There and back

This morning I went to Bath, catching the train from Cheltenham, and changing at Bristol Temple Meads. Having climbed onto the London-bound train and sat down, I realised that most of my newspaper (and a couple of magazines I'd brought along too) were still where I had left them, tucked behind my table on the earlier train and now on their way to Plymouth. Bother. So while waiting on Bath Station to return this afternoon, I bought another copy of the paper, not wanting trouble when I got home. At Bristol, I boarded an Edinburgh-bound train, and entered a carriage with a couple of screaming children. Going right down to the end, I found an empty seat.

And yes, it was the same seat on the same train as I'd caught this morning, my "lost" papers still all there behind the table.

Sadly, I can't say anything about the really interesting part of the day - a talk and discussion 20 of us had over lunch on the subject of the Ukraine: Chatham House Rules applied. But we ate well, my third lunch out in a row. And Vladimir Putin was said, with some confidence, to be the richest man on the Planet.

Nîmes

Others were walking on, but for me the pilgrimage, begun on 2nd April, has ended. Nor do I think I'll return to Einsiedeln, to do more of the Swiss route and link up with the Voie du Puy. It has been a memorable experience (worthy of a separate book), but I enjoyed my time in Germany more than this last week since leaving Konstanz, and not just because of the change in weather.

Try as I might to plan trains to get me from Einsiedeln to join Caroline in the Gers in one day, without going via Paris I couldn't. So tonight I am spending in Nîmes: my photograph shows an interesting juxtaposition of old and new (taken as I walked round the Roman arena).

I feared we were running late at the start of the first leg of my journey, down from 900 metres to near the shore of Lake Zürich, and that I'd miss my connection. Why did I worry? Swiss trains run like clockwork. And the mist cleared as we passed Lac Léman, so at last there was a clear view of some snowy mountains.

After Geneva, where I resisted buying an English newspaper before going through Customs, I watched the scenery change as we passed Annecy, Aix-les-Bains and Chambéry on our way to Valence's whizzy TGV interchange, one line high above the other. From there it was a short and beautiful final evening leg to Nîmes. From the Alps to the Mediterranean in five instalments.

Off tomorrow

As you see from the map of one of the German Jakobswegs, this year I'm walking on a pilgrimage route very far away from Compostela. Starting out on the train from Cheltenham in the morning, I get to Nürnberg late at night. After a day exploring Nürnberg, I set off on Wednesday, hoping to be in Ulm for Palm Sunday and then crossing the border into Switzerland from Konstanz.

This is a link to a map showing the Swiss Compostela routes: I aim to get to Einsiedeln Abbey before the end of the month, all being well. From there it's a question of catching seven more trains in order to join up with Caroline at Auch in France.

I view it all with some trepidation at this stage.

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.

Birmingham

This last weekend, I was supposed to be going to the Lakes: the trip was called off after I had bought my train ticket, so - in order salvage something from it - I spent Friday in Birmingham, mainly looking all round the magnificent new Library.

In the foyer, there's a wooden pavilion housing "The Library of Lost Books". Intrigued by the title, I went in to find the transformation of a collection of old, damaged books and music scores, many over a century old, which had been discarded by different local libraries. Two years ago, local artist Susan Kruse had sent one item to each of more than 40 artists and printmakers from around the UK, to breathe new life into them through their interventions. The reworked books have now returned to Birmingham for this temporary exhibition.

On the way home, before I stepped out into the November gloom (and rain), the conductor made some of us smile: "We are," he said, "now approaching the charismatic station that is Cheltenham. Please ensure that you take all your belongings, relatives etc. with you when you leave the train."

This morning, changing trains on my way to York, I was back in Birmingham. One poor man - "I haven't been on a train for years," he told me - travelled there by mistake. He was seeing his wife off from Cheltenham, and got on so as to lift her case onto the rack above her seat. The doors closed as they were kissing goodbye. So much for gallantry.

A noticeable - if not a complete - hush came about New Street Station for the two minutes after 11 o'clock.

Cycle Norfolk

We are staying in rural Norfolk, having come here by train and bike today. There was over an hour between our supposed arrival into Paddington and our departure from King's Cross, ample time, I thought, to bike between the two along the Regent Canal towpath, our most tranquil route. But the Cheltenham train came in late, and it was slow going through the rain, so we ended up having to run the length of platform 11 to catch our connection. Then we had to squeeze our bikes in between the end carriage doors, there being zero other provision, this despite the service feeding Cambridge, Ely, King's Lynn, the most cycling-friendly part of England. (As Amanda tells Elyot,"Very flat, Norfolk.")

