In conversation with Hidden Europe

Ahead of the launch of the 18th edition of Europe By Rail: The Definitive Guide, Harriet Matthews talks with Nicky Gardner about the history of the book and what to expect from the latest edition.

Q: Can you give a brief introduction to Hidden Europe?

My name is Nicky Gardner and I'm one half of hidden europe, a small initiative based in Berlin. For a long time, as part of a really strong personal commitment from myself and my partner Susanne Kries, we've been involved in a series of projects encouraging people to travel differently: in more sensible and conscious ways.

A long time ago, 20 years ago, we set up a print magazine—hidden europe—which was designed to explore Europe's cultures and communities, and lives on as a body of online work celebrating the diversity of European lives and landscapes. Susanne and I have also worked on several books, but the one that's closest to our hearts is Europe by Rail: The Definitive Guide, the 18th edition of which is set to be published later this month on October 24.

Q: What kind of travel appeals to you?

We've always been ones to not plan too much, to make sure travel keeps that serendipity of discovery. We value stumbling across somewhere and saying, “Hey, this place is lovely, let's stay not just for one night, but for three or four days.” Of course, this is a huge privilege. It comes with the fact that we've had jobs involving remote work for more than two decades, and that lets us make those kinds of decisions and do things on the spur of the moment.

We've also been ones to take things slowly, and we've often felt that too many people rush too far, too fast. We get a better sense of community and a better feel for the landscape when we pause and let our souls catch up with us.

15 years ago, we published something called “The Manifesto for Slow Travel”. We didn’t put too much weight on it when we published it, but no other article published in the history of hidden europe has been republished so many times—it's now translated into over a dozen languages. I hardly open another travel magazine these days without seeing one or two of the ideas that were first embedded in that manifesto. One of the first serious reviews of the manifesto for slow travel said, “This is a manifesto for traveling overland. It's a manifesto for the journey.” And that's entirely true. We'd been doing that for a long time beforehand in hidden europe. If there was one phrase that was a leitmotif in the early editions of Hidden Europe, it was this: journeys matter.

Journeys matter, and they're too important to just take by plane. We don't take a hard-and-fast stance on flying, but we do think you miss so much when you fly. So we fly very sparingly and almost never within Europe. There's something inherently convivial about the train that's never been a feature of plane travel or car travel. What's wonderful about the train is the snapshot you get of other communities. For example, I can get on a train in Berlin, and people hop on for a short ride through Slovakia, a longer trip through Hungary, or a short hop through the Czech Republic. I will hear multiple languages and talk to multiple people. Train journeys are wonderful. They’re there to be enjoyed, and there to be savored.

Q: How did you first discover this kind of travel?

We both had earlier lives in which we traveled too much, and too fast. I worked in large organizations and would have a meeting one day in Nice, the next day in Zürich, and the next day in London. I eventually realized it wasn't much fun. Having said that, I at least always took time to look around the places,  and my heart was always with exploring landscapes and communities. Now, while occasionally we do stay in nice hotels, we're quite downbeat and humble in our approach to travel. We’d often opt for simple locally-owned accommodations (with more emphasis on nice places rather than extravagant hotels), but we tend to avoid staying in places which are too luxe. I think I can honestly say that in many years of travel writing, I've never written a positive word about an infinity pool!

Q: How did the original Europe by Rail book come about?

We first got involved in 2007, initially as mere contributors to the book. We rewrote about a hundred pages and realized that the book was a bit long in the tooth. It was aimed at the backpacker market - and, by this time, the backpackers had converted to cheap flights. 

People who were traveling by train back then (say in 2007 or 2008) were much more like Byway customers, more likely to have a decent pension than a student ID, and more likely to be using a suitcase than a backpack. So we went to the original publishers and asked whether they would be interested if we took over the book, and it changed to being a book wholly authored by Susanne and myself. It took time and many editions, but that's what we did. 

It's changed from a book entirely about places, to a book more about journeys. What’s made the book special is the nuanced descriptions—at their best even quite literary descriptions—of the journeys. If you were to read our new French route in the 18th edition, you'd see that it's written in a style that celebrates everything from French philosophical concepts of the nation-state and the importance of the Capital, right through to the importance of lentils of the French diet. These are things that don’t appear in other travel books.

