Thread by @scattermoon

It's a lovely morning in Glasgow's West End.

Let's go to Italy!

#TransEuropeExpress4 #TEE4

I'm traveling to Eurovision 2022 in Turin, Piedmont, Italy without flying, taking the scenic route via three country's riveria coastlines.

I've also had no sleep so this will be fun!

Sunny and warm in Central Glasgow, though not *quite* taps aff in George Square yet.

Strangely, I'm starting this journey to one of Europe's southernmost countries by going north from Queen Street, alongside a West Highland Line train taking the leisurely journey to Oban.

The Glasgow-Edinburgh Expresses are fast and popular as you might expect, linking Scotland's two major cities across the Central Belt, making it easy to "pop next door" as it were. The pulmonary vein of Scotland.

Cloud rolls in as we cross the lush green of the Central Belt with a line of hills, and then the Firth of Forth, to the North. It's a gently scenic journey across the 'flat' part of Scotland.

Not very *rugged* but there is *rugby* as we enter Edinburgh.

I am desperate for a coffee after the Queen Street Costa had no dairy-free milk and I am therefore running off a coke zero to keep me awake.

Only a brief stop in Edinburgh, even though it seems most of my friends live here. It is a more scenic city centre than Glasgow's, but with fewer shops and a *lot* more tourists.

Got my coffee, just in time for my next train!

Leaving Edinburgh on an Azuma, a much nicer train to use than the Pendolinos we poor West Coasters get.

I'm sitting next to an academic from Durham returning back after a week in the Highlands and she's showing me photos of the hills after she saw me getting a shot of Arthur's Seat. In turn I'm telling her about my trip to Eurovision. This is not usual UK train behaviour.

Running along the North Sea coast just past Dunbar. The sea always looks so tranquil from here, one of the few points the East Coast Main Line lives up to its name.

Approaching the border and my favourite part of this the whole line between Edinburgh and London. Pretty much the whole Anglo-Scottish border region is rugged for obvious reasons, though I'm not sure that's a functional castle...

And then! Suddenly! Sea!

As the line crosses the border (boo) it runs along the top of cliffs directly above the North Sea. On days like this, the sea seems to merge with the sky and a solitary boat looks like it's flying.

One of the most beautiful stretches of UK mainline.

Crossing the Tweed on the Royal Border Bridge at Berwick, a town that, thanks to being almost impossible to defend, passed between English and Scottish hands so many times that these days it's basically both.

Lots of good bridges on this route if that's your thing.

Lindisfarne.

The British and North Germanic halves of me are experiencing very different emotions looking at its abbey ✝️⚔️📖🔥

Really feeling the lack of sleep last night now. Only potential benefit is that it might help me sleep on my overnight travel this evening.

Flying free, flying high,
Flashing wings across the sky,
Geordie racer, Geordie racer,
Fly!

Bridges. So many bridges. All different. Like someone testing out the different options in a transport SIM game.

No fog on the Tyne today though, it's been sunny since we left Berwick.

Durham, and I lose my travel companion here, with her wishing me a good journey and promising to watch Eurovision next week.

Anyway, I've never been to this city, but I've been assured it's *just as good* as Oxford.

Me: *plans to nap for a bit on the peace and quiet as we pass through flatter scenery*

The Geordie Stag Party Further Up The Carriage: 😈

York.

The experience of living in Scotland is traveling south for several hours just to reach the area people usually mean when they say "the North".

Changing trains at Doncaster. Why? UK rail fares are ancient and dark magic.

Secret platform at the end of the station.

Doncaster, surely the most glamorous stop on this trip's itinerary.

(I used to come here from Nottingham as a kid to play at the big water park!)

btw for those wondering about Iffy, they have one of their favourite humans looking after them while I'm gone, so they still get to enjoy cuddles on demand even when I'm not about

Meandering through the Midlands, crossing the River Trent at Newark, and then immediately passing over the always-terrifying flat crossing where two railway lines just run across one another in an X shape. There aren't many of these left, for obvious reasons.

Almost empty carriage so using this opportunity to have a nap before arriving in London, wake me if anything interesting happens.

Skirting the edge of the Fens earlier and everything is just flat.

My previous Eurovision rail adventures have all started from London (or Reading), so my move to Glasgow has added effectively a whole extra day's travel onto each journey. 6 hours since leaving Queen Street and I'm just about reaching the place where I started before!

The problem is the bottleneck across to continental Europe. Ideally you could night train it, like the Caledonian Sleeper from Glasgow/Edinburgh but it keeps going and you wake up in Paris instead, ready to get the cheap trains SNCF love to run very early in the morning.

A girl can dream.

London! Getting vague cultural shock from a place that is also so familiar part of me feels back at home.

Was the air in the Underground always this bad and I'd somehow just acclimatised to it when I lived here?

Victoria station still has these faded flags hanging about from the roof.

While I waited at Victoria for my overnight transport to France, an exhausted and sleep-deprived me met up with a bunch of friends for a few hours just to give me a brief break. It was suggested to have a meal I wouldn't be able to have in Italy and so...

So it was finally time to head onwards to France. Victoria station's grand frontage a traditional desparture point for such a journey.

but there are no night trains to France, as I said. At least not to Paris where I need to be tomorrow morning. So I walked down the road to Victoria Coach Station instead, a very familiar building to anyone who has tried traveling to and from London on a budget.

It really feels it inside. Victoria Coach Station has got very little love, and is a world away from its rail-based equivalents. Eurostar this is not.

I've used this place many times whenever train fares are simply too high, and that is frequently the case with the Eurostar.

Behold my transport to Paris.

You have to sleep in your seat, if you can, so I chose a window seat just to ensure I have something to rest my head against. Hopefully my impressive level of tiredness will also help in this regard, though only once we actually reach France...

Slowly percolating out of London through the road network of South East London, until recently my home and it's all familiar streets as far as Blackheath.

Sorry Londoners, as far as your city is concerned, South still beats North.

Got a little bit of sleep heading out into Kent but then woke up when we left the M20 and took rural roads through a rich-seeming village at the edge of Maidstone. Who needs the M20 anyway, I guess?

Passed Leeds Castle a short while ago, anyone know why we're avoiding the M20 and giving a lot of French people a night tour of Mid-Kent?

Finally back onto the M20 after Ashford, with a brief glimpse at the myriad lights of the huge new Sevington Inland Border Facility, a customs checkpoint to take post-Brexit checks pressure off Dover itself. A reminder of what's changed since the last time I did a trip like this.

I didn't lie earlier when I said I'd be getting a train to France. Just not in the way you thought.

Eurotunnel Time.

Gravely miscalculated my outfit in terms of standing around for ten minutes in the Kent midnight air waiting for the coach after going through French passport control.

enter
the
long
box

🇫🇷

Slept through crossing which was good. And as much as I want to gaze out at French road infrastructure with a sense of greeting an old, sorely-missed friend, I should try getting more sleep again. Hope the coach door that didn't close properly stops whistling like infinite kettle

Broke the thread for Day 2 to provide easier reading on mobile.