Coincidence - yesterday I came across a blog by Diccon Bewes, first time I had heard of him. And today I looked in our bookbox and there were his two books sitting on the shelf, Swiss Watching and Slow Train to Switzerland, both of which I had read about on his blog. As I have lived here for nearly 50 years, I wasn't really interested in Swiss Watching, but this one looks informative and I get around by train, so why not?
Actually, I first came to Switzerland from London in an overnight train, with all my precious belongings in a large trunk that travelled in a different carriage. I remember breathing a sigh of relief when I saw it waiting for me on the station platform in Lausanne.

Bewes (with his mother) follows the journey of Miss Jemima, who wrote a diary about her travels to (and in) Switzerland (with her brother) on the first trip arranged by Thomas Cook- two journeys, 150 years apart. Where possible, he stays in the same places and climbs up the same mountains, wondering how she managed it in her voluminous clothing, with the lack of toilet facilities, luggage restrictions, and so forth. It could be interesting but I found there was far too much repetition and sprawling detail - could have been tightened and lightened up a bit (even though the back cover blurb compares the author favourably with Bill Bryson and says he has an engagingly light and comic touch).
Small and scritchy font used for the excerpts from Miss Jemima's diary. Strangely, quotations from other writers, such as Thos. Cook, are in italics and a larger font.
Text scattered with old touristy photos of hotels, mountains and such, but they lose some of their appeal in black and white on rough paper. The mountainous landscape is still the same, apart from the alarming melting of the glaciers...

The journey starts in Newhaven, crosses the Channel then takes the train to Geneva, but most of the travelling is in Switzerland, so the title is a bit strange.

Edited to add: the book now has a certain extra historic interest as Thomas Cook folded a few weeks ago (to the great consternation of everyone who was abroad on Thomas Cook holidays at the time).

for the monthly meetup, and if not taken there, for the railway station...

Picked up at the meet-up in Lausanne, Vapiano 3-Sep-2019

Fantastic journey. Book handed over, in Brisbane, to an Australian friend who used to work with me in Switzerland until 2016, and who admires Swiss trains.