I am very fortunate. I have three months off work and I’m off around Yerp (imagine a posh person saying ‘Europe’ — this is a lovely reference to Year 9 history class for me) on trains, over the course of 88 days.

It was odd, waking up on the morning after the Brexit vote, on a ferry that was pulling in to Hook of Holland, and realising that a few more people voted to leave than to remain in the EU. I still can’t help but think that it was a hugely un-informed vote on both sides. It does however mean that the UK is on a path to who-knows-what in 2019. The grand EU experiment has made so much progress in the last 41 years that it is not just a case of going back to how things were – adding back in a few tariffs and hoping that farmers haven’t become dependent on EU subsidies and that fishermen will suddenly catch all those cod that the EU is somehow preventing Britain from catching. I don’t know if Brexit will mean that travel in Europe will change any time soon but I feel an imperative to fulfill a long wished-for ambition: to take a few months off from work, and travel around Europe by train.

I’ve picked an almost haphazard route. I haven’t used a particular theme or followed a well-established Grand Tour plan. I have picked some places inspired by art, some places that have something about them and some places that sound interesting. It takes in some journeys that are coloured in green on the Europe Train Map (of course I have one), which means they are particularly scenic. I have applied for a career break from my job and, very generously (after 3 months off payroll), I will have the same job to go back to, which is super particularly for the sake of the mortgage, and the credit card that is about to feel the brunt of this jaunt. I am relieved to have a job to go back to in a place that I love. 

There will be photos. There will be fun facts. There will likely be a number of references to the poem ‘Ulysses’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I am hoping to come back fitter, happier and more productive. Scratch that, I’m already happy, but would be glad to be fitter and more productive. Or as my boss put it, to a better, more sun-tanned and more enlightened individual. 

It starts in Le Mans for a week including the 24-hour race.
Then:
Paris
Rouen
Ypres
Rotterdam
Hannover
Trier
Wuppertal
Bordeaux
Toulouse
Nimes
Nice
Kutzbühel
Budapest
Zagreb
Split
Ancona
Ravenna
Lecco
Mantova
Montreux
Munich
Prague
Stuttgart
Paris

Then managing a Youth Hostel in Lancashire.

I will hopefully start to gain some fluency again in French, German and Italian and try out some of my basic Dutch on lercerls (that’s ‘locals’, if you’re not from round these Hull parts). There will be train museums – Utrecht. There will be the Miffy museum – also Utrecht. There will be an upside-down swinging monorail – Wuppertal. This is not code. I will re-learn the noble art of living off muesli, yoghurt, bananas and the occasional slice of cake and pizza. 

I am incredibly fortunate to be in this position. I will learn something new every day. I will try not to over-share. |I doubt my writing style will improve. I apologise. 

See you later on in June.