One book: 140 years of travel history

But the March 2013 issue of the “Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable” is not just any timetable. This edition marks the 140th anniversary issue of the book that has become the bible for rail travelers across Europe.

During almost the entire life of Europe’s railways, the Thomas Cook timetable has become the indispensable companion for train travelers across the continent. The book started life in 1873 as “Cook’s Continental Time Tables and Tourist’s Handbook” and was for several decades known simply as “Cook’s Continental” — those who really affected familiarity with the European railway scene would abbreviate the title to “The Continental” or the ever terser “Cooks.”

Nowadays, it has morphed into the “European Rail Timetable” (“ERT”).

The 140th anniversary edition of Thomas Cook’s European Rail Timetable.

What’s inside?

The anniversary issue of the ERT is packed as always with rail and ferry schedules from across Europe, throwing in a few trams and buses for good measure. If you need to know on which dates the Moscow to Belgrade train carries through carriages to Skopje, this book has the answer.

This current March 2013 issue has a supplement on cruise trains and rail-based holidays. And the regular “Beyond Europe” section is this month devoted to China (even including cross-border rail services from China to Pyongyang in North Korea).

There are previews of the summer 2013 European rail schedules, most of which will be introduced this year on June 9.

In addition there is a wealth of material to mark the 140th birthday, with a retrospect on how the book has evolved over the years. That includes facsimile reproductions of old schedules (going right back to 1873).

And Thomas Cook marks this anniversary by introducing a new regular feature called “Route of the Month.” It is just a couple of pages of prose, evoking the spirit of a particular journey. They kick off with Salzburg to Vienna. But the idea recalls the very earliest days of the publication. Back in 1873, it was more than just a timetable, but also a handbook for tourists. The “Route of the Month” gives new life to that idea.

Brand power: Thomas Cook

The title may have changed over the years but this monthly publication remains the defining product of the entire Thomas Cook brand. The company has its roots in 19th-century railway history and even though many of Thomas Cook’s clients may nowadays opt for the plane over the train, the company’s trump card and key selling point is its ability to build on a rich historical tradition firmly rooted in the early work of the company’s founder.

Developments in technology have served only to underline the importance of good timetable information. Mark Smith, the rail travel guru who runs The Man in Seat Sixty-One website, nicely captures the success of the ERT in his comment: “Internet or no internet, nothing rivals the Thomas Cook timetable for laying out the routes, trains and options for travel across Europe and beyond, and I’d be lost without it.”

The one thing you will certainly not normally see on the cover of the ERT nowadays is a steam train. But in a nice gesture to history, the March 2013 issue does recall the age of steam. Oddly, the very first edition of the book in 1873, apart from the obligatory train pic on its cover, also included a camel. The camel was eased out to make way for a Rhine steamer in 1900.

This very special edition of the monthly timetable is certainly one for the archives — every bit as handsome as the March 1973 centenary issue that has now become a rarity much sought after by collectors.

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Recently images from the new book have been making waves across social media sites, particularly Muratyan’s map of Paris that replaces arrondissements with New York neighborhoods.

The Café Francais, in Bastille. Photo: SSedro

For those who know both cities, the comparisons are uncanny, so I thought it might be fun to see which ones are spot-on and which ones seem like a stretch:

1. Bastille – Bowery, East Village: Spot on.

The young, artsy, still up-and-coming Bastille neighborhood where the Revolution ceremoniously began (well, for some) reflects the same vibe you get walking through the gentrifying East Village – although Bastille is much better serviced by the subway system.

2. Marais – West Village, Chelsea: Spot on.

The quirky gay-friendly Marais has all of the vivacity of Chelsea and the West Village, with pricey boutiques to match.

3. Latin Quarter – Greenwich Village, NYU: Stretch.

50 years ago it would have been true, but besides being student neighborhoods, the Latin Quarter feels much more like a tourist trap than the Village. It’s a place where students occasionally study and party, with none of the urban campus vibe of NYU where thousands of students actually live.

4. Montmartre – Gramercy: Spot on.

Severely gentrified since its Belle Epoque bohemian days (think Moulin Rouge) Montmartre, much like Gramercy Park, is a charming place that most people just look at with so few possessing the keys (read: money) to truly access this neighborhood.

5. Passy – Upper West Side: Stretch.

Young people live in and like the Upper West Side. Some young people live in Passy, but no one likes it.

Tourists stream down the Champs-Élysees. Photo: Caribb

6. Champs Elysées – Times Square: Spot on.

Both are equally avoided by locals. At all cost.