King's Lynn merits further exploration, but we much enjoyed what we had time to see of the old town, whizzing round the outsides of Clifton House (with its 18th Century barley sugar columns either side of the front door and extraordinary Tudor tower at the rear), the Guildhall, the Old Gaol, the Custom House and the so-called St Nicholas' Chapel (almost the size of a small cathedral). It was St Margaret's Minster that impressed me most though. Not just the Norman West front: the 13th/14th Century arcading and brasses too - but also the modern crucifix above the pulpit, altar frontal and stained glass in the large N-W window under the tower. A vibrant church!

We were glad to complete our 15 miles here before dark, and get out of the rain. This after only a minor detour - not bad considering I had no proper map. As my photograph shows, our kind hostess, a very old friend, has begun to look uncannily like Basil Hume. He was never, to my knowledge, a cat-lover: she gave us a cat as a wedding present.

Mountains and molehills

As I've mentioned, I am enjoying dipping into Roger Deakin's Notes from Walnut Tree Farm. "All that one asks of one's friends," he writes, "is that they remain one step ahead. To have them lagging behind risks plunging into banality." But how difficult it is, to retain a perspective between the trivial and the important. I was reflecting on this in the train back to Cheltenham this afternoon. In conversation, you can, if you're not careful, get as heated about England peeing on the pitch as Syria raining incendiaries onto a school playground. It's easy to forget there are always choices we can make about what we discuss.

Planning a walk from Stroud, you have basically two choices: a steep pull uphill to see something of the Cotswolds and look out over the Severn Vale, and a flat, shady trudge parallel to fairly busy roads, but with (in one direction) one of Gloucestershire's ace pubs as your goal. It is still warm and dry, but the visibility this morning wasn't great. As the two others I was meeting shared my thought that food and drink were as important as exercise, we opted for the second alternative, walking from Stroud Station to beyond Nailsworth mainly on the old railway line.

It's part of Sustrans' National Cycle Network, but we were not badly buzzed by bikes: all those that did come past had kindly "belled" us in good time. And it's an interesting walk, giving you a behind the scenes look at the area's industrial past. There are some high class graffiti in one of the tunnels, and a couple of sculptural signposts caught the eye. The natural world is well documented by displays posted at intervals.

By the time we reached Nailsworth, we were ready for our lunch. The look of a menu we passed offered a temptation to halt there, but the prices put us off so on we pressed along the Avening Road to our planned destination, the Weighbridge Inn. The look on my friend's face when his 2in1 pie arrived sums up the general happiness not to have been deflected into William's Kitchen.

Running out of steam

You tend to forget the origins of phrases like this. William and I had a reminder this morning, while visiting Toddington Station and the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway. From the window of the old carriage that serves as a museum, I photographed a volunteer bending his back to shovel the coal into the firebox of this '28xx' class heavy freight locomotive, built in 1905. Rescued from the scrapyard, it has been lovingly restored over a period of 29 years. Besides eating up coal, it needs 3,500 gallons of water to fill its tank.

Black and blue

The Confraternity of St James celebrated their patronal feast with lunchtime tapas yesterday, but those of us present in North Paddington were in somber mode: the deaths and injuries of so many train passengers en route for Santiago cast a black shadow over proceedings.

It comes less than a fortnight after the fatal crash near Paris. I reflected on having travelled along both stretches of line in recent times: the French and Spanish maintain that provision of excellent rail links fit for the 21st Century should not merely earn them a bubble reputation - a claim now punctured (at least in Spain's case) by what looks like the negligence of one man.

One woman has made a difference to Trafalgar Square, with the unveiling yesterday of Katharina Fritsch's Hahn/Cock. I biked past after dark, the polyester resin sculpture, nearly 5 metres high, roosting surreally on its plinth. Great!

Safe return

My four train journeys yesterday and today have all been uneventful, and here I am back at home again. At Cheltenham Station the reception party consisted of Caroline - and Thomas! None of us were expecting him to come from Lisbon for this weekend's celebrations: a lovely surprise, in springing which Sarah has been instrumental.

For the third time in four, I had a sleeping compartment to myself, travelling from Munich to Paris. No disturbances. The early morning run through Eastern France revealed just how much rain has been falling there recently.

In Paris, I wandered round the 10th in search of breakfast, passing some jolly looking shops. In one window, a sign: "Thanx (sic) God I'm a V.I.P." Another went by the name "Yak & Yeti." Johann Strauss's bust enlivened a square I passed through. On the Eurostar, people around me had been in Paris for the tennis, and were returning disappointed at so many matches being lost to the weather. But today at home it's warm and sunny.

Budapest (or rather Buda)

More than forty years ago. I was invited to spend a couple of days in Budapest by an Hungarian doctor: I had met Adam in London where I was then living and let him sleep on the floor of my flat. My hospitality to him was amply repaid. We have kept in touch.

