3. Netherlands to Italy by train: Amsterdam to Ancona

…. or the Tour de Trains.

Austrian night train: the classic experience. Top bunk clamber, (you wouldna want to be arthritic to get up there), thankfully breezy night (in the right way) with windows open. Thoughtless surly youff on the bottom bunks (I feel v middle aged), silent polite men in the middle. The stand out is the breakfast COFFEE truly delicious. Bread rolls, butter and jam.

Italian trains from Zürich to Milan – we zoom past glistening lakes (Luzern, Lucano, Como) with snowy mountains around, zip zip zip through the Gotthard tunnel v v long over 50km but it goes in a trice as the Italian trains so fast and speedy. The Swiss border control comes down the train and singles out the friendly Albanian couple opposite us on a festive trip to Pescara, they gracefully do not bat an eyelid at being the only couple interrogated. A life of being used to it. Mind you, the Italian border force singled out the Man with the Natty Shoes who hadn’t taken off his sunnies (maybe as potential crime against cool). They looked at his papers and cocked an eyebrow at him “Militario?” “Si”. Unexpected. Jon pegs him as a spy.

More Italian trains from Milan to Modena then on to Ancona. Here people-watching in full throttle. The very glamorous cosmetically enhanced bling ladies, the very beautiful men and ladies, the scruffy revolutionary students, the stoners and the funky-spectacled middle aged men. Obesity has caught up with Southern Europe. We sit on the flip down hard seats by the exit for 5 hours. Flatlands with numerous crumbling old farm buildings as we zip towards Bologna. The Apennines in the misty distance. The finally to the Adriatic coast catching glimpses between buildings at dusk.

We arrive in Ancona as night has fallen. A cycle to the port then up into the old town to a DIY bed and breakfast and a good meal of pasta a few blocks away.