7. Arc de Triomphe – Washington Square: Stretch.

We get the similarities, but the Beatniks and students at the Washington Square arch have nothing in common with the Napoleonic greatness of the military-inspired Arc de Triomphe.

8. Choissy – Chinatown: Spot on.

Porte de Choissy is Paris’s liveliest Chinatown, though New  York’s version is even more vibrant.

Taking in Times Square. Photo: Ed Yourdon

9. Saint-Germain – Upper East Side: Stretch.

While they share similar qualities like museums and old rich people, Saint-Germain has many redeeming ones for locals, including great restaurants, boutiques, and endless café culture. The Upper East Side has redeeming qualities as well.  Just give me a few minutes…

10. Louvre – The Met, Union Square: Stretch.

Two big museums, OK, it was necessary. But I’m not sure about the Union Square comparison aside from the skateboarders.

11. Opéra – Theatre District: Spot on.

Locals and visitors alike flock to the area around the Opéra for a night of ballet, music, or comedy in one of the many smaller venues that fuels Paris’s theater scene. Even though theaters are found all over the city, the majestic Opéra Garnier and its little brother the nearby Opéra Comique are two of the most popular.

Your comparisons? So urban dwellers, what do you think about the comparisons between these cities?

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We first stumbled on Jonglez’ work in Brussels, when his guidebook Bruxelles Insolite et Secret led us to parts of the Belgian capital that lie well off the regular tourist trails.

The “secret” formula

Since then books from Jonglez Publishing have become firm favorites that give us a fresh perspective on some of the most celebrated cities on the west European tourist circuit. That first Brussels book included cameo accounts of factories and allotment gardens, and descriptions of intriguing toilets and apartment blocks, to complement more predictable Brussels fare such as art and architecture. And that first guide was quickly translated into English.

Subsequent Jonglez volumes follow the same formula, though as the series has evolved the company has placed more emphasis on the supposed authenticity derived from having local authors. “Local guides by local people,” runs the blurb on recent English-language volumes covering Rome, Madrid, Venice and London. So these guides are an antidote to globalization, a chance to pause and take note of what is peculiarly distinctive about the cities covered by Jonglez guides.

Secret Paris

This is a marvelous series of books. They are all impeccably researched and well-illustrated, with little inset boxes succinctly explaining the background to the various sights. We learned, for example, why there are so many crêperies in Montparnasse and why so many Paris theaters lie north of the Grands Boulevards.

And it is not as if the Jonglez guides neglect to mention more established sights. It is merely that they reach the parts of European cities that other guides simply ignore. And the books are hugely effective in endowing the reader with a sense of having privileged access to areas of European cities that lie well beyond the regular tourist haunts.

So we must confess that, when recently in Paris, we skipped the Mona Lisa and instead followed the call of Jacques Garance and Maud Ratton, authors of Secret Paris, to see the only level crossing in Paris, visit an Antoinist temple and discover a pagoda converted to a cinema.

The series

Éditions Jonglez publish English-language city guides covering Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Florence, Geneva, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Paris, Rome and Venice. They also have area guides to the French Riviera, Tuscany and Provence.

The books are titled Secret Amsterdam, Secret Barcelona, etc. Additional titles are available in French, and some books have been translated into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch. In the USA the books are distributed by Globe Pequot Press.

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“Easily the best atlas there is.”

The best investment we ever made was in a handsome atlas, but it’s clearly something for the home library rather than to carry on a journey. We have dipped and delved into many atlases over the years, but the clear winner in our book is The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, which travel writer Paul Theroux nicely commended as “the whole world in a single volume,” and Bill Bryson dubbed “easily the best atlas there is.”

Britain and France

Various national mapping agencies in Europe produce first-class maps showing roads, railways, landscape features and more–generally only for their own territories.

Top of the range is the classy cartography of Ordnance Survey (OS), once Britain’s military mapping agency which has transformed itself over the last 30 years into a customer-oriented company serving business and leisure markets. If we had any say in these matters, we would long ago have extended the OS remit to cover the planet, but that’s just a dream so we can only imagine how wonderful an OS Landranger map of the Camargue or the Crimea would be.

France is blessed with great national map coverage at various scales, with IGN and Michelin locked in head-to-head competition. Our preference is for IGN (really the only option if you are looking for large scale maps suitable for hikers), but Michelin offers elegant medium and small scale maps for long road trips.

