Travelling through Europe by train

I do not even want to get into exactly how long ago that was, but back in the last century some time when I was in high school, my friends and I always travelled all over Europe by train during the summer holidays. Literally all over. As far as the Interrail passes were valid, anyway. Decreasing prices for plane tickets as well as perhaps increasing indolence may make such long train travels seem rather anachronistic to students today. True enough, I have spent very many hours in trains during my youth, but sometimes it was just as interesting getting somewhere as actually being there.

Some of these travels I wouldn’t have liked to be without. Such as going by train all the way through Italy one summer and experiencing the huge differences in the behaviour of the people we shared compartments with. In the north of the country they did not seem very different from people we would meet in Scandinavia. Nice, but slightly reserved. South of Rome people seemed to talk a lot more to the other passengers, and we all shared whatever food and drink we had brought. South of Naples was when all the fun began. Our compartment was meant for six people, but with a little goodwill and effort you could fit in eight people, which we did when the train got very crowded. The corridor was extremely crowded as well, so it was easier for people to push their luggage in through the windows than carrying it with them to their seat. Consequently, we assisted in getting bags off all sizes, a couple of folding push chairs and at one point a homemade cage with a live chicken in through the windows. All in all quite an eventful trip to Sicily. Very hot and very smelly, but we had fun.

I remember another train travel which ended up not being much fun, though. At a point my friend and I felt slightly bored and also needed to stretch our legs a bit, so we decided to ‘go for a walk’. This was the kind of train with corridors going all the way through the train at one side, and closed compartments usually seating up to six people each leading out to these corridors. We started walking towards one end of the train and got to talk about how often we actually met someone we knew while we were travelling. Waiting in line at the Gare du Nord right in front of us would be someone we knew from school. Someone’s cousin would be crossing the street right in front of us in Verona, etc. Like I said, ‘everyone’ went Interrailing at the same time. We both played sports quite seriously at the time and when going to and from games in the weekends we usually met someone we knew on the ferries in Denmark. (Now there are bridges everywhere and I suppose nobody talks to each other anymore). Anyway, as far-fetched as it seemed, we started glancing into the compartments as we walked the length of the train and back. You never know. Naturally, we didn’t see anyone we knew, and we didn’t think about it anymore until two hours later, when we were addressed by two uniformed French policemen who asked us to take our things and come with them. Uncomprehendingly we tried to explain that we were on our way home and would miss our connecting train if we left this train, but there was no mercy. Downcast, slightly crestfallen and very confused we followed them. They kept us for three hours at the police station as we were questioned and they went through all our stuff. Not having done anything except taking a walk in the train, it took us quite a while to figure out what had hit us. It turned out that things had been stolen from a lot of compartments in that particular train, and when talking to the police several people remembered these two girls walking around, looking into all the compartments! They finally let us go. I felt about two inches tall and really just wanted to call my parents and say I would be home later than expected. (But this is what I don’t understand: if we had really stolen something, wouldn’t we just have left it in the train when the police turned up and asked us to leave the train? Maybe they checked the compartment after we left....).

Finally, I can’t think of train travels in Europe without thinking of a trip back from the former Yugoslavia once. In the same compartment as my friend and I were two young men, who were extremely tanned and all they were wearing were shorts. One of them also had an Indiana Jones type of hat and they were carrying their wallets pushed down behind the waistband of their shorts. We could hear they were Finnish but could not understand anything they said to each other. We tried to steer clear of these two young men, whom we simply considered ‘too much’! We basically ignored them. After many hours in that train, and the weather not being that hot anymore, these two half naked men seemed more and more out of place, somehow. Long story, but we were well into Germany before we tried speaking Swedish with them. It turned out that they had been camping, one morning they had gone to get breakfast and when they got back their tent was gone. In it had been their backpacks and everything else they had brought with them. They only had the shorts they were wearing and their wallets. Since they had money, and a valid Interrail pass, they had decided to travel back home and pack again so they could continue travelling. They just caught a train with no time to spare, and there had been nowhere they could buy some clothes, yet.

We had been prejudiced and convinced that these two men were parading around showing off their bodies as if they were god’s gift to women. And they had really had all their clothes stolen. Another lesson learned for me. Don’t judge. And maybe a lesson for the two men as well: if you need help – ask for it! So, Juha and Pekka from Jyväskylä in Finland, I wish I would have known about your situation earlier, and we would have lent you some clean T-shirts long before we actually did!