In My Kitchen June 2024

I am as amazed as anyone that we are at the start of July and halfway through the year.  But so much has happened and changed so far that it seems a lifetime since the start of the year.  June has seen ill health, work on our outdoor plumbing, new verandah awnings, a long weekend, the winter solstice and the end of Term 2 of school.  The weather is very wintery but I am enjoying going for bike rides with my fingerless mittens that I brought home from Scotland.  At home we are enjoying more soups and stews.  Fruit here is less plentiful with mainly mandarins and frozen berries.  More on my activities last month is in My Monthly Chronicles.  I continue to tinker with my blog header.  I am still not sure if it needs more work.  I have also updated the introduction to my Recipe Index.  And on it goes!

Above is a Chipotle Black Bean Bake, which was nice and lasted a few nights.  It was a dump and bake recipe on From My Bowl website but it took quite a bit of time to prepare the vegies.  We added kale and fresh corn as well as substituting some of a freekah and barley mix for some of the quinoa.  It was lovely with some tacos on the first night.

We've had some savoury baking this month.  Sylvia was determined to bake English muffins.  They are not technically baking.  After she kneaded the dough and left it to rise, she patted it out and cut it into stars to "bake" on the frypan.  We loved them but she saved some dough for the next day and that was a bit doughy so success seems a matter of getting the heat right.  I have also baked a Spinach and feta slice and a batch of Cheesy broccoli, carrot and corn muffins that I posted this month! 

I sometimes wish I liked eggs when they look so pretty.  Sylvia recently made some Ramen eggs.  The marinade was made by boiling soy sauce, mirin, sake and sugar.  She mostly ate them with rice but I only photographed the ones she ate with toast.  She was very pleased with her work.  Meanwhile we had a ziplock bag of eggs in marinade in the fridge for a few days looking like some alien spawn.

My lemon and lime trees are hanging in there.  We have had some healthier lemons since the manky ones I posted last month.  The citrus leaf miner (CLM) seems to have abated somewhat.  No more silver trails.  Only a handful of curling leaves.  There is still less fruit on the lime tree but if it can have a period without CLM maybe I can then let the new growth flourish.

It is so satisfying to have lemons, parsley and dill from our small garden when cooking dinner.  The dill is a recent addition to the garden and is mostly thriving.  When we changed to a bigger netting cover in the original pot, the dill thrived.  But the dill that we moved to another pot has not grown so well.

I picked the lemon, parsley and dill to used in this Lemon Dill Quinoa Casserole we found on From My Bowl.  We made changes by substituting some freekah and barley for the quinoa.  I had soaked overnight after I had too much for the below stew.  

I also made the suggested Green Goddess Dressing to serve it with.  I substituted some raw cashews for two thirds of the tahini.  The tahini still was a dominant flavour.  We drizzled some on our casserole but had plenty over to use as a dip.  The green colour of the parsley and spring onions was delightful but did not photograph well!

I made this stew to use up the vegetables left in the fridge when we went grocery shopping.  It was so satisfying to have an empty crisper.  It was so satisfying to have a delicious stew rather than adding to the compost.  I also finally used a freekah and barley mix of grains.  It was freekahing amazing.

In the past I have found too many grains (in leftover stews and soups) soaks up the liquid and I wanted to avoid that.  I was really pleased the morning after cooking that the stew wasn't too stodgy.  Although I soaked the grains for about 20-30 minutes in boiling water while I chopped and fried the bulk of the vegies (celery, onion, carrot, cabbage, potato) before adding 2 tins of tomatoes, soaked grains, 3 tins of legumes, vinegar and seasoning.  The final addition was the kale.  It was so good

When I went out to an evening work function, Sylvia made Creamy Mushroom Gnocchi with added spinach.  We were both happy that there was plenty leftover.

In my draft folder were my notes of making Delia's Oven Roasted Ratatouille in 2018.  I finally made it again.  Delia Smith is a much loved British author and this is a genius way of making ratatouille that I had previously made on the stovetop.  It took a while to salt the eggplant and zucchini but it was worth the time.  I used tinned tomatoes rather than fresh tomatoes but the vegies were still roasted to crispy edges.  I would like to include this as a regular winter warmer.

I finally bit the bullet and purchased a new cast iron 27cm "Chef Pan".  I love my 25cm frypan so much but it sometimes is just a bit too small.  The Pyrolux cast iron at our local kitchen shop is a reasonable price.  However I am not quite clear why my frypan I have used so much has a very smooth cooking surface and while the new pan is more rough.  It has been fun to make meals with two cast iron pans in action.

