adjacent farmhouse. Just before we ate, there was a flurry in the village street, with everybody out clustering around three covered wagons, arrived from elsewhere with goods for sale. These were more like the gypsy vehicles we are used to at home, and the occupants were equally resistant to cameras - unlike the children who mobbed John and me. Meanwhile, the cattle, water buffaloes, goats and horses were stampeding through on their way down from their pastures: a wonderful sight on a sunny evening.

Saes to Malancrav

The Mathias family welcomed us warmly at Saes. Theirs was the most modern tourist facility we had encountered in the villages to date - a large first floor living/dining/cooking area, and bedrooms off a corridor above. The bedrooms were small, and nearly all of us had to share two bathrooms, but it was very up together.

Outside, there was no sign of animals, dogs apart, but a large mobile still stood in the yard: we were given some of its product, the ubiquitous home-made Palinka, at dinner, as well as beer. I was serenaded to sleep by a nightingale, but awoke early, to find Julia already up and awaiting her taxi: sadly, the sprightliest amongst us was leaving the party early (to return home in time to leave for another holiday elsewhere in Europe!).

My pre-breakfast excursion took me well into the back streets of Saes, quite a large village it seems. The gypsy families live in smallish dwellings, some with pig pens alongside them. On one house an image of the Sacred Heart filled a window. In the garden of another, Romanian flags flew alongside a satellite dish. Walking round, my digital SLR camera prominent, I felt no fear. Far from cowering, threatening or begging, the young people - on their way to school - queued up for photographs to be taken.

On setting out later as a group, Ionut was soon pointing out the tracks made by a bear in the muddy path we were following, steeply upwards through the woods. Descending to the village of Stejarenii, we passed a huge bee hotel: suspended in front of it was a bee CD (hoho!).

By the time we arrived in the next village, Cris, we were ready for lunch, which we ate sitting in the courtyard of the huge Castle. Partly dating from the 15th Century, it belongs to the Bethlens, a Hungarian family, but there is no way they could ever afford to restore it to its former glory. The shiny new red roof looks rather out of place on what might otherwise be an impressive and romantic ruin. After our visit, kind John rewarded  himself and all his fellow sightseers with an ice cream each.

Our final walk yesterday took us over the ridge to Floresti, from where Gabriel bussed us to the altogether more prosperous looking village of Malancrav: we stayed there last night.

Storm of storms

At Saschiz we found ourselves in a much bigger community. Mark and I were given a room in the Hanul Cetatii Inn, which is on a main road, the first one we had encountered since approaching Viscri. Luckily, we were round the back, off a balcony with a good view of the fortress that overlooks the village. (It has a fortress as well as the fortified church with an immense separate tower.)

Supper was at the other end of the village, a distance away. Onka, our hostess, ran a restaurant at the back of her house with her French partner. A large gaggle of young American students were at a table parallel to ours.The food was better than the wine, but there was beer as an alternative. The best bit of all was the ice cream Mark and I shared back at our Inn afterwards.

Yesterday morning, we were guided round the church by the formidable Dorothea, before starting out on our walk. Leaving the village, we saw hay piled up as in a Monet painting. We were passed by a cart drawn by two horses, with a foal trotting along 50 yards behind. The cart had "POLITIA" and the Romanian flag on the back - it was the village policeman.

It looked a bit too bright for fine weather to last, and sure enough black clouds gathered and then the mother of all storms broke upon us, lasting what must have been a good half hour. Luckily, we were near a forest, so took refuge amongst the trees, not that they provided any protection against stair rods of rain. Robin, his attention diverted from his cryptic crossword, cheered us up with a fair rendition of Act 3, Scene II of King Lear.

A very wet party eventually reemerged into the open, and slithered the last mile or so down into the next valley: in doing so, we almost lost Jean in a sea of mud as we neared Daia, "the most depressing village we visited", as she said, "and not because of the rain." (We saw a gypsy woman using an old fridge as her basin for washing clothes right beside the closed-up church.)