One thing I would say is that if you try to use the book as a canonical source of information and facts, I think that is where people often slightly stumble. It is interesting because sometimes someone will ask if I could pen a description of Verona, and of course, I can. But to be honest, you might find out more about Verona on the Wikipedia page than you will in our book. What we're good at is describing the train journey to Verona. 

The other thing is that the text is often quite opinionated. You may disagree with those opinions, but you’ll find the odd remark perhaps saying, “You may want to avert your eyes as you go through x or y because the architecture is not brilliant.” I think having a book which gives opinions is something that you don't pull off the Internet every day, and that's one of the things we've tried very strongly to do.

Q: How has the 18th edition built on previous editions?

Hugely. For example, the Hamburg to Copenhagen train was no longer using the Puttgarden-Rodby ferry, so we had to rewrite that route. The first reprint came out in July 2022, just a few months after the April publication, and by then the book already looked quite different.

In early 2022, we were hopeful that many Balkan train links that had disappeared during the pandemic would return. Routes from Belgrade to North Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Croatia had vanished, and sadly, they haven’t reappeared. In the 18th edition, we’ve removed Belgrade completely, as it’s now too isolated from other routes. But it’ll surely be back in the 19th edition, perhaps in 2026 or whenever, as a brand-new railway is being built through southern Hungary to the border with Serbia.

Despite these losses, the 18th edition has added a lot. We’ve significantly improved our coverage of France, including a route that doesn’t go through Paris for the first time. This new route runs from Caen to Angers, then on through Saumur, Tours, Bourges, and Lyon, to Valence. We’ve also improved our coverage of southern Poland and added a route across the Tatra Mountains. In Spain, we had to update the route due to the cancellation of the Santiago de Compostela train from San Sebastian, which we’d hoped would be reinstated in 2023, but sadly has not.

We’ve also rewritten several of the Sidetracks mini-features, added more about crossing cities, and encouraged the use of apps like Citymapper. Night trains are another big change—while there’s growing interest, we always sound a note of caution. They’re not for everyone! The new edition reflects the constant changes in rail services and how we’ve had to adapt to them.

Q: Which part of the new edition are you most excited about?

In the 18th edition, we have very consciously tried to encourage our readers, even in areas where there are high-speed trains, to travel on local services. It’s really been informed by our own journeys, one of which I did with Byway. I took a Byway trip in late February, where I traveled from the Italian border to Nice to Marseille to Lyon,  through Savoy and into Switzerland without setting foot on a high-speed TGV. I would say that's probably one of the strongest points. We even have a new two-pager on how to avoid going through Paris, and some of the more interesting trains that avoid Paris. We also have really commended Byway as we see Byway proceed with greater confidence to help customers experience the routes we’ve described in successive editions of the book.

Q: If you had to pick a favorite route of the 18th edition, what would it be?

I still think one of my favorite routes in the book is one that appeared for the first time in the 17th edition and has been slightly rewritten, and that is a route along the south coast of the Baltic. It's a journey from Hamburg via Lubeck, then to Strasund and beyond into Poland. It's an absolutely lovely route entirely on local trains, and it goes to places that Susanne and I both like a lot. Just last Sunday we took a day trip to Stralsund, which is one of the nicest places on the route, and just happens to have a direct train from our local station (which is Wannsee station in Berlin’s leafy southwestern suburbs).

Q: Lastly, you're often praised for your attention to offbeat places, and traveling off the beaten path. Do you have any advice for people looking to travel this way?

Yes. Get away from the airplane mindset that focuses on big cities. Real travel is about smaller places. It's about finding the small hotel, which may be quite simple, right by the train station, often in a small village. We tend to look for places that are quite small and not mainline stations. We always say that staying in a place with only 20,000 people is nice, but staying in a place with just 2,000 people is 10 times nicer. And staying in a place with 200 people is 100 times nicer! 

So, look for small places, and remember: not all who wander are lost. Wandering is a lost art. We love the fact that even in countries like France, you can hop on a slow train, find yourself in a small village in the hills, and say, 'Hey, this place looks wonderful, and since it's only four o'clock in the afternoon, let's go wander around and see if we can find somewhere to stay, and if we don't, we've still got somewhere else to go tonight.'

The 18th edition of Europe by Rail: The Definitive Guide is published on October 24. You can preorder on Amazon, Waterstones or any good bookstore. To order through local bookstores, reference ISBN 978-3-945225-04-2. MSRP £20.99. Find out more about the book at www.europebyrail.eu.

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