I've zigzagged Europe with an Interrail ticket six times, so I've spent a lot of time on trains. I love being able to see the scenery change. Probably the longest trip I've taken without stopping for a night would be from Stockholm to Rome, or perhaps from Warsaw to London.. I've met lots of interesting people on trains and have never gotten into real trouble, even on night trains and even when travelling alone (I'm female and about five feet tall so I guess I'd be an easy target if someone wanted to do something, thankfully, that has not happened).

The only time I've almost been robbed was on a night train from Paris to Amsterdam. I woke up and saw someone going through my luggage. I started yelling in bad French "Qu'est-ce que vous faites!!! Arretez!!" and the guy bolted out of the door. Later I saw him being taken away by some security personnel in Brussels.

One of my funniest trips was supposed to be a short journey from Rome to Florence. It was the last train of the evening. The train was only 10 minutes late leaving. It was full, so we had to stand. When we reached Arrezzo, the train stopped at the station and then just did not leave. We could not find out what was going on. We asked around, and finally a Japanese guy heard from a French girl that a Spanish guy had heard from someone that the engine was broken, and repairs would take a while. We ended up spending five hours in Arrezzo, sitting on the floor and smoking, talking to people in mixed English/French/Italian. It was actually fun.

The best views I've seen from a train were on journeys from Munich to Florence via Innsbruck and from Basel to Nice via Milan. The most boring journey to me nowadays is from Stockholm to Copenhagen, since I've travelled that route so many times as it is the most usual route from Finland to mainland Europe - first the ferry to Stockholm and then the same old train to Cph...

I'm hoping that someday I can catch the Trans-Siberian from Moscow to Beijing. That'll take a week. The train travels through Russia and Mongolia before entering China, and you can stop on the way. I'd also love to travel on the Trans-Canadian railway.

You have a normal feeling for a moment, then it passes. --More--