From Daia (photographed, above), our driver Gabriel, dubbed the Archangel, ferried us to our pension in Saes: because of our wet state, we opted out of walking via two further villages en route, and were glad to find some heaters to dry our clothes. All seemed to agree that the great tempest made it was our most memorable day yet.

Getting into the swing of it

On Tuesday night, Mark and I slept in a huge room in one of the Mihai Eminescu Trust's guesthouses. The view of our beautiful building from the street was not enhanced by my hanging my shirt out of the window to dry. Although the accommodation was fine, I missed coming out into a noisy farmyard thronged with birds and beasts.

Not that Crit - our village - lacked livestock: soon after arriving, we witnessed the return of Adrian and Elena Sociu's huge herd of goats (with a few donkeys added in), returning from their day pasture. We all had dinner, and breakfast yesterday morning, chez Sociu, and naturally sampled the goats cheese (but at breakfast, along with tomatoes and cucumber). A bearskin hangs on the barn door.

After breakfast, an impressive young Saxon, Dietmar, one of only seven left in Crit, showed us round the fortified church, which is being restored. We then set off on foot uphill along more beautiful forest tracks,  and down through orchid-bestrewn meadows to Cloasterf.

Work on restoring this village's fine church had finished only on Tuesday, and we looked round alongside a posse of officials from the various conservation bodies and also the Lutheran pastor, who has charge of a dozen or so churches in the area. Besides the fine paintings on wooden panels, I admired a fat pigeon with large silver wings, sculpted and fixed on the underside of the pulpit canopy. (Its prehensile claws seemed ready to descend on the head of any preachers who deviated from their allotted 12 minutes.) The church tower is separate from the church itself, but both are - as usual hereabouts - surrounded by stern fortress walls.

Our path from Cloasterf took us through more meadows (dark blue butterflies with white-tipped wings), and a herd of cattle: the cowherds stood at a distance watching us pass, tarpaulins under their arms. We must seem like visitors from outer space. Then there was more woodland to pass through, before we descended onto a tarmac lane. It ran unfenced above a vast flock of sheep, guarded by a shepherd and at least half a dozen very fierce dogs. The road eventually led past hopfields before we crossed another ridge overlooking our destination for the night, Saschiz.

Our nice guide Ionut pointed out Lesser Spotted Eagles and some of the 11 protected species of  wildflowers. He was hazy though about the way down, so latched on to a gypsy boy who happened to be nearby (remarkable, as generally we saw almost no one while walking, apart from those looking after the grazing animals). This young friend led us into the village via his family's strip of land, but it involved scrambling over a ditch - a struggle for Robin, 75, with dicky knees and anxious about his only pair of clean shorts.

Our first Transylvanian trek

Our route from Viscri is taking us broadly Westwards, across the valleys of North-flowing tributaries of the Târnava Mare River. So, we are typically walking up through pastures and along forest tracks, crossing ridges, and then descending to another village in the next valley. Yesterday, however, riding in horse-drawn wagons was an alternative, the minibus carrying our luggage.

With us, the word "gypsy" connotes nuisance – crime and probably disease: how different to sit behind our driver Kostica, as he worked his pair of young horses (Maria, 4 and Stella, 3) so effortlessly, whistling a haunting tune as we bumped along, and using a stalk of grass to clean his ear! During our lunchtime picnic break, we tried on one another's hats, and he showed me how mine could be made to look different.

M. and I rode all the way to Mesendorf, and I then left her and joined the walkers. Earlier, riding through the forest, we surprised P. in the process of relieving herself behind an oak (or was it a hornbeam?): much ribaldry as she manoeuvred herself round the tree, in a vain effort to make herself invisible! (I was justly rebuked: "If you were a gentleman, you wouldn't mention it.")

