Ooh, sleeper train from London to mountains!
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I loved the 9 days M and I spent up in Scotland last year and I just read about the coolest way to get there.
From The Guardian:
Perhaps I’ve seen The 39 Steps one too many times, but I’ve always thought there’s a specific romance to the idea of a sleeper train. Unlike a plane or a bus, the sleeper offers the real promise of sleep as time travel, a kind of soporific teleportation complete with beds, pillows, sheets and blankets.
I’m not disappointed. After a couple of drinks in the train’s bar we turn in, two to a cabin, in ship’s berth-type bunks. There’s even a tooth cleaning set with a little vial of water for rinsing your mouth.
In the morning the real magic of the sleeper is revealed. Duncan, our host for carriage M, wakes us at 6am with coffees, teas and Scottish shortbread. Half an hour later, the train pulls into Dalwhinnie on the edge of the Cairngorms national park. We soon find ourselves alone on the platform, the train a disappearing glint, a loch at our backs and the wilds of the Scottish Highlands opening before us. It really is a strange sensation. To be in a state of stillness all night as Britain passes you by. To dream through an entire country, half-woken by the occasional shunt of the engine, before being rocked back to sleep. Then, come morning, to find yourself in a new world to the one you closed your eyes upon.
Must do this.
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