Showing posts with label The Ghan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Ghan. Show all posts
The best new retro-luxe train journeys
You want to take a luxurious train trip in retro-chic style but don't want to do the long haul down under to ride Great Southern Rail's The Ghan or Indian Pacific? (Although trust me, they're worth it!) Then check out these new and old classic trains offering endearingly old-fashioned rail experiences:* The Orient Express - this sumptuous 'hotel on wheels' may be known as the grande dame of great trains, but there are in fact two sumptuous trains you can check into, the Eastern and Oriental Express, which travels through Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Laos, and the Venice-Simplon Orient Express, which does an array of routes, including the classic trips from Paris via Budapest and Bucharest to Istanbul, and the Venice via Krakow and Vienna to Paris trip.
* The Golden Chariot - this charming Indian 'chariot' is my favorite, running from Bangalore via Mysore and Goa back to Bangalore over 8 days, the beautiful train boasts two elegant restaurants and gorgeous lounges featuring proper dining chairs, as well an on-board gym and spa where guests can enjoy massages and treatments!
* The Danube Express - calling itself the 'Central European Train Hotel' this classic new train service offers a number of nostalgia-imbued journeys that you can join in Brussels, Berlin, Budapest or Istanbul, and enjoy in Classic and Deluxe Sleeping Cars - both look pretty swish.
* The Tangula Luxury Trains - due to start operating in a few months from Beijing to Tibet and Beijing to Yunnan, the only thing old-fashioned about these sleek contemporary-designed trains managed by the Kempinski group is the service and attention to detail - everything from spacious suites equipped with mini-bars and wireless internet access to personal butlers!
Want some more ideas? Check out these Eight Great Rail Escapes from the Man in Seat 61 and Dan Kieran's Slow Trains Through Eastern Europe.
The image? The lounge car on The Ghan.
Breakfast in bed and the romance of train travel revisited
Is there anyone out there who doesn't love train travel? I was pleased to see some of the comments in praise of rail travel on my recent post about Australia's transcontinental train, the Indian Pacific as I was thinking perhaps I'd just mellowed too much (read: aged). But Stella Stopfer from European Travelling Advisor wrote "One of the best ways to travel is definitely by train, wherever you go. I agree, there is nothing like the old "slow" trains most of us are used to. Gazing out the window, enjoying the scenery, writing...or reading a book...just amazing." While Pam from Nerd's Eye View said "Yes, yes, yes, I do love the sound of the train and watching the landscape go by in not quite a blur out the window. It's a GREAT way to travel, you can breathe and stand and read and nap and still watch the world roll by at a very reasonable pace that makes you understand distance." There's no denying the appeal of the slow pace, the scenery rolling by, the fact that we're forced to take it easy, and the freedom to move around and socialize, but does everyone find it as romantic as I do? I know I reflected on the romance of train travel fairly recently when I wrote about our journey on The Ghan from Alice Springs to Darwin (read that post here), however, I can't resist ruminating a little bit more. After all, how many other forms of travel in the 21st century are as romantic? Travel by cruise ship, for instance, doesn't have the same allure as it did in, say, Now, Voyager. When I think of cruises I either think of long dull days spent at sea or debauched boozefests. Plane travel? Nothing needs to be said there. But what is it exactly that makes rail travel so romantic? Is it the retro decor and plush interiors of a sumptuous dining carriage? Old-fashioned touches and personal service like a glass of champagne on departure, nightcaps by the bedside, and breakfast on a tray in bed? Or is it the social setting that encourages board games and card-playing in the lounge, pre-dinner cocktails with the tinkling of piano keys in the background, or tables for four that force passengers to sit together and enjoy shared conversation with fascinating strangers? That last one is not necessary romantic, but the notion is a romantic one in an age where social interaction is often limited to love affairs with i-pods, blackberries and i-phones. Don't you think?
The Ghan: nothing like the romance of train travel to rekindle a love for travel
There's a certain romance about train travel that's hard to imagine if you're sleeping upright in cattle class on an overnight interstate train trip in Australia. Ugh. But Australia now has something that comes close to the likes of the luxurious Venice Simplon Orient Express in the romantic train stakes - the new Platinum class service on The Ghan. Named after the Afghan cameleers who trekked the same route from South Australia to 'the red centre' in the Northern Territory with their camel trains in the 19th century, the shiny silver Ghan takes two days and nights to travel the 3,000 kilometres between Adelaide, Alice Springs, Katherine and Darwin. And then it trundles all the way back again. While you can travel on the Red or Gold Service, sleeping upright or on bunks in a snug sleeper cabin, respectively, the spacious Platinum class rooms (pictured) with flat beds, offer a level of comfort that's incomparable to other trains in Australia - as we were lucky to find out for ourselves recently! I'd spent my birthday working until the wee hours of the morning emailing files and maps to editors in London before we hit the road for a few months, and the next night Terry and I were hastily packing until the wee hours of the morning, trying to anticipate what we were likely to forget - aside from sleep and our senses of humour. So perhaps we appreciated that welcome glass of champagne a little more than the other passengers. And the bedside nightcap after dinner. And the coffee delivered to us in bed soon after dawn. There’s an endearingly old-fashioned restaurant car where three course meals were served with a smile (the staff are incredibly warm and friendly) and a smart-looking lounge bar, but our spacious rooms with private bathroom (including shower and toilet!) were very difficult to leave. Our two single beds were made up and stowed away while we dined, leaving plenty of room for us sit back and put up our feet and take in the changing scenery from either side of the train. Not that we had much time to enjoy it. Whistle-stop tours en route range from an early morning hot air balloon ride across the arid Alice Springs desert to an exhilarating helicopter flight over spectacular Katherine Gorge in Nitmiluk National Park. We chose the latter - and it was thrilling! My main complaint about The Ghan? Not enough time on the train; I probably could have done without the tours. I enjoyed gazing at the stars from my bed so much and got a such a kick out of waking up with sunshine in my face, that I would have liked to have spent more time on board and spent longer watching the scenery change.