Palermo, Venice, Paris in October

[Tin Can]

Jim, your wife is correct. What a train, what a trip.

I am big on trains. I study them, ride when possible and dream.

I want to take the Trans Canadian and Moscow to Vladivostok. The latter will not happen...

Bon voyage!

[Jim Andrada]

Hi Emmanuel

I THINK the train goes through Innsbruck but I'm not 100% sure. Some of them do, but from looking at their map it also seems that some don't.

I found an explanation on this page

https://www.seat61.com/Venice-Simplo...nt-Express.htm

In spite of its name, the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express no longer uses the Simplon route via Lausanne, Brig & Milan. Instead, it runs overnight from Paris to Switzerland and you'll probably wake up just beyond Zurich. When I last took it, I found the train running alongside the sparkling waters of the Zürichsee or Walensee with a breathtaking mountain backdrop, heading for the Arlberg Pass then the Brenner - although from 2016 it travels via the Gotthard Pass to Milan, only using the Brenner and Arlberg northbound. A Continental breakfast of excellent coffee, juice and fresh croissant is served on a tray in your compartment by your sleeper attendant. When I took it, the train clipped a corner of Lichtenstein and entered Austria via the wonderfully scenic Arlberg Pass - which once gave its name to the Paris-Switzerland-Vienna Arlberg Orient Express which used this route. The VSOE turned right after Innsbruck, and as a 3-course lunch was served in the restaurant cars we headed into Italy via the almost equally scenic Brenner Pass to Verona, passing Padua and Venice Mestre before finally rumbling slowly across the 2km causeway to Venice Santa Lucia station on the banks of the Grand Canal in central Venice, just 15 minutes walk from the famous Rialto Bridge or 25 minutes walk from St Mark's Square.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

From Randy
I am big on trains. I study them, ride when possible and dream.

Hi Randy.
So am I.
Since I discovered the German Bahn web site train ride planner (see below), I often use it to dream to improbable train, travels, including the legendary trans-siberian route; the German Bahn web site has almost everything European and Russian in its database, except, probably, the very special "private" train we are speaking about between Venice, Italy, and Paris, France.

https://reiseauskunft.bahn.de//bin/query.exe/el

+-------------------------+--------+--------+----------+
| Station | Arr. | Dep. | Train No |
+-------------------------+--------+--------+----------+
| Paris Est | | 18:55 | TGV 2077 |
| Strasbourg | 20:41 | 22:00 | EN 453 |
| Moskva Belorusskaja | 10:53 | | transfer |
| Moskva Iaroslavskaja | | 23:45 | D 2SZ |
| Vladivostok | 23:55 | | |
+-------------------------+--------+--------+----------+
| Duration: 196:00 hours

Look at the above web link and try to organize your future trip from Paris, France, to Vladivostok, Russian federation: the German robot will give you the answer, immediately

------------------

From Jim
I THINK the train goes through Innsbruck but I'm not 100% sure. Some of them do, but from looking at their map it also seems that some don't.

Thanks Jim, so very probably you'll cross the border between Italy and Austria at the Brenner pass. Much better than a tunnel; as far as sightseeing goes! However there is a major rail tunnel project to connect Italy to Austria by a record-length tunnel, the Brenner Base Tunnel.
Before that, you'll cross the DURST country at Bozen-Bolzano (the area is named Alto Adige in Italian, Südtirol (South Tyrol), as Austrians say, this is an old and painful European story; one century old, from WW-I; I let you discover what happened at the time) near Bolzano and then go to Inssbruck, then the Arlberg rail tunnel (opened in 1884) and then along the Walensee lake to Zurich, Switzerland.
This is a really magnificent route although you'll see nothing at night for many hours
From Zurich I'm anticipating the train to go to Basel, Switzerland and then from Basel to Paris through the conventional Basel -> Paris train line which is now less used by French railways due to the opening of a new high speed train line following another route.
But here, in such a train cruise, high speed is not an issue: comparing the speed of digital photography to the slow approach of LF photography on a tripod is irrelevant!

Nevertheless, in short, from Venice to Basel, crossing the Alps through the Brenner region, Inssbruck, Zurich, the itinerary is superb, you'll enjoy it. And if the route is eventually different, no problem, we'll try to identify the itinerary as well!

I'm looking forward to read here, in November, your report about this superb travel!

[Jim Andrada]

Thanks much Emmanuel. Of course I'll make a write up when the trip is complete.

[tgtaylor]

Since I discovered the German Bahn web site train ride planner (see below), I often use it to dream to improbable train, travels, including the legendary trans-siberian route; the German Bahn web site has almost everything European and Russian in its database, except, probably, the very special "private" train we are speaking about between Venice, Italy, and Paris, France.

Emmanuel - I'd love to take a trip like that! Do you know if a ticket can be purchased by bicycle tourists that allows one to disembark at scheduled stops and continue on a different train a day or so later with his bike? I've done a couple of month long bike tours in Europe but cycling and using the train is more appealing to me at this time in my life.

Thomas

[Jim Andrada]

Hi Thomas. Have you thought about the bike/boat river cruises. My wife and I had thought about doing one before I became "bionic" (repaired lower back, new knee) but it will probably be quite a while before I'll feel up to a week of biking.

