A Grand Day Out!

          This week, we were pleased to have a visit from a couple of London-based friends that we don’t see as often as we used to. We had only one day and a couple of evenings together so, wanting to make the most of the time, I put some forethought into arranging a schedule. It’s a pleasurable thing to do but tricky to get right: if you’re heavy on micromanagement, you end up with a rigid timetable that leaves little room for spontaneous enjoyment; but if you adopt a take-us-as-you-find-us approach, your casual attitude could be construed as unwelcoming or, worse, insulting. Of course, the better you know your visitors, the easier it is to make a satisfactory plan.

          A similar predicament confronts me this week. We’ll be meeting up in Italy next month with a couple of American friends who are coming to Europe and I have been tasked with booking a three-night stay for all of us in an hotel in Florence. (It’s been more than thirty years since I was last there and I look forward to returning, but I prefer to call it by its Italian moniker, Firenze. I think it’s because my paternal grandmother was called Florence – “Florrie” or “Flo” to friends and family – that the name feels consequently drained of exotic associations.)

          Anyway, as you would expect from one of the world’s foremost cultural destinations, Firenze is awash with hotels – especially in our modest price range – so choosing one can be a protracted exercise in itself, never mind with the added complication of taking into account the preferences of parties absent from the decision-making. For myself, I would happily take a risk on a “characterful” establishment, an old building with no lift and shower cubicles so small you have to stand to attention in them. Perhaps our American friends would find such accommodation amusing, in so far as it lives up to a quaint European stereotype, but I suspect delight in the novelty might all too soon be outweighed by their habituation to the generous proportions of the American lifestyle.

          We’ll be travelling to Firenze by train from Barcelona, a journey that will take longer than our friends’ transatlantic flight, but one that we shall enjoy as it progresses languidly through three countries. Far from being complicated, all the tickets can be purchased in advance on the Trainline app, where they are conveniently stored ready for each leg.

          Train travel may have been eclipsed by the likes of EasyJet, but there are encouraging signs of its resurgence as travellers compare and consider the comforts, conveniences and carbon emissions of the respective modes of transport. And just this morning, there was news of the possible “re-nationalisation” of Britain’s fragmented rail system, a move that has popular support because of the evident failures of the free-market model when it comes to providing a reliable and affordable railway for the 67 million people who live on this small island. There are many who remember the failures of our post-war nationalised railway and the reasons why it was broken up, but we don’t have to return to that flawed model. We should consider the possibility of establishing the newly proposed Great British Railway Company as a not-for-profit organisation, a giant Community Interest Company, with its infrastructure listed as a valuable national asset to be cherished, invested in and locked into public ownership. Talk of “levelling up” remains just talk until the fundamentals of public transport are sorted.

          And if all this sounds like an argument in favour of train travel, it is. We took our London friends on the local train up the picturesque Tamar valley to Calstock and thence a walk to the medieval manor house and estate of Cothele, returning in time for tea. I’m sure they weren’t just being polite when they pronounced it a grand day out.