Earlier, in the 13th Century Gothic church at Viscri, we heard from our guide, the gentle Walter Fernolend how marriages were arranged within each Saxon village, on the basis that "they'll learn to love each other later." And in the excellent museum, we read about "Reconciliation day", which took place each year on the day before Ash Wednesday. Men would wait outside the appointed house until the clock announced noon, then they would enter, in order of seniority, to find two neighbourhood fathers seated there: the younger read out the statement of accounts for the past year, and the penalties that had to be paid for absences from neighbourhood works or from burials. Fines were paid on the spot and recorded in the register. The neighbourhood fathers then talked about the works scheduled for the coming year.

The museum gives a good insight into a very different way of life. The villages may now no longer run on the controlled, collaborative, Evangelically-based lines they did in the seven or so previous centuries, but the bones of Transylvanian Saxon civilization remain: animals everywhere; the fortified churches still deemed worthy of restoration for some liturgical use; craftwork for sale; unfenced fields, unfertilised by chemicals.

Viscri - another world

It was a relief to arrive here late yesterday afternoon: I hate minibus rides, especially when the road twists and turns. And it's a rough route, from the main road to this village, large one though it is, and now made celebrated by the Prince of Wales buying a house here. ("If you don't want your Prince Carolos, then may we have him?") We hear he is arriving next week for a short stay: all hush-hush.

In the wide main street of Viscri, one farmhouse is aligned (end-on) regimentally alongside another, each a different colour and with its decorated gable end; baskets hanging from pear trees, for deliveries. Mark and I have been sleeping in a large room in one of the houses, number 12, a private home. After the luxury of Casa Wagner the night before, we were sharing with two others a relatively primitive bathroom, but it wasn't far from our bedroom door and everything more or less worked. Early this morning I heard activity in the street outside: opening our window, this photograph is one I snatched - something approaching a stampede, with horses and goats alongside the cattle, all on their way to a hillside pasture.

From the street you approach our house through an archway, which gives onto a farmyard with a barn at its far end. Hens (one peering out of a dog kennel) and their chicks, ducks with their ducklings, geese and turkeys, as well as dogs and cats, are all inclined to be milling around, and there's a tractor of the sort you might almost see in a museum at home. Walking through the misty village, I saw a horse and cart brought to a house to pick up a sick calf. In a street with less elaborate houses, a Gypsy chased after an escaped pig.

Rain stopped play

Last night, in time for dinner, I met up here in Brasov with the rest of a party that my friend Mark had asked me to join. They had all flown to Bucharest - yesterday - where they had a tour round before what was evidently a long and tiring minibus journey: I felt lucky to have missed all that - transit rather than travel.

It's a novel experience for me, gaining admission to a group with an established chemistry, yet apparently willing to welcome an outsider into the magic circle. Judging from the conversations we are having, I am going to need to be on my mettle. Topics include 21st Century science, the multiverse, leaps of faith, technological fixes, and (of course) gay marriage. There is more than a hint of climate scepticism about, which could be tricky. However, the Alsatian moonshine I had brought with me went down well at the late evening session: most of us stayed up to sit outside the hotel in the great square on which Casa Wagner sits - the moon shining down on us.

We were sweltering rather when listening to the history of Brasov's bastion this morning on our tour of the bounds; but since lunch it has been pouring cats and dogs, and we had to scamper to avoid a thorough wetting as we crossed to our hotel. Until 1790, Romanians weren't allowed into the exclusively Saxon town of Brasov: hence, there is no Orthodox church within the old centre. We visited - briefly only (a service was beginning) - the Black Church, Europe's most Eastern Gothic building, before leaving the old city for the delightful first Romanian school (and a fine museum above it) a short distance outside the formidable Catherine's Gate: Vassily and Nic showed us round, the one ebullient as the other was taciturn.

Now we are sitting waiting, as parties do from time to time. My friend Richard is up to date on his postcards. Mark is deep into The Corrections, and... Oh, now we are off into the countryside!

