Rail politic TRAVEL Cheap air travel is great, but it may end up

Sunday Herald, The, Jun 17, 2007 by Words JOANNA BLYTHMAN

I HAVE been trying to reduce mycarbon footprint. The washing machine goes on at 30infinityC, my composted kitchen waste is fertilising the shrubbery that I have turned into an organic potager. My household has one small car, so energy efficient that it qualifies for reduced road tax. I use the bus regularly. I recycle diligently.

But I still have to face up to the fact that the growing list of little green 'ticks' on my environmental record chart are effectively obliterated by one very large red 'cross' my air miles.

Being a journalist, I have at least got an excuse for clocking up some air travel. Just in the last year, for instance, I have made two longhaul air trips to Darjeeling and Barbados to write features. I can vaguely justify them on the basis of the need to report from around the globe on food issues.

When I go to London for work, usually monthly, I take the green option and travel by train on GNER from Edinburgh, which is, on the whole, a reliable, civilised and even relaxing service.

When I sit there with my pile of newspapers, my book and my wholesome picnic brought from home, I pity all those poor blighters who shuttle up and down the UK in planes, enduring the security hassles, noxious air and endemic delays in the mistaken belief that it is a superior form of transport.

But when it comes to holidays, I have binge flying tendencies.

Foreign travel in sunnier climes has always had a magnetic pull for me. I have been hooked on cheap flights and Ryanair's Michael O'Leary has been my dealer.

I vowed to do better. Where, we wondered, could we reach by train for a week's holiday ? It had to be abroad. Hillwalking in the Highlands, or mountain biking in the Brecon Beacons just didn't hit the spot. I wanted somewhere where people speak a different language and eat different food.

We came up with the Loire Valley in France. I had never seen all those amazing chateaux, and the travel looked do-able.

We began by working out the trains and the timings, a process made remarkably easy by the userfriendly Rail Europe website. Lap one was Edinburgh to London Kings Cross; lap two, Eurostar from Waterloo to Paris Gard du Nord; lap three, a change of stations by Metro in Paris to pick up the train toTours the jumping off point for our holiday. All this, Edinburgh to Tours and back home, cost GBP180, including returning first class on Eurostar. Not bad, we thought, and no more expensive than taking the plane.

We booked. The tickets all correct and comprehensible with useful information about Tube and Metro connections arrived the next day. In the event, all the travel went smoothly.

We left Waverley Station at 8am and were at our hotel in Tours, some 1000 miles away, by 10.45pm. And that was allowing too much time for things to go wrong, which they didn't. GNER was its good old dependable self, Eurostar was smooth a bit like being transported on an ultracomfy, gliding armchair.

In November 2007, when its magnificent-looking new terminal is due to open at St Pancras, Eurostar will be an even more attractive option for Scots arriving at Kings Cross and Euston.

Incidentally, a Eurostar journey emits 10 times less CO2 than flying.

Coming home was even quicker because we caught a TGV, a superfast train, from Tours, which covered 200 miles in about one hour 20 minutes. Both ways, the trains were pleasant, clean and stress- free.

You need a lightish case and a reasonable level of fitness for carrying luggage on and off the Tube and Metro, but otherwise, the changes of station were no big deal.

At Tours, we copped out and hired a car, but you could do many of the most famous chateaux by local bus or train. Beautiful Chenonceaux, for example, has an evocatively retro train station just outside its grounds. There are organised chateaux trips from the Tours tourist information office, starting at 19 euros.

And what of the Loire?

It has some of the most stunning stately homes and castles you'll ever visit amidst some of the most monotonous landscape you'll encounter in Europe. There are pretty riverside views to be had, the odd hilly, more wooded corner, but prepare for endless prairies of oilseed rape and barley. Towns and chateaux are the thing here, not the countryside.

Now I'm checking out the Rail Europe website to see what other countries I can get to. My binge flying addiction is giving way to the thrill of travelling by train, with its intoxicating sense of moving through the landscape.

By train, there's none of that befuddling "Fasten your seatbelts and take it from us six hours later that you are in Dubai" stuff. This trip was like the travel of my youth, when I whooped with joy to see the white cliffs of Dover, when the changeover from your North of France map to the South of France one was a much-loved ritual.

You feel geographical transitions when you travel by train and experience that elating, oldfashioned spirit of adventure. I'm hooked.

NEED TO KNOW

How to get there Book online www. raileurope. co. uk or call Rail Europe 08705 848 848.