[tgtaylor]

A few years back a spent a week or so touring from SEATAC to Anacortes and used the WA state Ferries to hop across and camp on the San Juan's, and then taking the ferry to Sidney, BC and biked down to Victoria where I took another ferry across the Strait to Port Angeles and the biked back to SEATAC taking the ferry across Puget Sound at Southworth. I was impressed with the Washington State Ferries and at one time considered touring the Alaskan coast using the ferries - getting off for a day or two and touring around on the bike - but I never followed-up on it. The trip that Emmanuel set-out above - starting in Paris (where I have never been) and ending in Russia (also where I have never been) is appealing if I can do it with my bike - getting off at interesting stops and spending a day or two touring with the bike and getting back on either at that location or maybe at the next stop on the route. Full time in the saddle is not as appealing as it once was.

Thomas

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

Hello Jim,

let me answer you.

I once lived in Paris during my studies in art history, and in Venice, too. I already hiked with cameras in Bretagne (Quimper, Mont St. Michel, St. Malo) as well as in Normandy (Bayeux, Caen, Rouen, Falaises).

You have chosen some of the most romantic places in Europe, and you want to connect these places with a great train experience and the freedom of driving around in a car. Distances are not so wide. You will be happy, Congratulations!

But here are some b-minors:

In Venice they're waiting for you and your camera. They will steal you anything they could sold, as soon as possible, perhaps already in the train station, at least on the vaporetto, so don't bring in your Linhof, don't bring in any precious gear, they're waiting for your delivery. They got razor blades to cut your sac on the bottom, then thy let fall everything in a plastic sac, the plastic sac will be given to the neighbor, even on a vaporetto boat, that ususally is too crowded to find out who has the gear.

Given the fact that there are zillions of tourist searching to protect their gear and staing in a huge knot of people you should free yourself with a little 6x6 folding camera eg. Zeiss Ikonta or a Voigtländer Perkeo II (I adore it!) with an excellent Color-Vaskar (equals a Zeiss Tessar or a Schneider Kreuznach Xenar, 4 lenses). Take a good exposure meter with you, an incident light meter like the admirable Sekonic L28c will be the best thing. Then you can swarm around. You will have nothing to lose. There are places in Venice where no tourist ever will come to, and there are the best trattorias and the most interesting artworks and the most pittoresque channels with real inhabitants, who are quite frendly and interested whenever someone is interested in them, too.

The same in Paris. I don't know wether you want to do sightseeing. To take good pictures of the monuments you should be there at six in the morning. At eight there will be the first zillions of visitors with their loud speaking guides. At six in the morning you can take your Linhof out of your bag, even at Sacre Coeur / Montmartre, but just mind that Paris isn't tripod-friendly at all. If you take the metro you will pass trough small entrance doors and there will be non-smiling soldiers with machine guns examining every suspect individual with a huge tripod and a great camera. French soldiers are quite severe ... So if you want to have some bizarre Pierre Richard moments, just do it, otherwise let it be. - Paris in the morning hour, with a café crème or an anisette in a bar near a train station, some cigarettes, watching PMU in Vincennes, taking photographs of the younger Parisiennes, out of the hip, with a Minox, your folder or a Rollei 35S, loaded with TRIX, that's it.

Palermo: isn't it in Italy, in the south? If you want to do some shots of the Etna or the landscape, then a Linhof could be great, like the Mont St. Michel in Bretagne. But if you stay on the hotspots, you should consider what I told you about Venice. Perhaps a Mamiya 7 would be nice, too. I would use the Mamiya 7 outside the towns, outside the tourist centers. But I would store it in a very old bag and let it in the hotel safe in Paris and Venice.

What about a little Mamiya C33 or C220? One size fits all.



Regards

Daniel

[Jim Andrada]

Maybe I should just take a 2 x 3 Graflex...

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

Maybe I should just take a 2 x 3 Graflex...

This is a great idea.

• You have tilt and shift and you can contemplate about your pictures.
• You can change the roll film backs doing color and b&w.
• It looks quite old and everybody will think you're an old-technique-aficionado.
• Given a sharp lens, eg. a Fujinon NW 5.6/125, you will produce enlargeble negatives.
• Two additional lenses with 46mm - 49mm filter size aren't heavy, e.g. Rodenstock Sironar N 5,6/150 or a Fujinon NW 5.6/105.
• It folds to a compact size and the thing will be quite sturdy when closed.
• All this will fit in a small insert, e.g. Tenba Byob 10.
• If you have got a rangefinder, you can act quickly, and without a tripod to focus via ground glass - this is important when doing snap shots and street photography.
• It is light weight: about 2000g with 2 magazines and one lens.
• You could do great macros in Sicily and France.
• You can use a light weight Gitzo Weekend 0-series or a Cullman Mundo 522, 900-1300g with smallish dimensions.
• -- A drawback: changing ground glass to roll film holder ist fiddly, and everybody sees you when your under your focusing cloth. - If you don't have a range finder ...
• Another great option for your trip would be one of these fantastic Fuji 690 texas leicas, or a really great and foldable Voigtländer Bessa II 6x9 with Color Heliar or Apo-Lanthar ...

Bye