I love my cast iron because it is so indestructible.  I wish I could say the same of my old Willow non-stick bakeware that used to be sold in supermarkets for a song.  Now so much of the metal baking tins and trays are non-stick.  Even good non-stick kitchenware does not last as long as these older ones.  The non-stick coating will eventually start to peel off.  I wish I could still find the Willow tins and trays but for now I am just trying to keep them suitable for use.  

So I was upset when this 20cm cake tin, which is like the ones I grew up using, got a rusty ring from drying against another dish.  I had worried it was the end for the tin.  Then I cleaned it with some heavy duty steel wool and a generous squirt of dishwashing liquid (because too much scrubbing without can leave a stain but the dishwashing liquid seemed to prevent that).  It is now looking back to its usual condition and should last a while longer.

Every now and again Sylvia requests her favourite Tofu Nuggets.  She would happily eat these every night.  Then she saw people posting about dino nugget volcanoes.  They looked pretty cute on mashed potato volcano with gravy lava and broccoli trees.  So we bought some dinosaur cookie cutters to shape the tofu nuggets.  It did not work because it seems that home crumbing does not look as neat as the ones made in a facory.  And the cookie cutters leave odd shaped tofu in their wake.  Not to despair.  I am sure they tasted better than the packaged ones but we wont be making dino tofu nuggets again.We might try some dino potato parsley shapes or pastry shapes or biscuits at some stage.    Although they did taste delicious!

We shared this amazing cauliflower, blue cheese and pickled onion danish from the Ovens Street Bakery (19 Ovens Street, Brunswick).  They describe themselves as a micro bakery.  Sylvia says it is a hole in the wall with some seats and a small but decent lunch menu including toasties and pizza.  She speaks very highly of them so I hope to get there some day.  Especially after tasting this wonderful savoury danish.

These purchases were probably about packaging as much as the substance.  I loved the name Tofu Tots.  Although we don't use the term Tater Tots here, it is pretty cute and then is a riff on it.  I also liked the sound of the miso mushroom flavour.  I really liked them but Sylvia was not so keen on the flavour.  The Golden Gaytime was bought because it was my favourite ice cream when I was a child and now they keep coming out with new flavours to tempt me.  Honestly, I don't love Golden Gaytimes as much as I used to and I don't rate the Strawberries and Cream flavour among their best.

We did a scan of the British food in the Aldi centre aisle.  Strangely enough they had a packet of Smiths Cheese and Pickles Crisps.  Smiths is an Australian company that does not usually sell this flavour.  It is a far more common flavour in the UK.  I though the Aldi British specials were about British brands.  We enjoyed them.

This Walkers Shortbread bus in the Aldi aisle was more British and seems more likely to be direct from the UK.  It is pretty cute with the people on the bus and some Scottish icons like puffins and castles.

We have been big fans of Melbourne Kebab Station (451 Sydney Road, Coburg).  It is an unassuming kebab shop that only takes cash payments (unless you order on UberEats) and does fantastic food.  After grocery shopping we were lacking energy and bought a large Vegetarian meal to share.  It has falafels, rice, salad, choice of two dips, and Turkish Bread.  I have had this meal a few times before but it was Sylvia's first time having the Vegetarian meal.  She loved it as much as she has loved the other food like pides and bread that she has had from here.

We bought these mini mushroom bao dumplings from an Asian supermarket in the CBD.  Sylvia had tried steaming dumplings in the microwave but found they got soggy bottoms.  I improvised with the dumplings resting on chopsticks over small tubs of water in a large enough tub that I could seal the lid so they steamed without being soggy.  They were delicious.  Perhaps I need to buy a microwave steamer container!  It would be a good investment given how much we love dumplings in our place.
 

 I am sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the In My Kitchen event. If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by 13th of the month.  Or just head over to her blog to visit more kitchens and her gorgeous hand drawn header.

European holiday - souvenirs (and a list of posts from my trip)

This is my last post from our European trip (Edinburgh, London, Rome, Zurich) in January and February.  At the end of this post is a list of all the posts I have written on this trip.

 

It is a chance to share some of the souvenirs we brought home.  Most, but not all, are mine as Sylvia got most of hers away too quickly to photograph.  At the end of a month in the UK I always feel like I should have bought so many more souvenirs but also that I am lucky to have so many that I did buy.

 

I start with the top photo of some London souvenirs.  Some icons are essential: Big Ben, Telephone box, Post box, and a fry-up from St Pancras Station  A telephone box from Camden Market. A handkerchief to the iconic department store: I bought a beautiful handkerchief at Liberty.  A pair of Moomin socks and a spoon from the Moomin store at the iconic Covent Garden.  Souvenirs hold so many memories.

