Riding the rails

When we think of the premium travel experience we tend to think primarily of air travel. Some may also think travel by sea, frankly i couldn’t think of anything worse - see “Costa Concordia” and “Titanic”. 

When it comes to travel of any vast distance, granted, there is only one option. That said, for shorter hops it almost seems non sensical to devote half a day (which air travel inevitably ends up costing you) for the sake of a couple of hundred miles. Enter high speed train travel; a fast, efficient, green (if you are that way inclined) and decidedly luxurious way to travel. I’m not talking about luxury rail experiences such as the Orient Express. As wonderful as they may be, you aren’t going to pop over to Milan from Paris on the Orient Express for a day trip or a meeting.

For this particular trip I needed to travel between Milan in Italy and Brig in Switzerland and took the Swiss Railways pendolino up past Lago Maggiore and Domodossola, then under the alps via the Simplon Tunnel. My geeky side had wanted to go under the simple tunnel for some time,

The Simplon was the words longest tunnel from 1906 until 1982 as well as being part of the namesake of the Venice Simplon Orient Express.

No security, no check in, no arriving an hour or two before departure, no taxi fare as the station is right in town, no checked bags, no lost bags - the list goes on, and while on the surface the fare can seem quite a lot. Aside from that, being able to enjoy a 3 course meal for around 37 euros with full silver service in the dining car certainly does ass a lot of value to the experience.

On top of that, the thrill of seeing the ground whizz past at 300 kph is a thrill in itself.