The Grand Tour 3: I spent cities like a handful of change (south)

(Part 1: can’t you hear that whistle blowing?)

(Part 2: rise up so early in the morn: north and east)

18 April 2018

My journey was the exact reverse of the one I’d taken forty-three hours before – but this time it was in broad, bright, day, a clear and gentle sunlight that suffused the landscape. We ran through pine forests, passed opaque blue lakes, and ponds still half-frozen over, wooden buildings painted red or yellow. First class meant free coffee, fruit, and chocolate truffles, for the mere trouble of getting up to collect them. From the window I saw two hares, and birds I’d never seen before. I took to Twitter for help identifying them. ‘Like a monochrome great crested grebe on stilts with a feather duster on its backside.’ The internet knew the answer. Cranes. It was, all in all, a beautiful afternoon.

At…