 

I start with some of the tickets and business cards.  It used to be that everywhere had nice tickets or at least sturdier than a flimsy credit card recipe.  These days they are not a given.  Some are still lovely.  Tickets are from major attractions such as the Vatican Museum, The Colosseum, Westminster Abby and Highgate Cemetery.  The business cards are a variety of businesses and the transport tickets include the one paper ticket we bought for the underground when our digital wallet was not accepted at one station.

 

The Cameron Toll Sainsbury;s had everything.  It was huge!  If I was going to be locked up in a shop I think I would choose this one.  Lots of good food, books, clothes, kitchenware and plants.  I'd just have to get some woolly jumpers to make up a bed on the cash register conveyor belt (turned off, of course).  I love this stainless steel pastry scraper with the ruler-style measurements on it.  It has been great for bread baking.

We could not resist these mugs from Marks & Spencer.  Like a lot of crockery these days, they seemed to be supersized when compared to my older mugs.  Sylvia loves her gold stripey mug and I am in love with my puffin mug with the green insides.

We picked up this Guilliano Tartufi truffle set of spreads and oil at the Campo di Fiore Market.  There were so many truffle goods on display but we only had room for this one.  The spreads are excellent on a mushroom pizza.

My favourite Rome souvenirs were from Miss Babbingtons Tea Rooms.  The cat bag is gorgeous and rolls up into a small bag.  The notebook had the loveliest illustrations.  I also like my mini Trevi Fountain, the miniature packet of pasta on a fridge magnet, and some pens with a story.

Sylvia was very cross that I bought this charming miniature libreria (bookshelf).  I, on the other hand, was very pleased with my purchase, even if it was a tad pricey.  I love these sort of tiny unique works with lots of detail and history.  My only concern was that it would break or get rejected by customs australia but I never regretted my most expensive purchase.  When I yearned after other wonderful souvenirs I could not take home with me, my mind would go to this one and contentment would chase away the desire.  t makes me very happy to see it on the wall and think of the gorgeous little shop - Cartoleria Pantheon - in the Piazza Navona where I bought it from the man who crafted it.

Seems they like red in Switzerland!  I was pretty upset when my Swiss army knife was taken off me at an American airport soon after 9/11.  Zurich seemed a good place to replace it.  While there I also bought the Swiss chocolate fridge magnet and the national flag pen.

We left Zurich with a lot of Swiss chocolate from the Lindt factory.  We got our museum ticket refunded and probably spent the money on chocolate.  Some were presents but it was great to have some for us when we got home.  The Venchi chocolate is from Milan train station and the Butlers chocolate is one that my sister brought us from Ireland when she visited us in Ireland.  All.  So.  Good.

I listened to a great ABC Conversations interview with Jarvis Cocker recently and loved all his stories about his band Pulp.  An opportunity to buy a Pulp tote bag at Camden Market was not to be missed.

I wanted to add to my collection of Christmas tree decorations from around the world.  The Swiss clock and the London Mind the Gap sign will be great additions to our Christmas tree to remind us of this holiday.  At the Cathdral of Rome link I also bought a lovely little festive souvenir to display on a shelf at Christmas.

Our kitchen now has some shiny new additions.  The blue plate is quite cosmopolitan.  It lives in a Melbourne kitchen, was bought in Zurich from a Danish shop (Flying Tiger) we first visited in Dublin.  My plate from John Lewis in Edinburgh seemed second best to the more pricey William Morris plates but I have come to love it as much if not more than those William Morris plates.  In London I bought a stylish pot holder from the Borough Market pot holder and a London icons plate from Camden Market.

We brought home more edible souvenirs.  Some were unexpected delights.  The Sicilian lemon salt from the Borough Market was a difficult decision at spice stall with so much interesting foods.  I don't eat much jam but the chance to buy the Bramble and Blackcurrant Jam from Edinburgh Farmers Market was not to be missed because it is so very British and not likely to be found in Australia. 

Some souvenirs are surprises in different ways.  The Misura Fibrextra crackers from a Rome supermarket were meant for snacks in our holiday kitchen but  came with me on my travels and were with me when I got home.  They wee finally eaten with hummus and wistful thinking.  Other souvenirs are not what I expected.  The little purple lidded citrus looked brilliant when demonstrated at the Campo di Fiore Market in Rome but less impressive in action at home.  I have tried pushing it into a lemon a few times to squeeze lemon juice into the pourer but it does not seem efficient.

Sometimes the souvenirs are all about the packaging.  The Scottish Walkers Highland Cow shortbreads were too adorable to ignore.  They were a gift.  As was a packet of vegan kit kat I bought in Edinburgh for a friend.  I had meant to photograph the gorgeous packing but forgot.  The Popping Candy packet looked like fun. And I liked the retro packaging on the Creamola foam which are marketed as iron brew flavoured drink crystals.  When I got home, I was surprised that E was quite familiar with them from his Scottish childhood.

