Have just had the best of jaunts – to Krakow! All organised by my amazing sister-in-law, what a city! What a fabulous finale to my trip!

Its funny, this trip has been planned, almost to the minute, since January – totally out of keeping with my usual mode of travel which is to arrive somewhere then open the guidebook and decide where to go and probably change my mind on the way. But even with all the planning there has been unexpected delights at every turn and the odd unplanned adventure and the fun and the interesting along the way. I expected it to be difficult, challenging, grim at times, exhausting….all sorts of things…..and the 2 things that linger in my mind above all others are the landscapes and the people. All those lovely people who I have shared time with in train compartments or during my stops, where are they now? What are they doing, as they live their lives so different from mine, and yet at the same time so much the same….

Are you interested in the planning?

I used the main in seat 61 for the initial planning : https://www.seat61.com/

and Real Russia to book the train tickets and organise the visas : http://realrussia.co.uk

both brilliant. Being me, I planned it all on a spreadsheet and it’s all worked like a dream!

My outward journey, all in kilometres, was :

260 Ludlow to London; 344 London to Paris; 3,480 Paris to Moscow; 9,289 Moscow to Vladivostok and add in 666 for the side trip to Mongolia, making a total of 14,039.

And of course back again, slightly longer on the way back with the diversion to south Poland – making a total of well over 28,000 kilometres or 17,500 miles, every inch by train with the exception of Katowice (south Poland) to Berlin which is 530 kilometres and which I will do by bus as its quicker, easier and cheaper.