Slow Train to Switzerland, by Diccon Bewes – review

In 1863, the pioneering travel agent Thomas Cook took a group of British tourists on the first package holiday to Switzerland. One of them, a jolly young woman called Jemima Morrell, kept a diary — and 150 years later, English émigré Diccon Bewes has followed in her footsteps.

His Slow Train to Switzerland (Nicholas Brealey, £18.99) is a fascinating survey of how that country (and ours) has changed. The main thing that strikes you about this charming book is how gung-ho those early tourists were. The trains were rickety, the hotels were spartan, and the toilet facilities virtually non-existent. Yet rather than moaning about these hardships on TripAdvisor, Jemima rose before dawn every day to hike up endless Alps and glaciers.

Bewes’s breezy prose makes him a pleasant travelling companion. Having lived in Berne for the last eight years, he clearly knows Switzerland inside out, but he wears his learning lightly. However, his chatty travelogue ends on a melancholy note.