Why my Train Journey of a Lifetime Started at the Airport<\/h1><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>From my travel diary, September 1st, 2021<\/h5>\n
![\"\"](\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%27%20width%3D%27300%27%20height%3D%27300%27%20viewBox%3D%270%200%20300%20300%27%3E%3Crect%20width%3D%27300%27%20height%3D%27300%27%20fill-opacity%3D%220%22%2F%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E\")
<\/p>\n
Stairway into the nothingness\u2026
\nI avoid flying whenever possible, but today, I had to. The Connecting Europe Express is starting in Lisbon tomorrow, and I\u2019m on board for part of the journey. And my inability to get there without flying just emphasises the point of this train. It would have taken me two days to get there by train, a journey that I couldn\u2019t have booked all in one go, and with no backup plan if one of the trains had a delay. One of the demands in connection to the EU Year of Rail is that booking international connections gets easier, and passenger rights don\u2019t stop at the borders.
\nOf course, the pandemic isn\u2019t helping. There used to be a pretty good night train from the French-Spanish border to Lisbon, but this connection has been discontinued in March 2020, with unclear prospects for the future. The different gauge in Portugal and Spain is another added challenge.
\nHowever, I hope the Connecting Europe Express will contribute to making this kind of travel easier in the future. Even though it\u2019s sometimes nice to see our world from above\u2026 the future is in trains!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138,139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-connecting-europe-express-2021","category-connecting-europe-express-2021-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3820"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4399,"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3820\/revisions\/4399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
From my travel diary, September 1st, 2021<\/h5>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/240948483_909613726652219_8825928390062245640_n-300x300.jpg\")
Stairway into the nothingness\u2026
\nI avoid flying whenever possible, but today, I had to. The Connecting Europe Express is starting in Lisbon tomorrow, and I\u2019m on board for part of the journey. And my inability to get there without flying just emphasises the point of this train. It would have taken me two days to get there by train, a journey that I couldn\u2019t have booked all in one go, and with no backup plan if one of the trains had a delay. One of the demands in connection to the EU Year of Rail is that booking international connections gets easier, and passenger rights don\u2019t stop at the borders.
\nOf course, the pandemic isn\u2019t helping. There used to be a pretty good night train from the French-Spanish border to Lisbon, but this connection has been discontinued in March 2020, with unclear prospects for the future. The different gauge in Portugal and Spain is another added challenge.
\nHowever, I hope the Connecting Europe Express will contribute to making this kind of travel easier in the future. Even though it\u2019s sometimes nice to see our world from above\u2026 the future is in trains!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138,139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-connecting-europe-express-2021","category-connecting-europe-express-2021-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3820"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4399,"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3820\/revisions\/4399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennifer-scales.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}