Now I am staying with him again for three nights. This evening I met his younger son Abel - the same age as Agnes and father of two sons of his own: Abel (in his spare time) plays in a band, Crescendo. Like his father he speaks excellent English which is just as well. He asks searching questions, which are hard enough to answer even in my own language.

Walking in old Buda this afternoon, I realised that I had forgotten how beautiful it was. "You have Edinburgh," my friend says, "but instead of the railway line between the Old and the New Town, we have the Danube."

Last night, Nicholas and I were due to share a sleeper on our train from Sighisoara. On being shown in, we discovered the window blind wasn't working. Big fuss! So the nice attendant ("I would like to go to live in England...") eventually showed Nicholas into a first class compartment in the next carriage, and thus we each ended up on our own. I soon fixed the blind, turned my watch back an hour and went to sleep: two customs interruptions, but not too bad a night.

Adam met us at Keleti Station, we dropped Nicholas off at his hotel and then crossed the Danube by the Chain Bridge to Buda. I barely remembered the flat where I'd stayed all those years before, though the address had stuck in my mind. It was good to meet Judit at last, though I had already encountered her rosary hanging from the car's rear view mirror. She greeted me with an elaborate breakfast, including cherries from by Lake Balaton. This evening, I ate a large plate of fresh peas from the same source.

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.

Budapest (or rather Pest)

Sharing my sleeper from Paris to Munich, I found lovely Elena. Formerly from the Urals, she lives with a husband, who drives South to go fishing twice a year in Croatia. He had dropped her in Strasbourg, from where she'd caught the train to Paris for a week's sightseeing and shopping - less of the latter because of "too much choice". Now, she was en route to Vienna, where the fisherman would be put her into his net and drive back home to Moscow. He works in logistics, but his passion is competing to catch carp.

Elena, born in the USSR, says that, while not much interested in politics, she feels she is part of a lost generation. Her reading for idle moments is H.V. Morton's "In search of England" - in Russian. She has never been there, but taught English at secondary level before marrying.

It felt warm already on our early morning arrival in Munich. I had never spent any time in that city before, so walked rather eagerly towards the centre, some of the architecture of which was older (and finer) than I had anticipated. I discovered the baroque vastness of St Peter's Church, where again I found myself at Mass - in German, but ad orientem. The priest dispensed at the altar rails, mainly to kneeling communicants who received on the tongue. Moving afterwards to the Cathedral, I found another Mass about to begin, this time with choir and a very full congregation, many in traditional dress. Some celebration upon the eve of Pentecost evidently: I didn't stay long enough to discover what.

It was time to catch my next train, to Budapest. This was extremely full. The fine weather didn't last: cloudy in Salzburg, by Vienna it was pouring with rain. However, as we were leaving Austria behind, the sun came out again, glinting on the largest array of wind turbines I've ever seen.

Having crossed the Danube, the train arrived here just before five, at a very different sort of station from Munich's Hauptbahnhof. "Scruffy" sums it up, but I felt better about things after a lemon sorbet from the ice cream lady, and learning that the main façade is adorned with statues of James Watt and George Stephenson. Having worked out how to collect my onward ticket from the machine, I walked off to explore, and soon found myself in Kerepesi Cemetery, the Père Lachaise of Budapest. Idling round an eclectic collection of impressive tombs and memorials on a fine evening was just the perfect antidote to a day spent in a train crowded with lively children. A helpful man appeared at one point and handed me a plan of who was buried where, but I fear the names meant little to me. More usefully, he pointed me in the right direction for something nice to eat.

Paris 10e

Aristide Cavaillé-Coll - not a name with which I was familiar - was reputed to be the finest organ-builder of the 19th Century. He is commemorated by a garden near the Gare du Nord. I have been strolling around this part of Paris since arriving by Eurostar this afternoon, with time to spare before I catch the night train to Munich.

Sitting outside a café in the sunshine with a beer, I watched children being collected from school, mostly by grandparents. The atmosphere of this area resembles not at all that with which I am familiar, and even in daylight feels quite threatening to an old codger from Cheltenham. I took refuge in the large church of St Vincent de Paul and found Mass in progress - peaceful and dignified, as befitted an elderly congregation, but with a young, rather traditionalist priest.

Emerging, and before walking the short distance to the magnificent Gare de l'Est, I bought apricots, bread and peppermints at a supermarket ahead of the rest of my long journey. Now I'm enjoying dinner in the station restaurant.

Lescar

I had visited the ancient capital of the Béarn by myself in April 2009. Caroline and I stopped off there for some lunch today, on our way out of Pau, where Caroline had picked me up from the station. The 12th Century cathedral houses contemporary mosaics and capitals (including a Flight into Egypt), one of the loveliest of carved Annunciations (in the sacristy) as well as later royal tombs and a modern Saint-Jacques with a surprised look. This imp is one of several curious modillions supporting the apse roof: you need to sleuth your way around the outside to find it!

