Colmar is just a bit Christmassy.
#Colmar #Alsace #France
#ChristmasMarket
#FlyFreeTravel
#TravelByTrain

I can recommend #Strasbourg as a great place to visit at Christmas time. The whole town centre is wonderful, with a selection of Christmas markets selling high quality food and gifts. Best of all, it's reachable by train from much of the UK in less than a day.

#ChristmasMarket
#TravelByTrain
#FlyFreeTravel

From the Turkish border town of Hopa, I caught a bus to Erzurum, away from the Black Sea and up onto the Anatolian Plateau. The route followed the Çoruh River, which was Turkey’s last wild river, until they built a series of enormous reservoirs (photo 1). Erzurum is known for horizontal kebabs (cağ) and historical madrasas and mosques (2 and 3).

I then rode the sleeper train to Ankara, the Doğu Express, which briefly follows the Euphrates River, and crosses much of Anatolia. It is more popular in the magical snowy winter, but it was still pretty in late summer (4). I shared my compartment with a friendly computer programmer, who told me I’d missed the best part of the route, his home city of Kars. He said programming was ruining his health, and he was going back to the family business of cheesemaking.

The main sight in Ankara is Anıtkabir, Atatürk’s mausoleum (5 and 6). It’s a beautiful building of crisp travertine blocks, but also a sombre place to think about nations. From the capital, high speed trains glide off the plateau, past Sapanca Lake, and into Istanbul.

I used a ferry to cross the Bosphorus (7). I’d crossed all of Asia, and now only had to cross little Europe in order to get home.

#Overland #TravelByTrain

I crossed from Vladikavkaz into Georgia in a shared taxi, through the stupendous Darial Gorge. For the first time in three months, I was on familiar ground: I hitchhiked the same road down to Tbilisi at the end of my 2023 Transcaucasian Trail hike. I’ve stayed involved with the TCT since then, and become part of a wonderful community of hikers. I caught up with three pillars of this community, Meagan, Matt, and Mela the redoubtable trail dog.

My westward journey resumed with a double-decker train to Batumi, on the lush coast of the Black Sea. Just like when I finished the TCT, I watched the sunset and ate a lot of Adjarian khachapuri. Batumi is sometimes compared to Las Vegas, but it is more than that: a unique culture with a Turkish influence, tree-shaded 19th-century boulevards, and delightful inexpensive food. I bought a cup of kvass from one of the yellow street tankers, and it fits the description I once heard: like liquid bread.

Next morning, I caught a minivan to the zany Georgian border post (final photo) and waited in line to cross into Turkey.

#Overland #TravelByTrain #Hiking

Pizza in Italy. Ceviche in Peru. Jellied eels in the East End. It’s always exciting to taste a food in its type locality. And that includes plov in Samarkand (Uzbekistan), the city where I ended up after finishing the Pamir Trail (with only a 60-day visa, I couldn’t hang around in Tajikistan). Once I’d eaten my body weight in oily rice, I turned to appreciate the city’s extraordinary Timurid architecture—a feast for the eyes.

Then, sitting in one of the many parks, I started to plan my journey back to England. You might remember that I began my journey in Beijing, and I was determined to get home without flying. The first step was a train to the capital, Tashkent, which I shared with some friendly Uzbek lads, who were very lewd, but also able to recite Timurid poetry. I admired the spooky artworks in the Tashkent underground, quite typical of Soviet-Era metro stations.

10 points to Gryffindor if you can guess the next three countries on the route.

#Overland #TravelByTrain #Backpacking

https://simulator.belgiantrain.be/fr/trainplus
Dès maintenant , et via le simulateur de la #sncb, comparez les nouveaux prix avec et sans Train+ pour vos trajets en train en Belgique dès le 15 octobre. #railway #trainlovers #trein #navetteurs #train #stations #brussels #bruxelles #travelbytrain #gare #nmbs