Day two – London to Milan

And now our train trip really began – with an early morning walk to the monument of travel that is St Pancreas international station.

We boarded the Eurostar with a slight familiarity of airport travel with queues, security and passport controls and then slept our way to France. The tunnel was a blur of about 20 minutes of darkness until we immerged into  France. Going at about 200km per hour, the trip lasted just over two hours and  dropped us in Gare du Nord. A quick metro trip to the Gare du Lyon brought us to the famous Train Bleu, a very stylish restaurant that we had wanted to have breakfast in.  In fact, whenever I talked about the travel plan, the sentence “ and then we’ll have breakfast in Paris” was my favourite.

A traditional part of old style travel, I thought and the décor most certainly reminded of Hercule Poiort movies. The food however, was a sad let down and very average.  A selection of bread which I had ordered in hope, turned out to be an old mini baguette and 2 slices of sliced pan…. My French was not up to commenting as I would have liked to but the review on google and trustpilot most certainly will. A gilded ceiling and age old tradition means nothing without good food. Maybe, lunch and dinner would be worth it but we didn’t stay long enough to find out.

Instead we went for a quick walk to the Seine and two hours later boarded the next TGV to Milan. The same classy train, very comfortable with power sockets and wifi and the amazing ever changing scenery as the plains of central France with their huge cereal fields turn into a southern looking agriculture with fields of sunflower and the alps in the distance. As I write this, the train that was nearly flying before, has moved past Lyons and we ‘re moving into lower alps around Grenoble. Going at a much slower pace, we head to the coffee shop for a late lunch and love our travels.

 The dining car, as it used to be called, is now an open standing area which, since we all have been sitting for ever, makes a lot more sense. Lunch was an unexpectedly nice quinoa salad and a beer with tea and biscuits to follow. As the alps turned to the plains of northern Italy, we arrived to Milan Garibaldi and the BAM ( Biblioteca degli Alberi park), an incredible urban area designed by a Dutch studio called inside Outside, it is part of the Porta Nuova urban project and comprises 10 hectares of extensions and a botanical collection. We knew nothing of the design and the ideas behind this project when we walked through it on our way to our hotel. Quite tired and on a mission to drop the bags and find some food, the impact of this space was still pretty amazing.

It made us think about the best of urban architecture and it made Milan look as if they were getting planning right, bringing nature back to the city and using the best of high rise architecture to do so.  The Vertical Forest Boeri Studio looked amazing. Aparently it won the International Highrise award in 2014 and hosts terraces with 800 trees, 11 000 plants and 5000 shrubs with a total of over 900 different species. Impressive !!!

However, our aim was  the “Best Hotel”.  A simple 2star hotel on a lovely quiet square in the centre of Milan brought the day to a very relaxing close especially as we found a great restaurant three doors up. Everyone at “Frijenno Magnanno” was  incredibly nice to the Irish with absolutely no word of Italian. He brought us courgette flowers stuffed with ricotta and we decided on pizza and pasta and red wine and sat on the street in the mild evening in Milan. After month of planning, the travel days turned out magnificent.

After the Bread round gets off the Hamster wheel and travels to Greece overland. We called it 20/60!!!

After the bread round gets off the hamster wheel – and embarks on a long planned overland trip to Greece. As you may realise, we are long back and have been baking again for the last week but I did write while we were away and I would like to share my thoughts on this trip – and practise writing and blogging so please bear with me as I take you from Bramblestown in Gowran to London and then over land by train to Greece.                                                                                                                 This trip was long planned and well prepared. Exactly 40 years apart, my son and I  planned a trip for our 20/60 year and settled on Greece because we share an interest in ancient civilisations.

He gave us both books to study for Christmas and since then I was reading about ancient Greece or rather working my way very slowly through a book that presumed much more education and knowledge than I actually have. But I persevered and gathered at least some knowledge. The deal was that I would pay for accommodation and travel and he would pay for food – and carry my bags all the way!!!

Speltbakers closes for three weeks in July and we set off nearly immediately (once the sourdough were fed and in the fridge and all the necessary paperwork was either done or packed) I had long wanted to try a longer overland trip but still we cheated at the start – and flew from Dublin to London. Over the years travelling to Germany with the car every summer, the ferry from Rosslaire to Pembroke and the trip all the way along the M4 to London are old friends that, for this trip, were deemed too expensive.  As a holiday start, Dublin airport however, did not at all compare to the ferryport in Rosslaire. I much prefer the summer journeys that start with a sunset or an early morning in Rosslaire and ferry travel is so much more travel than the  busy airport with its still massive queues, long waits and tight spaces.

Anyhow, I appreciated the fast option, we took it and we arrived in London before midday on our first day of travel. Found our tiny room in Cartwright gardens right in the middle of London and settled right in. It was advertised as a studio apartment and looked like a room. On closer inspection however, we opened a cupboard – and found the kitchen sink and kettle and further search even unearthed cups, plates and saucepans. A very good value overnight for inner city London but as long term accommodation, which it obviously was, a little bit of an insight into city life and its lack of space! For lunch we found an ale house and I forced the travel companion to abandon the safe toasted sandwich and have a steak and kidney pie –  a first culinary success. On our way, we passed the British Museum in all its glory and discovered that as chance would have it, the exhibition “Luxury and Power: Persia to  Greece “ was in its last few days. Fate obviously and we immediately got tickets.

The British museum is an amazing place of flamboyant architecture and collections – all to be seen some other time. Today, we concentrated on three rooms of exhibits and for the very first time in my  60 years, I felt reasonably well educated. Having studied ancient Greece since Christmas, I recognised at least some names, wars, eras and problems and loved the amazing luxury and flamboyance of ancient Persia and how Athens tried to resist, realising -over 2000 years ago- that luxury and super wealth of few are a threat to democracy.

In the evening, we met the older brother of the 20 part of this journey who lives in England and together went to see the Mouse trap in St Martin’s theatre. In its 70 year and as the longest running play in the world, a must see if you’re in London. Our last plays in the West End had been the amazing Lion King with its flamboyant and brilliant dance, music and pageantry and the equally amazing Bad Cinderella  with its rotating stage and fabulous sets ( and brilliant story line and music). Here I was loving a play that is older than me and has one set and no costume changes. A classic murder mystery from the Queen of mysteries. I highly recommend it and no – I won’t say who did it!!!  The evening ended sitting in the street in the Spaghetti house, sharing pizza and feeling immense gratitude for family and the ability and gift of travel and looking forward to getting on the train tomorrow.

Quote of the Day: From Juvenal ( about AD 55 -130) Roman satirical poet 

Now we are suffering the calamities of long peace.

Luxury has settled down on us, crueller than fighting, avenging the world we’ve conquered….

…. It was filthy money that first imported foreign ways, and effete wealth that corrupted our era with its disgusting decadence.

( part of the Luxury and power: Persia to Greece exhibition in the British Museum)

Place and meaning: We stayed in Cartwright Gardens named after John Cartwright who lived from 1710 to 1821. There is a statue and plaque to him in the gardens as a “firm, consistent and persevering advocate of Universal Suffrage, equal representation, vote by ballot and annual parliaments”. Apparently he was a naval officer who refused to “ draw his sword against the rising Liberties” The statue was erected in “sincere admiration of his unblemished virtue”   

On our way to find the roots of democracy, we already found one very determined democrat here in the middle of London.