Environmentally Friendly Travel to the Mountains

by Tony Cooper

Last year I described how to get about in Austria without using a car. Now let's see how to get there without car or aeroplane, a slightly tougher challenge but much easier than you might think. While we're at it let's not be confined to Austria; getting to the other mountain regions of Europe poses similar easily-surmountable challenges.

Advantages

Apart from being much more environmentally friendly, using train, boat and bus offers:
a) Low stress and fun, usually passing through beautiful and diverse scenery.
b) No need for only circular walks (cf car) or having your penknife confiscated (cf plane)
c) Price. It's complex to work out comparisons, but it's surprisingly often true that the total home-to-destination cost for surface transport is less than for flying.

How and When

Booking about 3 months in advance is usually best. Always start off with a browse of the superb The Man in Seat 61 website (www.seat61.com) one gem from him: "Under the CIV international conditions of carriage and the Railteam promise, if you miss a connection because of a late running train, staff should stamp your ticket and allow you to take the next departure even if your ticket is theoretically non-changeable," They do too. Try that on Ryanair!

Getting out of England

This can be the hard part. Options:
a) Eurostar to Brussels or Paris. Note Brussels is normally much easier for ongoing connections as no need to traverse the city to another station. Use Paris if you want to overnight there.
b) The newish Eurostar South of France to Lyon, Avignon or Marseille. Good for Switzerland as well as France or Spain.
c) Ferries, to Holland, northern Spain and Brittany offer good options,(but sadly none to Scandinavia)
d) Coach Services (eg Eurolines) offer another, cheap, option to many places, including Munich in 22 hours, but for me it's too hard to sleep in a coach. For ongoing travel around the Continent however it can work really well. Advance planning is essential as many routes only operate a few times per week.

Overnighting

a) An overland journey to most of the European mountain areas requires overnighting. This can be regarded as part of the holiday, and an overnight or longer stop in an interesting European city can be entertaining or even a secondary objective of the whole trip.
b) If you just want to get to the Alps in 24 hours, Paris or Cologne work very well as night stops.
c) Alternatively, couchettes on night trains offer accommodation with a feel not that different from a hut dormitory.
d) Finally the overnight Dutch Flyer ferry from Harwich to the Hook is just the right duration to get a good night's sleep and connects well with trains the next day (eg to Innsbruck)

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Buying Tickets

Interrail passes can be a good option if you are doing something more complex than a simple out-and-back. If you're a non-EU citizen, Eurail.com offer similar deals.

The German and Austrian railway sites are very good in slightly different ways - try both. Both offer a full English-Language section. The DB office in Surbiton is very helpful and competent (08718 80 80 66); though it's existence isn't mentioned at bahn.de so maybe they're planning to phase it out.

If you haven't played this game before, they're a good place to start. Buying online is now reasonably easy and if you are vaguely IT-literate and know what you want to do is probably the best option. You may need to buy tickets separately from SNCF/SNCB (Belgian railways) and DB/OeBB for two sections of the journey. Follow the Man in Seat 61's advice.

Why

The Alpenverein contributed to a submission from the Alpine Convention to the (surprisingly successful) Paris Climate talks in December 2015. Climate Change is already seriously affecting the Alps, while recent unprecedented flooding of such well-loved fellwalkers' bases as Keswick and Glenridding, clearly also triggered by climate change, should be a wake-up call to us. So let's all help make it better instead of worse.

Tony Cooper, with thanks to Julian Walford, Stephen Axe and Darren Axe for helpful advice.

Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn

Eurostar at St Pancras
Photos by Darren Axe

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