City of London

Day 1 — London to Chambéry

Wednesday 19 August

I don't like being late. That single character flaw is probably why the whole day worked.

I'm at St Pancras early, and because I'm early I'm near the front of the queue — one of the first through. Ticket check, security, French border control, and then… nothing. An hour of nothing, sitting in the departure lounge with a coffee watching everyone else file in behind me. Some people would call that wasted time. I'd call it the reason I never felt hurried once today.

The Eurostar

09:31, and we're away.

I'd booked Eurostar Plus, which means breakfast arrives at your table rather than you queueing for it. A strawberry danish, Greek yoghurt with rhubarb purée, orange juice, coffee. It's a small thing, being handed food while the countryside goes past the window, but it sets the tone. You're not travelling, you're going somewhere. There's a difference and you can feel it.

Kent, the tunnel, then northern France opening up flat and green. Twenty minutes of dark and you're in another country.

Paris, in transit

Gare du Nord at 12:59. The plan says: get to Gare de Lyon.

The Metro signage does most of the work. I follow it down, find the green D line, and the train is standing there with its doors open like it's been waiting for me. Eight minutes later I'm at Gare de Lyon. Genuinely one of the smoothest transfers I've ever made and I take absolutely no credit for it.

Then the bit that did take a while. Gare de Lyon is enormous and my train wasn't showing a hall yet. Fifteen minutes of walking, looking up at boards, walking back. Eventually I ask a member of staff. She has broken English, I have no French, and between us we get there in about thirty seconds — a pointed finger and a hall number, which turns out to be all the shared vocabulary either of us needed.

Small victory before boarding: a baguette avec jambon, negotiated successfully. I've been in France three hours and I haven't opened Google Translate once.

Train 9255 — into the mountains

This is the leg I'd been quietly looking forward to.

It starts gently. Fields, then rolling hills, the land beginning to fold. And then the mountains simply arrive — first as a grey suggestion on the horizon, then as something enormous filling the window.

I live in a flat part of the UK. Flat is fine. Flat is home. But there is something about watching the ground rear up on both sides of a train that I don't think I'll ever get used to, and I hope I don't. I spent most of that leg with the camera up and my face against the glass.

Chambéry at 17:39.

Chambéry

The hotel is lovely, and the reception staff speak perfect English, which by this point in the day feels like being handed a gift I didn't ask for.

Bags dropped. Camera, phone, wallet — that's it. Out.

Into town through a park with a beautiful fountain, then along a tree-lined walk that funnels you towards the centre. Chambéry does that thing good old towns do, where every street seems to be pointing you at something. At the elephant fountain I turn left — four stone elephants holding up a column, and I'm told the locals have a rather ruder name for them, since only the front halves stick out of the plinth.

I wander. I double back towards the park. Eventually I do what everyone does and ask Google Maps where to eat, which leads me to Bella Ciao.

Lasagne — far, far too much of it, in the way that is technically a complaint but not really. A Moretti Blanche alongside. I sat there for a long time.

Then a slow walk back to the hotel, and finally, properly, sitting down.

Looking back on it

Long day. Four trains-worth of concentration, two languages I don't speak, one enormous station I got lost in.

And yet — not stressful. Not once. I think that comes down to two things: the gaps. Every connection had breathing room built into it, so nothing ever became a sprint. And the trains themselves were comfortable, with good food, so the travelling was the day rather than something to be endured between the good bits.

It was around 35°C last night. Thunderstorms were forecast for today and never turned up.

Tomorrow: Chambéry to Turin. Italy.