This lot of foods was in Sylvia's souvenirs: Tunnocks caramel wafers, Penguins chocolate biscuits and Sainsbury's golden syrup porridge.  She was very pleased to bring home a taste of Edinburgh.  As you can see there were quite a few foods to remember to declare at Customs when entering Australia.  I remembered most of them and the officers seemed pretty relaxed about packaged foods.  Even the fudge-like tablet (not photographed) got through.

Tea towels are such a great souvenir.  Easy to stuff into an full suitcase, useful for wrapping more delicate items and bring some colourful memories to the kitchen.  The Highland coo tea towel from Edinburgh was so bright and cheerful.

This tea towel featured Rome icons that look seriously vintage with the sepia tones.  We managed to visit most of these so that tea towel holds many memories.

The Plates tea towel from the Museum of the Home in London demonstrates that a plate is not just a plate.  Each tells a story or as the website puts it more eloquently: "This design is inspired by domestic ephemera from our archives; it features a curated mix of hand drawn plates from different eras, revealing stories of personal taste and ceramic innovation."  I like to think that our eclectic pile of bread and butter plate in my kitchen is also a curated mix!  There are a few on the tea towel that I would not mind adding to the pile.

I bought this London tea towel because it is in the same style as one I have of Edinburgh.  I really like the line drawing style of the Architectural icons and the way they are presented together as though you just need the right place to see them all at once.  If only! 

The Seaweed tea towel was bought at the V&A museum gift shop which had the most gorgeous fabrics.  It is described on the website as "Lovely tea towel featuring Seaweed, a wallpaper by John Henry Dearle (1860-1932), produced by Morris & Co., England, 1901."  I would love to have such wallpaper in my house but it is not so practical.  For now this tea towel will have to suffice.

I took these photos of souvenirs when I first got home from our trip a few weeks back.  I blame the jetlag on including the popping candy in two photos!  There are a few gifts in this photo: a gorgeous thistle fold up carry bag that I have been loving using and some serviettes with Scottish slang from Anne.  The little recipe book from Steampunk in North Berwick has lovely photos.  We didn't get to go there but HH knows we are very fond of North Berwick where she and E have spent many happy days.  The glass on the little atrium broke on the plane, which made us sad.  And you can never have too many Edinburgh fridge magnets!

The purple suffragette figure is also a present from my sister while we were in London.  The other items in this post as from Sylvia's souvenirs.  The Jellycat Acorn was a fun travel companion.  Sylvia loved the miniature buildings and bought a Trevi Fountain, a Houses of Parliament, a Big Ben and an Edinburgh Castle.  She also liked her tote bags which include one from the Moomin Shop and one from Flying Tiger.  And she was delighted with the little wooden mushrooms from Ragamuffin in Edinburgh.

Waterstones is such a great bookshop and they do some fine tote bags.

These fingerless gloves are also from Ragamuffin in Edinburgh.  They had such beautiful knitted items.  I hope they might be useful for bike riding in winter.  We bought quite a few clothes on our travels but I didn't photograph them, other than these gloves and some Scottish loch ness monster socks.  I loved the little bothy (rural cottage) and the wee hairy coo.  I bought the bagpiping angel fridge magnet from St Giles.  I was given one years ago when I finished my volunteer work at St Giles but it has fallen apart so it was time for a new one.

Postcards used to be a big thing in souvenir shops but seem to be phasing out, taken over by social media and better quality smart phone cameras.  I brought home a few that I liked.  They might find a place on a wall somewhere.  The Glasgow one is because I was amused by the traffic cone tourism, the Edinburgh Robert Messer brush shop one was for old time's sake, the black and white one is from our fondue dinner Zurich, and I was amused by the science one (if only science could find a cure for stupid people!)

One of the last souvenirs I bought was one of those pieces of adorable detritus: an M&S carry bag with the Scottish Saltire made with oats, blueberries and blackberries.  I admired it whenever I saw it in the shops or seeing people carrying it about in Edinburgh.  One on of my last days I bought one as it was easy to pack and such a nice reminder of our time in Scotland.

As I noted at the start of this post, this is my last post on our trip to Europe.  Over the last few months I have written a massive 47 posts on the trip.  (That is more posts than I wrote in the whole year of 2022 and almost as many as I wrote on 2021.)  It has been fun but has also taken a lot of time.  I am looking forward to posting less regularly and catching up on posts about life in Melbourne.

