Trains, boats, no planes - getting one bike and two panniers from England to Italy

Trains, boats, no planes - how one girl got one bike and two panniers from England to Italy

Fleeing the country for Easter and that wedding, I took myself on a cycle journey from Naples to Sicily but to spice it up a bit made it into a carbon neutral challenge, travelling from London to Naples by train.

It was the sustrans bit that I really wanted to test: the difference between saying ‘bikes allowed’ and it being a genuine policy with facilities and logistics that make it truly viable.

The Eurostar set up in St Pancras doesn’t make it easy to transport bikes but there is a general attitude of helpfulness once staff have gone through all the don’ts instead of the dos of their cycle policy. Bagged is free but wheeled on costs £30 and goes via the Euro Despatch Centre which is a good stomp away from the passenger check-in area.

My Eurostar arrived in Paris on time but I wasn’t quick enough down the train to the cargo carriage. The lightning quick staff had already unloaded my cycle and taken it to the cargo depot, another stomp away to a far corner of Gare du Nord.

I had one and a half hours to cycle through Paris to Gare de Bercy for my sleeper train. It was always going to be tight but this delay made it even tighter.

Having completed the meticulous paperwork I left the station twenty minutes later, cutting it very fine but I was still okay – until I double-checked my route with a gendarme. BAD MISTAKE. He sent me way off course.  My mettle was tested and never have I been so relieved to hear a train was delayed as when I was battling at Bercy packing my Kona in its bag. Sure as socks I would have missed the sleeperhad it been on time. The adrenalin swooshing inside me was surely audible all the way back in Bermondsey.

To be blunt, my opinion of the Paris-Rome Artesian sleeper service is appalling. It is a clapped out 80s throw-back of a train and on the way out I had a vile chef-du-car whose face turned to thunder at my temerity of attempting to get a bike bag, and panniers, into his carriage. It isn’t coming on my train his pointing finger said. I think you’ll find it is, I thought as I hefted it up the high awkward steps. Bikes HAVE to be bagged on the Artesian train and when they are there is no sensible space for them to be stored. I had to leave mine over the couplings between carriages, the guard refusing point blank to allow it in my couchette despite the other occupant being entirely willing. On the way back there was no water in the carriage for ablutions of any sort for the entire fifteen hour journey, the drop down bunk beds did not work, and the staff were disaffected and disinterested in helping.

There was also no morning refreshment service to couchette travelers despite this being included in the ticket. The buffet car though was serving a flat rate €9 ‘breakfast’ which was instant coffee, a small carton of concentrated juice and a packet pastry accompanied by a strong sense of us all being taken for a ride. Going out the train left Paris ninety minutes late and arrived in Rome over four hours late. Skills. No announcements to keep passengers informed, and certainly no apology.

The Italian intercity service puts the Artesian service to shame. It is brilliant: professional, conscientious and courteous. I missed my reserved Naples connection but the staff straightaway put me on a later train with no quibbling and the rolling stock is designed with passenger needs in mind, not just profit margin. Eurostar should take a leaf out of their book: the luggage storage areas are roomy, as are the seats, and the aisles are actually wide enough to walk down with luggage without knocking the elbows and knees and feet of seated passengers. There’s no denying that a bagged bike is a cumbersome piece of luggage and I leant it against the luggage rack instead of trying to lift it in, but it didn’t block the aisle and the guard didn’t turn a hair.

Arriving in Naples I couldn’t rebuild my bike fast enough. I didn’t even walk as far as the ticket barrier but took a few steps along the platform and immediately set to work with my Allen key.

Naples terminal is on Piazza Garibaldi. If, after a long, tiring and testing train journey you need a bit of tranquility, steel yourself. The anarchic clamour and chaos and gridlock of Garibaldi traffic is quite magnificent.

Beware: lots of local Italian trains do not take bikes so check, oh wise ones, before travelling.

And to give the boats a look in it costs €2.50 to get from Villa San Giovanni, the toe of Italy, to Messina in Sicily. Simply roll up to the little ticket booth on the dockside, pay your money and soon the gruff sailors beckon and point you in the right direction into the bowels of the ferry and knot your bike to a railing with a well-used and oily bit of rope. Basic but effective. In half an hour you’ve crossed the straits and are in Messina. Sicily to Naples is also simple, €57.50 for an overnight crossing, there’s no fancy departure lounge just hang around on the dock while the freight containers are loaded with deft, bravado speed onto the enormous ferry, and push on up the ramp when the coast is clear.

It isn’t easy but do it. The more cyclists travel by train in Europe and test obstreperous conductors, shoe-box storage space for bike bags, and ill-thought out platform logistics, the better the facilities will become. It was a crazy, adrenalin pumping experience but it had to be done. And then there was the 580 miles of cycling. Love it! Do it!

by Alice Beneyto