West and East

Amongst the fellow-walkers I managed to track down yesterday were four whom I met up with outside S. Martin Pinario. The Austrian-American couple I mentioned earlier were off to the far West, back home to Nevada, while my young Danish friends would be around Galicia for a little while longer. I meanwhile have travelled 11 hours East, right across the peninsular to Irun. Here I have found excellent fish for supper accompanied by the obligatory football (the result disappointing for the Spaniards).

Not having done my homework, I didn't realise that the train was, during the first three-quarters of an hour, taking me back on my tracks. But I did remark on how mountainous and wooded were the provinces of both Pontevedra and Ourense: no wonder I took six days to walk it!

10 years on

For the second time this week, I found myself catching a train from Cheltenham Station to go in the opposite direction to the race crowds. (I left it a bit later today, so was all but swept aside by the incoming tide on Platform 2.) Arriving in a rainy Sheffield soon after Midday, I saw that I could catch a tram to the City Centre: all very clean and efficient, and they accept bus passes. Then, on the look out for the tourist information office I found myself passing St Marie's Cathedral, where a mass was just starting. What luck! Because it's exactly ten years today that my mother (Mary) died.

Thamesside

Undaunted - just - by the continuing bitter winds, I pedalled off this morning, to catch an early train to Cookham: it was worth it to escape the crowds coming in the other direction. There was a scattering of snow on the platform at Stroud as we passed through, but none by the time I reached Berkshire. Ten of us walked off together from Cookham station, passing Stanley Spencer's house before making for the wood that was partly the inspiration for Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows. Despite an attractive few hundred yards of sunken lane and a few big, old beeches, it lacks much mystery today because of ill-management and the dual carriageway below.

Cutting short of Henley, we looped back through an attractive stretch of water meadows, still showing signs of flooding. Hardly any houses of note, I was surprised to observe, and all much more suburban than anything in the Cotswolds. It was a joy to catch a golden sunset from the direction of the Malverns as the train headed back to Cheltenham from Gloucester on the last leg of my homeward journey.

Downham Hill

As yesterday, the mist took time to clear, but by mid-morning the sun was coming out, and from then on it's been another lovely day. Perfect for a walk in the Dursley area, which I hadn't previously explored. Going South from the little Cam and Dursley Station, it's only a couple of miles to the top of Peaked Down. From there the view opens up towards Downham Hill, just West of Uley. The remains of a smallpox isolation clinic are still apparently visible on the summit: we didn't explore. The Old Spot pub in Dursley had run out of sausages.

"Cotmore"

Some friends were gathered at the Landmark Trust's Shelwick Court, just outside Hereford, this week, and I was kindly invited to join them there yesterday. My route was roundabout, to put it mildly: up on the train to Worcester (across the very swollen Avon); SW to Hereford (across an equally swollen Severn, and arriving near to a no less swollen Wye); SW again to Newport; E to Bristol Parkway and then home. There had been a landslide near Gloucester, it seems. Anyway, I had good value, I suppose, for my £12.05 fare.

After lunch, we walked from the fine old house down towards the River Lugg, but got nowhere near: more flooding there of course. In the morning, we were in the Cathedral. Its loos have a separate entrance, across a garden: emerging from them, the wind blew my cap off. Up it sailed, onto the loo block's high flat roof. Ah well, I thought, it's not irreplaceable. But I left my address with one of the stewards in case it ever came down.

We went on with our visit, which was timed to coincide with a lunchtime Service. We were out of luck, as there was a funeral taking place in the Lady Chapel. Disappointed, we approached the elderly retired priest from Much Wenlock who had welcomed us when we first came in. "Could you," I asked, "kindly lead us in a short prayer? Our group consists of Pax Christi workers and supporters..." He took us to the tiny Stanbury's Chantry, where we sat for a few minutes. But prayer for peace was there none. It seemed he had never heard of Pax Christi, which gave me rather a jolt.

Just as we'd left the Cathedral, the same steward I'd seen earlier came running after me - cap in hand. My request, "St Thomas of Hereford, pray for us" had borne fruit.

Just as we reached the car park, I noticed The Hereford Cattle Society office, with a statue of a bull over the door. I was about to photograph it when one of the staff emerged. Do you by any chance have "Cotmore" inside? I asked. Yes, come and see him, was the kind response. And so I was able to photograph the painting I'd long heard about, featuring my great-great-great-grandfather Thomas Jeffries' prize-winning bull in all its glory. Cotmore was where he had lived, near Lyonshall, and there bred this beast, weighing in - aged 9 - at 35 cwt (over one and a half tonnes).