Holiday posts list

Overview

• Planes: meals, views and reflections
• European Trains: food, views and reflections
• In My Kitchen: March 2024 - holiday kitchens in Europe

Edinburgh (and Glasgow)

• Edinburgh dispatches: Kildonan Hotel, Longniddry and meals
  
• Edinburgh miscellaneous eating out (and our apartment)
• Edinburgh: shops and signs, including Harry Potter and Scots language
• Edinburgh: National Scottish Portrait Gallery and random buildings
• Edinburgh markets - Farmers, Grassmarket, Tron Kirk
• Edinburgh: Maison de Moggy cat cafe
• Edinburgh: Mimi's Bakehouse, City Art Centre
• Edinburgh: David Bann Vegetarian Restaurant
• Edinburgh: Makars Mash Bar 
• Edinburgh: Fiddlers Arms pub
• Edinburgh fry ups: Holy Cow, Coffee Mill, Edinburgh Larder 
• Glasgow: Kelvingrove galleries and Glaschu at the Western Club 
  

Rome:

• Rome dispatches - our apartment, an aqueduct and buildings
• Rome miscellaneous: ancient buildings, fountains and food
• Rome: Molino bakery pizza cucina, San Giovanni
• Rome: Basilica Santa Croce, Aurelian walls, Giardini di via Carlo Felice
• Rome: San Giovanni Lateran Basilica and Scala Sancta  
• Rome: Trevi Fountain, Amorina Gelato and al Picchio Restaurant
• Rome: Romeow Cat Bistrot
  
• Rome street art
• Rome: Alfredo Alla Scrofa restaurant, birthplace of Fettuccine Alfredo
• Rome: Babington's Tea Rooms and the Spanish Steps
• Rome: Campo de' Fiore Market, Forno and the Pantheon
• Rome: Colosseum visit with lunch and a touch of confusion
• Rome: Vatican Museum, Pastasciutta lunch and Cafe Vaticano gelato
  

Zurich

• Zurich: Old Town, Lindt and churches
• Zurich: Burgstein's Gasthaus Penalty
• Zurich: Swiss Chuchi (Hotel Adler) fondue

London

• London hotel: Holiday Inn High Street Kensington
• London Eastend: Vagina Museum, Museum of the Home and Hackney City Farm
• London: Shoryu Ramen, Kensington
  
• London: Camden market
• London: The Muffin Man tea room in Kensington
• London: Borough Market and The Mudlark pub Sunday roast
• London: Victoria and Albert Museum
• London: Covent Garden and West End
• London: Nopi, an Ottolenghi restaurant in SoHo 
• London: Highgate Cemetery
• London: Whiskers and Cream cat cafe
• London: Mercato Mayfair food hall
• London: Westminster Abbey
  
• London: Wallace Collection private art collection
• London: London Eye, transport, shops and miscellaneous

 General

• Planes: meals, views and reflections
• European Trains: food, views and reflections
• In My Kitchen: March 2024 - holiday kitchens in Europe
  

 

European Trains: food, views and reflections

One of the highlights of our trip to Europe was the train travel, especially travelling through the Swiss Alps.  It wasn't easy to take photos out a train window but Sylvia and I gave it a red hot go!  The scenery was amazing, the stations were beautiful and it was fun to buy food on each stop.

I originally planned we would fly from Rome to the UK but most flights were not direct or cheap.  It made train travel with a Eurail pass much preferable and so much more relaxing.  

10 reasons trains are preferable to planes:

1. Train companies don't send constant promotions to pay for extras such as premium seats or extra checked in luggage that you had never considered and certainly don't need but feel FOMO if you don't pay for it.
   
2. Not having to pack luggage with decisions on what to take on-board and what to check-in because you will never have to queue for a train with stewards threatening that if someone doesn't volunteer to check-in their carry-on bags that the stewards will randomly check-in people's carry on luggage.
   
3. Your luggage does not have to be weighed or screened so you feel shamed at forgetting you have accidentally put your favourite swiss army knife in check-in and have it confiscated.
   
4. No one tells you to empty water bottles and take your shoes off as you go through security trying to remember not to make jokes that would make them angry and decide to strip search you.
   
5. Gorgeous historic train stations are such a joy to walk through. Airports are so modern and ugly and so ridiculously big.  Taking a bus from one terminal of Heathrow to another takes forever.
6. Bigger windows and better views on the trains.  You actually see the landscape and buildings in the countries you pass through.  Even the people change as the trains disembark and pick up passengers.
   
7. No waiting at baggage carousels and seeing your luggage pass you by before you can reach it and then having to watch the conveyor belt meandering around the circuit again before your luggage returns.
   
8. Less money and time on travel to and from the train stations because they are far more central than airports.  You are far less likely to be ripped off by a dodgy taxi driver.
   
