Although Bill and I are definite fans of rail travel, we seldom pay close attention to the station. For us it’s usually just the place to check the departure board and to pick up some buttery croissants or a freshly made sandwich to take onboard. If we’re changing trains along the way we might not even go inside the building; instead, we look at the display screen as we arrive to see from which platform our connection will be departing and then walk directly there. Oh sure, who wouldn’t notice the massive open interior of New York’s Grand Central Terminal, London’s impressive red brick facade of St. Pancras International, said to have been the world’s largest enclosed space when it opened in 1868, or the beautiful tile covered walls inside São Bento in Porto, depicting the history of Portugal. While we’ve seen those and one or two others that come to mind, we had never made travel plans specifically to route ourselves a particular way in order to visit a station…until we went to Canfranc, Spain.

Continue reading “Canfranc Estación, a grand railway hotel”

Last month on the way to Greece we changed trains in Lyon from where we could have taken a plane and been in Athens about 3 hours later. Instead we chose the “slow travel” option via Milan that included travel onboard the Italian Frecciarossa train in Executive class. The car had 10 extra-wide leather reclining armchairs (photo in this paragraph) so we had lots of legroom with at-seat dining choices of 3, four-course meals. We were onboard long enough to enjoy both breakfast and lunch and below I’ll include a pdf of the menu. (Tip: don’t be shy about asking for what you want to eat and drink.) While all of this comfort on the train was a pleasant surprise, an unexpected bonus awaited us at our ferry port destination.

Continue reading “Surprising Bari, Italy”

Soon after we knew that we’d be going to Athens to meet up with my brother and sister-in-law, Bill asked me where else in Greece I wanted to go. With the stunning landscapes from the movie “Mamma Mia” playing in my head, where every quaint village is filled with whitewashed stone houses topped by domed blue roofs, I said, “the islands”. Although Greece has thousands of islands, only about 200 of them are inhabited including names I knew such as Mykonos, Santorini, Crete, and Rhodes but we chose one that’s not been so popular and it was less than 3 hours by ferry from Athens.

Continue reading “The island of Milos”