I’m in Baltimore - County Cork, not Maryland - to start another Turtle Travels adventure. This is a lovely village set amongst a stunning and complex sound and archipelago. It’s a jumping off point for ferries to numerous little islands. But it has something else too… #ireland24 …Ireland’s most southerly bus stop, here on Baltimore Pier. So that means, of course, that Mrs Turtle and I are - at 5:30pm - about to try to travel from here, in 24 hours, to Ireland’s most northerly bus stop, by any means of scheduled public transport. #ireland24

As you’ve spent a day chatting public transport, I can segue into news that tomorrow is the next Turtle Travels 🐢🚌 adventure. Join me mid-afternoon for a challenge I was originally going to call #CountyLines but then decided I didn’t want the police interest, so it’s #County24. For anyone wondering what this is all about, here’s an index post of all my Turtle Travels Twitter adventures so far. And this is where you can find the video documentaries that come afterwards: youtube.com/@travelling_tu…

https://twitter.com/politic_animal/status/1758216692893659254

An hour before I need to be at the Eurostar, so hopped off a stop early at Brussels Central. Is there any station on earth (and there is some stiff competition) with such a discrepancy between the dire platform levels… …and the superlative architecture upstairs? Night and day, however figuratively appropriate, doesn’t cover it.

I am on a bus (shock! No, let me continue…) which goes from Aachen (in Germany) to Monschau (also in Germany) but during the journey will cross the German/Belgian border no fewer than eight times (I think, it is quite hard to count). Now, six of those are due to the Vennbann… Now, if Vennbahn means nothing to you, do give &TheTimTraveller’s excellent video a watch. Basically, a key freight railway partly in Germany was transferred to Belgium by Versailles. The railway closed in 1989 but neither country cared to change anything.

But have you actually *used* your multi-modal Deutschlandticket unless you have used it to travel on this…thing? Wuppertal’s Schwebebahn is almost certainly the most fun you can have in an upside down train. I think my conclusion would be that in 99.99% of places it would be an expensive joke, but in Wuppertal’s very specific circumstances and geography, it probably works. twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

And of course it’s about trams… …in particular, the mountaineering trams up the castle hill. The only hairpin bend I’m aware of on an urban tram network.

…until finally the train reaches the 10.6km Arlberg Tunnel, completed in 1884. #Europe24 Out the other side, we’re descending rapidly. Most importantly, we’re now in the catchment of the Inn, which drains into the Black Sea by way of the Danube. On the eastern side we were in the Rhine/North Sea drainage basin. #Europe24

I promised you an adventure!
What to do after #bus24, #train24? Well, you seemed to like little races round Europe, so just before 00:00 CET, I’m starting #Europe24, a challenge to see how many nations I can visit by public transport in 24hrs. Right now, I’m positioning myself… First, I need to introduce understudy 🐢, Mrs Turtle, leant to me by my wife. If you followed #GoWest, you know Slow Travel Turtle disappeared somewhere in W Yorks. He’s regenerating, but for now Mrs Turtle is stepping in. The furthest she’s been before is Sainsburys. #Europe24

In a pie shop in Skipton that also sells Prosecco. Welcome to the new Yorkshire. In a throw back to #GoWest, we’re back on Skipton’s High Street. Catching the last bus (of the week) to Langcliffe. 🚌

Time for a new adventure! Just now, I’m the most easterly person on UK soil (accompanied by the UK’s most easterly crocheted turtle), at Lowestoft Ness, 1°45'49 east of Greenwich. Obviously, tomorrow morning, we begin a multi-day odyssey to the UK’s most westerly bus stop #GoWest We’ll be leaving from the UK’s most easterly bus stop, just inland from here, linking together rural, town and trunk route buses, going to places I know well and lots I’ve never visited, across 3 of the UK’s nations. At the end of a heatwave. With lots of bus cuts coming. #GoWest

Slow Travel Turtle and I are luxuriating on our way to start a new adventure, in which we go a bit long form. More on this later today, but just the one hint for now: 1°45'21.945". Some distinctly inefficient uncoupling at Cambridge meant a missed connection at Ely. With a brass swing trio in the bandstand, weeping willows swaying by the river and a range of waterfowl available for perusing, there’s worse places to have an enforced hour.

And so the day arrives, and Woolwich now has a ‘Woolwich Arsenal’ station that isn’t in the Arsenal, and a ‘Woolwich’ station that is in the Arsenal. (Yes, and a ‘Woolwich Dockyard’ station whose dockyard closed 150 years ago.) #ElizabethLine Going down…

Off home the boring way. Does mean I get to use a new (opened May ‘21) rail-air link, and such things are to be encouraged. Station bar firmly closed, so had to translate the plaque about the station master who was father of anti-fascist writer Elio Vittorini without caffeine. Nowhere does picturesque maritime dereliction quite like Augusta.

I’ve wanted to come to Siracusa ever since an ‘Italy by Train’ book I was using while Interailing made it sound like a paradise. But the Siracusa portion of the sleeper was fully booked and I ended up in Palermo instead (which is also great). So happy to have finally rectified. I’ve coo-ed about how great the Duomo and its piazza are. But equally fantastic is wandering randomly round the alleyways of Ortigia, finding random churches, ruins, plant filled snickets, fine facades and cat-owned corners. The old Jewish quarter is particularly great for this.

Catania may have only the one Metro line (with a nine-too-generous 15min frequency), but it is still very much an experience of two halves. Will the train that turns up be one of the ultra-swish new ones… …or will you get the more authentic experience?

Well, I’ve spoken to broadcasters in Britain and Canada, and now the French want a piece of me. As they say in Sicilian media circles, I’ve had enough of this, I’m off for arancini. [5 min later] So, I sort of thought arancini were like those little party finger food fried rice balls, so ordered two from this nice place that makes them fresh and has a gigantic arancini menu, half of it vegan. Turns out they are bigger than a prizefighter’s fist. And lovely.

Six months ago, I set out to find out how far I could get in 24 hours by bus from London #bus24. Today - the obvious sequel: #train24. What is the furthest point I can get from St Pancras in 24 hours? I think I know on paper, but there’s some tight connections ahead… Same ground rules as before: I’m finding the furthest station, as the crow flies, you can get to in 24 hours not necessarily the longest journey. With rail timetables in post-Covid flux, the answer could be different next week. And yes, obviously Turtle is coming along #train24

Some professional news: It has been a brilliant seven years at @EalingCouncil as the first and last Head of the Leader’s Office and the first Head of the Cabinet Office. Brilliant place, brilliant people, interesting times.
And now, all the rules are out of the window. More on what comes next shortly.

Things no-one else is crazy enough to be doing right now: final prep for a trip to answer one of the great unanswered questions: just how far can you travel by bus from London in 24hrs? I *think* I know on paper, but in practice…? Follow along from 3am as I slowly go mad. #bus24 So, it’s just gone 3am, and the odyssey begins. I’m at Charing Cross, the point from which all distances from London are measured, and the aim is to get as far a possible from here in 24 hours. And here’s my first bus, London’s fourth longest route. Start the clock! #bus24