9. None of the take off palaver of checking your seatbelt is done up, your seat is in the upright position, your tray is folded up, luggage is stored in the overhead locker or under the seat in front and watching bored air stewards doing the safety demonstration, and then wondering what to do with the pillows and blankets that are taking up previous space around your seat.
10. Trains don't feel as cramped as planes.  You are given pillows and blankets that are great if you need them but take up space when you don't.  Meals are fraught when the passenger in front decides it's time to move their seat back into recline position.  And after the meal you are left with a mess of bags, boxes and cups while you wait for the air stewards to collect them because there are no bins. 
    
    

The first train station I visited was Edinburgh Waverley Station when I took the train to Longniddry to visit my friend when a couple of days after our international flight arrived.  I just noticed that this was the only train trip on which I was greeted by a familiar face, laughing as we made our way from opposite end of the platform towards each other after a long absence!  Above is one of the Walter Scott quotes that adorn the station that was named after one of his novels.  The Scots claim that Waverley is the only rail station in the world to be named after a work of literature.  One more reason to love Edinburgh.

 

I purchased 4 days in a month Eurail passes that started when we left Rome for Zurich.  (It would have been to Venice the days before if I hadn't double booked our accommodation but that is another story.  Thank goodness it wasn't too hard to rebook our Eurail tickets.)  When we flew from Edinburgh to Rome on Ryan Air, the only airline doing direct flights, we only took one piece of check-in luggage between us.  My sister-in-law kindly minded the biggest suitcase at her house in Edinburgh. We also each had two small pieces of carry-on luggage on the plane.  This is a photo of the cases we wheeled along but we also  each carried a backpack.  The purple suitcase only had two wheels and the grey bag had no wheels.  If I do this trip again, I want more luggage with four wheels.  The brown bag is one we picked up in our travels and Sylvia used to pack souvenirs.

The first trip on our Eurail pass was from Rome to Zurich via Milan.  The day before we left I went to Roma Termini Station where we would start our journey because it was one of the nearest places to find an English language bookshop section.  (I bought Kate Atkinson's Big Sky.  I love everything she writes!)  I took the chance to check out where we needed to go to catch our train.  It helped on the day we left but I still got confused when we arrived with all our cases.  The photo above is from the McDonalds where Sylvia stopped to get her last panzerotti and I got a boring tomato and cheese sandwich.

We were accosted by a strange old man who didn't speak English but seemed to want to help us without being requested.  He tried to make us take the escalator but when we decided to take the lift came with us, muttering grumpily.  Then we got to the wrong floor and had to take the escalator back, which Sylvia did not like with all the cases.  He got tired of our ways and left.  But when we went down the escalator we turned a corner and found the platforms we needed.  I could not work out if the guy was an escaped lunatic or a good fairy.

This is the carriage where we sat in opposite seats from Rome to Milan.  The tables were good for using my laptop but the wifi was not great.  We found that trains varied in the services.  Some had good charging points but not good wifi and some vice versa.  Portable chargers were important for using digital devices on our days where we had long journeys of 6-8 hours.

After about 4 hours travel we stopped in Milan in time for lunch.  A little time to see the city would have been great but I wanted to get to Zurich before dark because the views sounded too good to miss at night.  Sylvia made a beeline for the Venchi shop that sold gelato and chocolate.  She loved having gelato most days in Rome and wanted to make the most of it before leaving Italy.  She had a strawberry gelato.

 

 

I was more interested in the buildings of the Milano Centrale Station.  While Sylvia ate her ice cream and minded the luggage, I had enough time to go out into the main hall to admire the architecture of the high arched ceilings, large skylights and artworks over doorways.  We also enjoyed browsing the souvenirs.

We had also bought some lunch at La Focacceria.  Sylvia loved her Fuze peach and rose iced tea - her best iced tea ever - but was not so impressed with her cheese flatbread which was soggy after sitting in the paper bag too long.  I hit the jackpot with an amazing green burger patty, cheese, lettuce and salsa in a soft focaccia.  For my drink I had a lovely Lurisia La Nostra Aranciati, which was a fizzy orange juice drink.  It seems great to get different drinks while travelling and then disappointing to find that Fuze and Lurisia are owned by Coco Cola! We also got Fonzies to snack on and some cough lollies for my cough because my asthma had been bothering me.

The train from Milan to Zurich was quite new and clean.  While I liked our carriage I was a little jealous to walk through the train to the restaurant car (for a Lindt ball each) and see the children's carriage with lots of fun images and play space.  

The oddest moment on the train was - I think - soon after we crossed the Italian-Swiss border.  Some police came on board with a large german shepherd dog on a leash who was sniffing everyone's luggage.  I have read that though there are no passport checks, certain goods should be declared.  They stopped and talked to a woman behind us for a while but in Italian or German so I did not understand.  I expected they to frogmarch her off the train but it ended quite amicably.