Reise-Know-How

We are very impressed with many of the mid- and small-scale maps of Freytag & Berndt, a long established company in Austria which has produced maps of most areas of the world. That company’s 1:150,000 road atlas of Croatia and Slovenia is a gem that has served us well over many years.

For sheer quality of cartography, though, the maps of Reise-Know-How are hard to beat, and they come sensibly printed on waterproof tear-resistant paper. This German company specializes in areas overlooked by mainstream mapping agencies, and we have found their maps of lesser known parts of Europe to be a real godsend. As dedicated rail travelers, we much like the fact that Reise-Know-How maps give some prominence to railway lines (which too often on other maps play second fiddle to roads).

Rail Maps

Of course, if you are traveling by train around Europe, it pays to get a dedicated rail map. Pick of the bunch is the Thomas Cook Rail Map of Europe. The 18th edition of this old favorite is published next week. Europe’s rail network is so fluid, with new routes opening and closing every year, that it is really worth having an up-to-date edition.

A new edition of the same company’s Rail Map of Britain and Ireland is also published on 3 February. Publication dates for both maps in the US market are about a month later.

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The essence of Slow Travel

A while back we published our manifesto for Slow Travel which appealed to the interests of a new generation of travelers who increasingly prioritize low impact tourism, engaging with locals and giving something back to the communities they visit. These are folks who are ever aware of their own carbon footprints.

Bradt Travel Guides

A slow travel guide by Laurence Mitchell.

So three cheers for British publisher Bradt Travel Guides, which has launched a new series of guides devoted to Slow Travel, books that focus on the local and highlight how you might secure real insights into a country by exploring a limited area in detail.

Bradt has always been at the innovative end of the guidebook market, venturing to publish authoritative guides to areas of the world that receive only a tiny trickle of tourists. For travelers looking for good English-language guides to Belarus or Kosovo (or even, for that matter, to Eritrea or Kyrgyzstan), then Bradt is absolutely the market leader.

But they also have their own distinctive take on more frequented spots, and we are much impressed by a trio of books published earlier this month on very beautiful parts of England. They are Slow Norfolk and Suffolk by Laurence Mitchell, Slow North Yorkshire by Mike Bagshaw and Slow Devon and Exmoor by Hilary Bradt, who way back in the mid-1970s founded the company that still bears her name.

Slow Travel in England

Slow travel is a state of mind. It is about having the courage to give to places the time they deserve and not being enslaved by the need to travel farther and travel faster. England is of course ideally suited to this mode of travel and the three books that launch the new series dive off the main highways to take in country lanes and small villages.

Bradt say that more books in their Slow series are in the pipeline. US distribution is handled by Globe Pequot Press. The US editions of all three books will be published on July 13, 2010. Amazon is advertising them for about $16 apiece.

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“Ask Arthur Frommer: And Travel Better, Cheaper, Smarter,” published in March by Wiley Publishing ($19.99), reworks the most helpful of these dispatches into a 512-page budget travel encyclopedia. Flipping through the book is a trip in itself, and reading the book from cover to cover is sure to be an education in the art of budget travel.

Art lessons

“Ask Arthur Frommer” offers up Art’s tips-of-the-trade in an easy-to-follow structure. Throughout, Frommer pushes the idea that technology has changed the way we travel, granting us new-found independence, flexibility, and opportunity to see the world.

Frommer clusters his advice by topic, in sections such as “Airfare,” “Cheap hotels,” and “Transportation.” We were happy to note the attention he pays to less mainstream destinations (hello, Riga!) and his suggestion to open up to “alternative lodgings” like hostels. (Full disclosure: We were also quite happy to see references to both EuroCheapo and our sister site, EuropeanHostels.com on his blog and in this book.)

It’s well worth noting that while Frommer has been around the globe (his landmark book, “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day,” debuted in 1957), he’s no technophobe when it comes to his travel know-how. At 80, he’s still an active traveler, and frequently writes about emerging technologies, new travel trends, airfare comparison sites, and travel meta-search engine.

Our fave Art encounters?

We really enjoyed passages where Art goes “off the keyboard” and gets truly expressive, even controversial, about the mainstream travel media.  He isn’t afraid to berate publications that kowtow to the luxury travel trade, and he names names. He’s also had it with out-of-touch editors defining “budget travel” as $250-a-night boutique hotels and (even more expensive) resorts. Go Art!

Throughout his career, Frommer has pushed his readers to do their own research, find real deals, and get closer to the cultures they visit. This book, compiling a half-century of real budget-travel advice, is a wonderful way to get started.

Have you read this book? Have a comment? Post it below.

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