Saturday's Wanderlust

Catherine Deneuve bidding her true love farewell from a train platform
in Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

A Scene from David Lean's Impossibly Beautiful Brief Encounter

And here's Katharine Hepburn in David Lean's Summertime.  He just gets it.  

I have this thing about trains.  Like many other things in this world, I'm entirely too romantic about them.  And this is after countless trips along the Mid-Atlantic vying for a place in Amtrak's dining cars during holiday weekends.  Having spent too much of my formative teenage years glued to Turner Classic Movies (in between trashier fare), part of me still believes that train rides should involve pillbox hats, chance encounters with mysterious strangers and tearful goodbyes on platforms veiled by clouds of steam.

I spent my first year out of college in Bandung, Indonesia: a city in the mountains of West Java, surrounded by volcanos and tea plantations.  Among my most vivid memories are the train rides throughout Java, most frequently to Jakarta, three hours a way.  The railway wound through the mountains, past emerald green rice paddies, the occasional water buffalo and children living in rural areas who would gleefully wave and chase the train.  The trains themselves, though occasionally crowded, solidified my belief in the beauty of train travel: cars neatly appointed, surrounded by breathtaking landscapes, barreling towards unfamiliar destinations.

To this day, many of my bucket list travel destinations center around train travel.  There's the Trans-Siberian Railway from Russia to the Sea of Japan, the Danube Express from Venice to Istanbul and most recently, The Glacier Express: a day trip through the Swiss Alps.

Billed as the slowest express train the world (traveling 180 miles in eight hours), it boards beneath the Matterhorn.  From there, it traverses 291 bridges, 91 tunnels and naturally, some v. high mountain passes.  Best of all, this is all experienced beneath panoramic glass ceilings.

The Glacier Express, Picture via Twisted Sifter 

The Glacier Express, Picture via PureWow

P.S. A date once recommended this West Village bar, a throwback to the golden era of train travel.