 

The highlight of travelling by train from Milan to Zurich was outside not inside the train. When we first saw the mountains there was no snow.  We had just had a mild week in Rome where temperatures were too warm (about 15 C) for the coat I had purchased in Edinburgh.  So I was not expecting too much snow.  Even without snow the mountains were stunning as well little towns located in the small livable space between mountain and lake.

 

Finally we began to see more mountains, some snow and signs of roads and infrastructure around us.  I did not read about the Gotthard Base Tunnel until I came home.  It tunnels under the Alps to save time.  Given that we took the fastest train possibly, I am pretty sure we went through it.  I would have thought I would remember being in the longest rail tunnel in the world (57km).  It was some consolation to read that it opened in June 2016.  That means that last time we were in this part of the world, it had not yet been opened. Also it only took 20 minutes for the train to travel 57km through the tunnel.  Wow!  I remember lots of tunnels so I guess this was one of them.

 

One of the really impressive sights from the train were the little towns nestled in the gaps between mountains.  Such a beautiful sight with snow capped mountains looming over them.  It felt like Heidi and Clara might have lived in one of them.

 

The dappled snow on the peaked mountains made for stunning scenery that was constantly changing as the train flew through the Swiss Alps.  Amazingly we even had sunshine and blue skies.  We could not ask for more.

 

We also passed a lot of lakes which reflected the mountains.  Unfortunately the photos often also included my reflection in the window, or worse the train lighting especially in the late afternoon.  

 

We arrived at Zurich Hauptbahnhof at 5.27pm, over eight hours since we had left Rome at 8.50am that morning.  It was getting dark so we bought some pretzels and took our suitcases out into the city to find our apartment in Zurich.

 

 

 

Two days later we were back at the Zurich Hauptbahnhof to travel to London, via Paris.  This photo is taken after we had a quick visit to McDonalds because Sylvia wanted to try their egg and cheese muffin because they weren't doing breakfast when we were there before our 9.34am train left.  (huh?)  I loved the fountain outside the station as well as the grand old station.

 

 

 

Inside the station the entrance hall was fairly empty but there many many people once we were on the concourse by the platforms.  This was where the shops were.  We returned to the pretzel place, taking it in turns to mind the cases while the other went into a shop. 

 

 

 

This was our train.  Sylvia took the photo and texted it to her dad back in Melbourne who told her it was a  famous train.  The TGV is the French high speed rail network initiated in the 1960 and opened in 1981.  the TGV Lyria is the high speed train network between France and Switzerland.  It is now also referred to as Eurocity but the historic TGV brand still signifies impressive technological breakthroughs.

 

These trains were really long and train travel involved a lot of walking down long platforms looking for our coach number on each carriage.  Not as much walking as in an airport but it still seemed considerable.  Finding the seat numbers in our carriage was not so difficult.

 

 

 

Here is some of our food from Zurich: McDonalds fries, pretzels and a tub of pasta salad that did not live up to its promise.  I had the Pelligrino sparking water.  Sylvia also had the Ramseier apple juice, a Swiss brand she was already familiar with.  She found the McDonalds fries were meh but told me that their apple pie had a nice warm gooey sweet filling (her response to my memory of my parents telling me that the apple pies tasted like cardboard after their first visit to a McDonalds restaurant).

 

 

 

Travelling high speed through Switzerland and France was lovely.  The scenery was not as dramatic as the Alps but had a gentle charm.  The rural landscapes were broken up by pretty French villages with older buildings clustered around an ancient stone church.  When we stopped in Dijon for passengers to disembark and hop on, all I could think was mustard!. It was not easy to get photos to reflect the countryside.  Possibly I had used most of my photo energy on the Alps.

 

 

 

We arrived at Paris Gare de Lyon and found that the 1 hour 34 minutes allocated in our ticket to board the Eurostar to London was very little time.  It took ages to grab some food, take a local RER train to Paris Gare du Nord, queue for baggage screening, then passport control and drag our luggage along the seemingly never ending routes between platforms.  Sadly, it was enough time for me to baffle a local with my poor schoolgirl French when asking directions.  Sigh!  It was terrible to hurry through the entrance hall of Gare du Nord (above photo) and glimpse the gorgeous Parisian buildings outside and not even have time to dash out onto the street and admire them.  Not even time to stop and admire the historic stations.  Of course I would have loved to have more time between trains but I didn't want to arrive in London too late.

 

It was just as well that we stopped at a bakery soon after arriving at Gare de Lyon to buy some pain au chocolat and a tub of fruit salad.  Once we got on the Eurostar we were very glad of the pain au chocolat.  Sylvia enjoyed the apple in the fruit salad and left me the pineapple.  I don't know what they did to that poor pineapple but it was so awful I spat it back into the tub and was left pining for fruit (no pun intended).

