I rode the train a lot in the countryside of São Paulo when I was a child. I also used the Silver Train between São Paulo and Rio. Until passenger trains were almost extinct in Brazil. I resumed my passion traveling around Europe in 1999. In 2010, the magazine Viagem & Turismo, from Abril publishing house, invited me to do a dream job: to write a guide called Europa de Trem. The first part was to head straight to the winter of Norway, from where I started a long continental crossing that only ended in Barcelona, on the edge of the Mediterranean. The guide sold very well, and in 2013 I was called by publisher Rosana Zakabi for a new edition. Unfortunately, without the trip. But the guide came out much more informative. This is the 2013 edition of Europa de Trem, highlighting the parts I wrote.
My journey across Europe to create the first guide, in 2010, started with one of the most beautiful railway sections in the world - the Bergensbanen, which connects Bergen and Oslo, Norway. It is so stunning that Norwegian TV produced an 8+ hour documentary showing the trip in full. And the program was a success. But I took the train in the dead of winter, and much of the landscape was under snow. But in this clip you can get an idea of what it's like to travel on the famous Bergensbanen.
