LAST TRAIN TO GENEVA!....

Traveling by air is fast and convenient, when compared with other means of transportation, such as road and rail. But if one wants to see the ‘open big country’ of any nation, then road and rail are preferred. This is especially so if you have some holiday time on your hands as I did recently. Both come with a softer bite on the pocket, and if the country’s transport system and infrastructure are top notch, then you may as well fall into that temptation. 

And so I set out on a mini, cross-Europe tour from London Victoria Coach Station. I had booked a return trip, London-Paris-Lyon-Geneva with a combination of coach and train. The journey lasting two days, non-stop is not for the faint hearted but then I was on a mission and needed to return to base on due date.  

The Euro Bus coach took off at 13.30, local time.  I was conscious of the fact that though the 61-seater couch had only 5 passengers, it still left the station on schedule. The driver didn’t wait to fill the bus with passengers, and even if anyone was booked on the journey but was not there, they had simply missed the bus and would have to make alternative arrangements. Talk about where things work; but that is a story for another day.  Within two hours, we had reached Dover, the crossing point of the English Channel into France. 

Boarder control formalities were handled by polite English and French officials, each at their section of the post. There are two options to cross the channel, either by ferry or the Euro tunnel. Our coach took the later and faster option, which meant we had to drive into a rail carriage. Quite an interesting experience, riding into and through the belly of the earth encased completely in a rail car or rather box. 

Under an hour I got an alert on my mobile phone welcoming me to France. We arrived Paris Gelliani station on schedule later that evening. Following an error and oversight on my part, the trip which had gone well so far seemed to suffer a blip. I had missed the coach to Lyon, from where I had already secured a train ticket to Geneva. The whole trip was in jeopardy. It was a highly coordinated package that any slip can derail its entirety. I was sorely tempted to cancel the rest of the trip and return to London the following day. Thank God however, for technology in addition to my friend and brother in Paris, Chris Ajavun. Between 1am and 3am, using the Wi-Fi of the hotel I was taking refuge in, communicating via WASAP with Chris, he arranged and booked an SNCF speed train leaving Paris ( Paris Gare Lyon Station) at 07.11 and arriving Geneva at 10.30. This was actually the last train to Geneva ( if I have to meet my schedule), and with it the journey was well underway again.

In spite of its speed, traveling in the morning hours allowed me ample opportunity to take in the scenery through the train windows. No matter how interconnected and free movement within the EU is (there was no physical border checkpoint on the route, but the ubiquitous security cameras and information gathering system ensure control), it did not remove the fact that I was travelling from one country to the other. My journalistic spirit was awakened as I noted each milestone and town, we zipped past. I observed rural scenes similar to my village; not even the state of infrastructure could change that. This was contrasted also by industrial areas in major cities along the route.

On arrival at Geneva, another angel and childhood friend, Godwin Ajaegbu met up with me at Voyageurs Station, after the initial confusion having expected me at the Lyon-Geneva arrival point planned earlier.

Over cups of piping hot cappuccinos, we tried to catch up on old times, as we have not seen each other for well over 20 years. Ironically, he was my ‘‘escort’’ into Lagos, when I first came for National Youth Service (I haven’t been to Lagos before then. He was home from Lagos about the same time I was going to camp. So he arranged to travel with me and eased me into the camp at Yaba Tech!). Living in a border(less) town in France and working in Geneva, he knew the beautiful city and its unique identity as a ‘‘son of the soil”.

And if there was one place, I wanted to visit before leaving town; it was the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG). I learnt from my fried that it is located at the Broken Leg Square of the UN (named in honor of land mine victims all over the world). So we boarded the number 15 tram to Nations, took pictures, talked some more and then headed back to the train station from where after affectionate hugs and goodbyes, I latched back to my original itinerary (Lyon-Paris-London)….