Brasov

The sun is shining here, and indeed it's rather too hot for sight-seeing; so after a mini-wander around (an an excellent lunch), I'm sitting in the cool lobby of Hotel Casa Wagner, in Brasov's main square, away from the Whitsunday crowds, with an equally cool beer to hand. In other words, it's a good life!

My train journey came to an end this morning at 10ish, just under 48 hours after leaving Cheltenham. The best part was the last: I had my 3-person sleeper from Budapest on the Ister Express all to myself, and awoke to see hills peeping out of the mist and the sun slanting across the landscape from left to right, rather than from right to left as last evening.

The train was not, thankfully, in a hurry, so I was able to enjoy the very attractive and varied landscape - fields much divided up, sheep (with shepherds), hay stooks, woodlands with banks of false acacia trees in bloom, lakes and rivers, birdlife (plentiful), and even a couple of horse-drawn carts. They obviously haven't all gone for lasagna.

In the villages, each house with its steeply-raked roof, there was not a lawn to be seen: gardens are intensively cultivated with vegetables - all of course far ahead of ours at home.

The final run into Brasov was across flatter territory, snowy mountains being now the backdrop, a reminder of Brasov's strategic importance in old times. I received an uninvited (but rather welcome) history lesson from a certain Peter, who was unashamedly out to earn a little money: he approached me with a distinctive brand of English (Orwell is his favourite writer) as I stood taking a photograph of three trumpeters in costume high up on the platform of the city centre tower (they perform at 12 each day as a reminder of the role of the human fire alarms of former days, Peter told me). Vlad the Impaler was, he assured me, a goody: having read a full and very gory description of his methods in my Rough Guide, I remain unconvinced.

I really do recommend coming by train if you are thinking of Romania for a holiday. I had a delicious dinner in Paris - at Brasserie Flo, the station restaurant: in Munich, I arrived off the Cassiopeia in time for breakfast near the Marienplatz; and in Budapest I ate well at the recommended Rosenstein. Both German and Hungarian sleeping cars were more than adequate, though, going for a shower this morning, I found it in full use as a broom cupboard. And loo paper is BYO.

Switching between French, German, Hungarian and Romanian may sound interesting, but - though this feels like a contradiction in terms - English is the lingua franca.

Letting the train take the strain

It had been suggested a couple of times previously that I might like to join a particular group on its adventurous walking journeys in different parts of the world. I have had the excuse of being busy, but my underlying concern these days is only to commit myself to trips that don’t involve flying.

I feel we have been lucky to live in a time when it has become so relatively cheap and easy: my own air travel for holidays in four continents has brought me enormous pleasure. The time has come, though, to say enough is enough. We are all aware of the impact of climate change, and the need for urgent action on a worldwide basis, but these are just words. Unless we in the affluent West are prepared to make some sort of step change in our own lives, how can we hope to arrest the carbon use of the rest of the world?

Going to any faraway place will always involve a large quantity of emissions. But I would like to visit Transylvania, the destination this May for the group I mentioned. It is something of a time capsule, from which we may have things to learn – from its past, but also its threatened future. It seems especially appropriate to come and go to Romania, therefore, as benignly as possible. And so I’ve signed on, and will travel by train.

Of course you may ask: “What difference does the emissions saving make in the grand scheme of things? Isn’t your approach just tokenism? Conscience-salving? We are busy people, and can’t afford the two days each way it will take. Or, alternatively, we are poor people [really?], and it’s certain to cost a lot more to travel by train than by air [true!].”

Calculating and comparing the actual emissions is perhaps more of an art than a science, and anyway I am no scientist. However, for what it’s worth, using the International Union of Railways’ methodology, the comparison between doing the trip from London to Bucharest by train versus plane works out as follows: the emissions of carbon dioxide by train are 21% of those when you fly; and nitrogen oxide and non-methane hydrocarbons are each 16%. Only the particulate matter emissions are more (122%).

So, I’m wondering if any other members of the group are interested in joining me on the train? We shall see.

I took the photograph during one of the stops when we went to China via the Trans-Siberian Express a decade ago.