We got on the Eurostar in such a rush that I felt disorganised in the cramped seats.  It was far less space than the other trains we had taken with the seats in front of us feeling very close after previous seats were opposite each other.  

 

My other experience of the Eurostar was when I first went to Europe almost 30 years ago and missed the bus to the ferry from France to the UK.  I took the Eurostar instead and I was back in London that I would have been if I had caught that bus.  I have such fond memories of that trip.  Not like this more recent trip!

 

 

This was the view of London's St Pancras railway station when we arrived.  I loved this statue, The Meeting Place by Paul Day, that evokes the romance of meeting at train stations, especially in wartime.  St Pancreas is a beautiful historic train station that I would have loved to have time to explore.  Instead we headed for a drink at Blank Street Coffee.  Sylvia was very impressed with her matcha blueberry latte and I was happy to have a kombucha.  

 

Then we had to walk the maze of connections between St Pancras Station and Kings Cross Station where we had to make sense of how to get tickets to the tube because last time I was in London it was all paper tickets and now it is mostly digital.  Then we took the tube to our hotel in Kensington, going the long way around the Circle Line to avoid changing trains with all our luggage.  

 

We were unable to avoid dragging heavy luggage up the stairs at High Street Kensington Underground Station near out hotel or arriving on a dark rainy evening.  A stranger directed us to an alternative route to the hotel that had more cover from the rain which we followed but were on the lookout for attacks as it seemed such an odd thing to tell us when we had not even asked for directions.  We were very glad to arrive at our hotel and rest at 6.30pm after we had left Zurich by train at 9.30am that morning.

When you see even my hasty photo of St Pancras Station behind this small food market in the courtyard linking St Pancras and Kings Cross stations, it is clear why this wonderful 1976 article calls it 'St Pancras - cathedral of Britain's railway stations.'  We were here about a week after arriving.  It was time to return to Edinburgh on the route of the famous Flying Scotsman train.

I was pretty excited to see this food market with so much delicious baked goods.  I told Sylvia to stay with the cases while I quickly bought some food.  That's my story.  Hers is that she did not know where I was going.  So she left my small suitcase and found me as I was paying.  I panicked as I realised that my case with our passports, my laptop and medications was left unattended.  And we were already running late.  I had visions of my case being stolen by unscrupulous thieves or exploded by the bomb squad.  I ran back to it and was so relieved it was still there.  Then I went back to Sylvia and to pick up the baked goods I had paid for.  As I chatted to the salesperson she said never ever ever leave luggage unattended here! 

 

This is the only photo I have of the interior of the St Pancras station as we left.  I was stressed and worried about running late after having to ask directions to our platform.  We got onto the train just on time.  It was almost empty.  I did not like our seats so we found some vacant ones that were opposite each other.  The train then sat there another 15 minutes while lots of people came onto the train.  Grrrrrrrr!

 

 

Despite all the hustle and bustle of getting to our train, we had some very nice food for the journey.  The cheese sticks were excellent.  Sylvia was very pleased with a a biscoff doughnut.  I loved my large chewy gooey chocolate hazelnut cookie.  The cheese jalepeno cornbread muffin was disappointingly dry.  The loaf of bread was for our Edinburgh apartment.  I looked forward to having a kitchen after a week in a hotel. We also took the oreo cookie and the cheese and onion samosa to the apartment.

The train to Edinburgh is one I have taken many times before.  It is familiar in a comforting way.  And it was lovely to see this part of the British countryside again that I had not seen for many years.  

 

It never ceases to amaze me how different new British houses look compared to new Australian houses.  They always bring to mind the song Little Boxes that says "they are all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same".  (Note: I always thought this was a British song and surprised to find it was written by American singer-songwriter Malvina Reynolds.)

 

Old farm buildings in the midst of the green fields on an overcast day is so wonderfully British.

The reflection of this bridge in Newcastle was lovely.  We also saw Newcastle's famous Tyne Bridge that looks so like the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  But as I said earlier, it was far easier to spot a great sight than to photograph it from the train window.  I also love seeing the impressive Angel of the North artwork near Newcastle.

 

My final train journey was a day trip to Glasgow.  I took this photo of this cute little train shaped planter on one of the stations we passed while outward bound.

 

Finally I returned to Edinburgh for the last time on a cold February evening.  I arrived at Haymarket station, too tired to take any photos so I finish with one of Edinburgh Waverley Station where I had left that morning and where I started this post.  

It was fantastic to do so much train travel on our trip and to see so much of Europe compared to our usual trips to Edinburgh.  It was easier to travel with Syvlia as a teenager than as a little kid.  I wish I had made more train journeys during my travels of Europe.  Maybe there is more train travel ahead for me.  And I don't just mean the Melbourne suburban trains!