Slow travel: from Luxembourg city to Mola di Bari, Puglia by train ( with a Leica Q)
Finally, It is time to be on the road again, or, in this case, on the rails… Yes, indeed, this time I’ve decided to start my journey at a much slower pace. because I want to enjoy and feel it.
When and how the idea was born
Before getting on board for my next long distance trip (I’ll tell you where soon…), I have few days free and I need to reach my hometown, Mola di Bari, in the south of Italy. Of course, by instinct, the first thing I would do is to go to Ryanair website and book a direct flight that in only 2 hours will bring me home.
But… why? Do I really need to be that fast?
Wasn’t someone saying that the beauty of the journey is not the destination but the journey itself? So why I should enjoy only 2 hours, even under stress, while I can stretch it up to 48 hours?
Of course, the base requirement is to have time, so rare today, but I think we are wrongly getting used to travelling from A to B as fast as possible and only by plane.
To do not make it to long, a few days ago, with this concept in mind, I started to think how I could reach Mola di Bari in a safe and relaxing way and not too expensive.
By car? mmh no, even though it would be nice to cross all the landscapes and being able to stop at any place anytime. it could be too tiring and much expensive.
By boat? Well no, of course… :-p
By train? Yes, there it is! I love travelling by train, is a kind of open book on two rails, it contains so many life stories that I can even take great pictures along the way?
Wait…what? Can I also make a documentary reportage all along the way? Wooah, than, what I’m still waiting for? let’s go, let’s wear the backpack hang my brand new Leica Q and start.
The itinerary
Contrary to what I expected, the cost of the whole trip is not that expensive, we are talking about 200€ just the train tickets. But, as I want to travel in the daytime, I have to mention that I will have a stop ever in Bologna, gently hosted by my wonderful niece who lives there.
This means that I will even spend a great night with good food and wine before getting on the rails again the following morning… Isn’t way better than a fast 2 hours flight from A to B?
Here is the itinerary in detail, using Rome2Rio, a great free online travel planner.
Day ONE
Luxembourg Train Station to Zurich Central Station
Zurich Central Station to Milano Centrale
Milano Centrale to Bologna Centrale
Day TWO
Bologna Centrale to Bari Centrale
Bari Centrale to Mola di Bari, my home town (love love love)
What will I do all these hours on the train?
Well, there can be lots of things to do and this is the beauty of travelling on the train.
- For sure, I will try to document the whole trip by taking pictures with my brand new Leica Q camera, the perfect tool for street photography and documentary pictures.
- Then, of course, I will have time to read a book
- write the next articles for my blog
- maybe video editing on the iphone
- to observe and listen to other people’s stories
- eat something
- maybe visit Zurich for a just short hour
- relax
- dream
- plan
- and maybe sleep a little bit.
You see hoe many thing you can do on a slow travel?
Of course, you can argue, that I could have reached my hometown almost 2 days earlier, yes, but… I will most probably live these two days, these hours more intensively and arrive with much more new stories to tell…
I’m so thrilled to experience this “very normal” trip because, as I said before, I feel the need to slow my pace and enjoy the time with no stress and rush.
We continuously look for the extraordinary while we have so much of beauty also in the ordinary.
So my fellow friends, keep following me because there will be many new stories coming in the next three weeks that will see myself travelling to many different places, like the ones below…(spoiler):
Thanks for reading,
ciaooo,
Sabino
