There's a beautifully-written article in the travel section of the Australian newspaper The Age, about the author's journey around the UK, travelling by train and staying at railway hotels.
His route was London - Edinburgh - Glasgow - (Settle & Carlisle) - Leeds - Manchester - London (although he implies that he also travelled to Fort William and Mallaig, which he is keeping for another article).
These are a few selected extracts from the long article:
The full article can be found here.
And I just noticed the information at the foot of the article:
His route was London - Edinburgh - Glasgow - (Settle & Carlisle) - Leeds - Manchester - London (although he implies that he also travelled to Fort William and Mallaig, which he is keeping for another article).
These are a few selected extracts from the long article:
Less impressively, he also writes thatThe breakfast cutlery clinks every time another train shudders past us in the opposite direction; outside, church steeples, seemingly every few kilometres, rise almost arrogantly above the seemingly identical stooped drab-brick villages, tiny houses huddling together as if for warmth...
As we approach Edinburgh, the skies have become nearly as black as a railway cafe's coffee, the train's windows flecked with rain, and, in the diffused light, sheep rendered white cotton balls in almost luminescent lime-green fields. Further along the line, children burst from classrooms at a school beside the tracks, their parkas the only note of colour amid the cold autumnal murk...
We pass through Midsomer-like villages and lovingly restored stations, full of wrought-iron formwork on footbridges painted red and cream, stopping only at a few platforms to collect walkers and day-trippers who crowd the already crowded Sunday night train...
Sitting here, 10 days after I first left Kings Cross Station, and six classic railway hotels later, I reflect that if this is what it means to be a modern-day anorak, then, well, I am more than content to be dismissed as one.
A first-class seat, pretty much like all railways, entitles you to second-rate coffee and food.
The full article can be found here.
And I just noticed the information at the foot of the article:
Prices start from $2795 a person including 11 nights accommodation in landmark railway hotels with breakfast daily, first-class train travel and seat reservations.
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