My Other Passion

I think you all know by now that writing romance is my passion, but close behind is travel (also not a surprise), but more particularly sustainable travel. As the most popular sites get ever more crowded and reducing our individual and collective impact on the environment becomes more urgent, sustainable travel is such an important topic.

I was suppsed to live in Europe for ‘a year’, seventeen years ago and one of the main reasons I’ve stayed is simply because of the ease of travelling here, which I hope I will never grow complacent about. I’m also not here to judge people who have a car and travel primarily by car, because I know that’s the reality for most places in the world and anyone with a disability or small children doesn’t have much of a choice.

It’s such a shame that a lot of the places in the world with affordable housing have worse public transport, so the people who can’t afford a house in a well-connected area then also need to buy a car, which is only getting more expensive.

But I would like to encourage people to think about what they could achieve without a car – things like going on holiday! I don’t own a car (I’ve never owned a car in my whole life!) and it’s something that creeps into my books (more or less intentionally). You remember Cara didn’t drive, right back in My Christmas Number One? Lou in Italy Ever After also doesn’t have access to a car (although she gets a lift occasionally – including one memorable trip on a Vespa with Nick) and the epic trip back to tell Nick she loves him used eight – I think? – forms of public transport (and a tractor that doesn’t count). In Venice of course there are naturally no cars. One of the threads in Twenty-One Nights in Paris was Ren learning to use the Metro. Jenn in a Taste of Italian Sunshine had temporarily lost her licence and then in Snow Days With You, Luna discovers she doesn’t have the appropriate tyres for winter in Chamonix and ends up ditching her car for the winter. You see the theme here?

I’m continually impressed with the many trips I’ve managed, mostly with the family, only using public transport. Chamonix with public transport was completely unproblematic because you get a transport card that includes all buses and trains when you check in to any accommodation (how cool is that?). We got there by train too, which involved a scenic stretch over the border from Switzerland. It’s a bit of a long way around by train, but you get used to it (and it takes a long time to drive too). I even visited the Prosecco Hills with the kids on public transport, which was much more complicated (and not that cheap as the buses charged the same for adults and children!). But it was still a lot cheaper than hiring a car and I got used to the weird bus timetables while we were there.

I’m currently planning book nine and I’ve managed to sneak away from the family for a few days to soak up some atmosphere. I am so incredibly thankful that I could just book a train and head down. Because it’s very low season my pre-booked ticket was very reasonably priced and I could get all the way from my house in the middle of Germany to this beautiful (secret…) corner of Italy comfortably in time for dinner. It’s a bit difficult to believe that it was enabled because of the hard work of previous generations in building the rail infrastructure (especially through the Alps). My last train was a funny little line that only runs for 25 minutes along this one route. The carriages had orange-and-brown striped upholstery, the brakes screeched and the windows were so old and dirty I didn’t get much of a view, but I’m so glad that someone is running that line!

I love travelling and that’s the main reason I love public transport: I can travel long distances by sustainable means (most German trains are powered by sustainably generated electricity – the last train here in Italy was a diesel but at least there were lots of us on it!). 735km! And I arrived in the place in the picture below. Anyone know where it is? It’s pencilled in as the setting for book nine!