No, this won’t be a complaint today, quite the opposite. For once, I’d like to stand up for the railway. I don’t necessarily mean local transport. That’s usually crowded, dirty, and inefficient. But for long distances, there’s nothing more comfortable than the train, when it works. Unfortunately, that’s often not the case in Germany. Since last year, however, I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing the advantages of the railway with SBB in Switzerland.

I’ve driven a lot and still do. This year, we went on a one-week camping holiday in central Italy, and in September, a three-week road trip around the Greek Peloponnese is planned, also by car and tent. The car is flexible and a great workhorse. I can drive wherever I want, whenever I want, and carry a lot of cargo. In these three aspects, the train naturally loses out. The routes are fixed, the schedules are set, and you take what you can carry.

But in return, you get on the train, relax, and - outside of Germany - arrive at your destination at the scheduled time. You might have to change trains, but since you’re travelling light anyway, that’s not a problem. An example? My girlfriend and I got on a train in Basel in the morning and were in Locarno on Lake Maggiore a few hours later. We spent a lovely day there and returned the same way. It took a bit longer due to the closed Gotthard Base Tunnel, but in exchange, we had a beautiful journey over the pass.

If it were up to me, we would travel by train much more often. Italy now has good infrastructure, and the lines in Eastern Europe are also said to be very well-developed. Taking the train to Prague, Budapest, or in the other direction to London sounds exciting to me. I would absolutely love it if the Orient Express to Istanbul still existed. But I was probably born too late for that.

Maybe I can still convince my girlfriend. So far, she hasn’t been too thrilled with the idea.