Interrailers of the world unite

This week: great train odysseys remembered, 60-year-old backpackers and Europe as seen from Dubai

in Greece, in private houses, station waiting rooms, on the decks of ferries and on night train journeys – the longest being a two-day trip from Istanbul to Munich. The grimmest was a night spent in a Czech station after being ordered off the train at the German/Czech border. We’d been told that a Czech visa could easily be obtained but had to wait there until the morning. RICHARD SAUVAIN

Track changes

The letter about holidays by train (“Next stop Yeovil”, Travel Views, August 6) struck a chord with my wife and I. We hadn’t gone backpacking around Europe in our youth, so we decided to do it, by Interrail and TripAdvisor, in our sixties.

On June 20, we boarded a train at Amersham and alighted from our last train seven days later in Andalusia, all without a hitch and carrying only a small rucksack. We travelled by Underground, Eurostar, TGV, and AVE trains via Lille, Avignon, Arles, Cadaqués, Tarragona, and Valencia.

During our stops, we fell in love with the lavender fields of Provence, the Van Gogh trail and Roman ruins in Arles, and Salvador Dalí’s extraordinary house in Cadaqués.

We then needed a week of stability in Spain to recuperate! So yes, make the train part of the holiday. IAN MCKENZIE

Icelandic lamb

Ian Cumming’s piece (“A loaf less ordinary”, August 13) sparked memories of one of the most succulent meals I’ve eaten. Icelandic friends took us to their summer house on Lake Thingvellir (above). We bathed in the lake and next morning the host and several friends

Future imperfect

On reading John O’Ceallaigh’s article “Pack for the future” (August 6), I thought it might have been a late April Fool’s Day joke. Visit European countries in Dubai? Why on earth would anyone do that? Surely travelling is about chatting

to local people, soaking up the culture and sights, experiencing the weather (even if it’s bad) and finding backstreet restaurants where there’s not a tourist in sight. I’m so pleased that we have visited far-flung places while having the cash, energy and health to enjoy it – for example, by touring

Ethiopia for four weeks without meeting another English person.

In our dotage, you will find us closer to home in Europe (I don’t mean Europe-Dubai), and still not meeting another English person because they will all be in Dubai. HELEN JACKSON