Stone – Stafford – Milton Keynes Central – London Euston – London St Pancras – Ashford International – Dover Priory
I’ve added a few domestic tours on here over the past couple of years, but this is the first time since 2023 that I’ll be travelling on an Interrail pass. It’s also potentially the longest single trip that I’ve done, and may end up as 17 days.
The starting point was deciding almost a year ago that I was going to a couple of concerts in Sicily. I quickly decided that I was going to tick off a todo list item and book the sleeper from Milan to Palermo. I’ve done that trip in parts, and in the opposite direction but the two previous trips to Sicily have started with a flight, then a train back. It is, after all, quite a long way from home.
My initial thought had been to fly to Milan, and I even booked a flight for this, but that was cancelled by Ryanair at almost exactly the same time as Interrail passes went on offer, so I passed up their offer of a rescheduled flight and booked a 10-day first class rail pass instead, at 40% off.
I’m not one for locking things down any more than I need to, but having the fixed point of a sleeper from Milan on the evening of 15th November meant fitting around that. The most optimistic version would have had me going to Durham, visiting the Lumière festival tonight and staying in Newcastle before a train to London and then the Eurostar. It all felt a bit too brave and I couldn’t find a recovery position if I missed either the Eurostar or the train following that.
So here we are instead on a slightly less ambitious plan, with contingencies built in. I’d decided that I wasn’t going to burn a precious day of domestic Interrail pass on something as mundane and cheap as a trip to London, so rather than the luxury option of first class travel then a Eurostar to Paris, I’d booked London Midland to Euston then would be ticking off another different route across the channel by taking the Dover-Calais ferry.
This strategy perhaps needs a bit of explaining to non-Interrailers. In your 10-day (or whatever length) pass you get two days to use in your own country. The theory is that you use them to leave and come back home but the rules are that you can use them any time in the validity of the pass so in the past I’ve made the best possible use of them, travelling via Penzance and Dundee, for example. I do have a plan for this one, but more of that another time.
My plan was to leave home, drop into Stoke to see mum, then leave the car in Stone before heading to London. That went to pot before I’d even left home due to a work-related problem. I was running 3 hours late when I finally boarded the first train in Stone. I would have missed the Eurostar anyway, so that’s one contingency used straight away and I’m glad I’d not pre-booked it.
A change in Stafford got me onto the local service to Euston. I got into an interesting conversation with another passenger who was an exchange student in Manchester, but from Italy. She was asking me about my plans and sharing bits of her experience in return. Our conversation got cut short just north of Milton Keynes where there was a rather unpleasant sound from outside the train and we were soon advised that we had hit an animal and the service was being terminated.
Decanting the whole train onto an already busy station was not fun. I actually waited for the second service but there was a plan here, as the detail I had checked was that it arrived first because the earlier service stopped everywhere.
Euston at rush hour is never lovely. I escaped and walked to St Pancras.
The further delay had seen to my last chance of crossing the Channel tonight. As an outbound service from London at that time it was also packed. I spent the journey travelling backwards with my bags on my knees. At least I was sat down.
This one had a change at Ashford and given the day I’d had up to now it wasn’t even a surprise to hear the announcement that the connecting service was running 25 minutes late due to a points failure earlier in its journey.
Waiting here got me wondering, where do the Eurostar trains pass through? I didn’t see a one, which seemed unlikely. if anyone knows, do let me know.
I finally arrived in Dover around 8:20pm. I parked myself in the station waiting room to do an urgently needed work call before walking to the hotel I’d booked an hour earlier. After dropped my bags (and a bit more work) I went for a wander and to find some food.
Dover has a quite pleasant waterfront but I can’t say the rest of the town has anything that immediately jumped out to me barring one very amusing bit of signage on an old building. The food options were not great as it was now getting on for 9:45pm. I’d hoped to go for a curry but the one place that showed on the map was closing early due to lack of customers so I ended up in a fast food place before calling it a night.
Last job of the day was to book the ferry for the morning. Although it is only a short walk to the port from my hotel, I still have an early start as we need to be there 90 minutes before the 9:45am departure. I wonder what that is all about?
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