We're roughly 1000km into a ~4000km flight-free return journey from Belgrade... We've also very much taken the slow route back 🏖️
Here's our route... Train from Belgrade to Bar, bus to Dubrovnik, ferry to Bari, train all the way back to York (via Rome and Paris).
Countries passed through: 🇷🇸🇧🇦🇲🇪🇭🇷🇮🇹🇫🇷🇬🇧
(we're in a pretty privileged position to be able to make such a trip, let's face it)
Because we've stopped off in Italy for some days, our average speed is only ~15km/h, but if we had done this route at full pace, we'd have managed it in 4 days and three hours (with a day in Dubrovnik) at ~40km/h.
This is also very much not the quickest route home from Belgrade.
Negotiating COVID regulations has been tricky to be honest. They are constantly changing, and though plenty of stuff is clearly sensible for public health reasons, quite a few rules are evidence-free bureaucracy. Taking a box of NHS LFTs helped, if nothing else for peace of mind.
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So, our journey from Rome to Paris begins... With the 62 bus, and its total lack of suspension. My spine has popped up into my brain and is giving me a headache.
We're catching the Turin train from Tiburtina station which is a striking enough edifice... Though I must say for a ten year old station its fabric hasn't aged well.
I've changed my mind on vaccine "passports" for limiting access to shared venues to only those who've got the vaccine or aren't able to for genuine reasons... Possibly as a result of seeing them in action in Italy.
What do you think? Bombard me with your thoughts.
It feels like a non-intrusive way of penalising people who've chosen not to vaccinate themselves and thus put all of us at risk and keep *all this* happening...
Before, I was against it as it felt a bit slippery slope-like, but in reality it's mostly just like age ID is already.
Actually, as the very clever person next to me has pointed out, it's less about the nutter anti-vaxxers and more about lazy people (lots of them young, it must be said) who've not got round to it yet... Not being able to go indoors to eat/drink would give them a gentle shove.
I'm on my holidays but have nipped off on some brief #PointlessPerambulations to look at the rather unique and squeezed-in former railways in Barnstaple...
Here's what it looked like! It was properly squished in next to the old Barnstaple Bridge, popping out over the muddy Taw at around 90° and joining the other bank almost parallel to the river. #PointlessPerambulations
By the end of the month, rail ridership will be at its highest level since the start of the pandemic (45%). I would be very surprised if it didn't reach 60% before the end of June, and I think it might be quicker than that.
What happens afterwards depends largely on London.
Here's a higher resolution version of the "traveller type" graph in that thread, using quarterly data...
You can see that, during the pandemic, London travellers ended up accounting for a *higher* percentage of rail journeys. Which potentially confounds a lot of predictions.
My question is not "will rail reach 75% of pre-COVID ridership by the end of the year?" but "will ridership top out before the end of summer and at what level?".