I’m planning for this to become a regular feature on the site. Every time I learn five new things about the world that I find strangely interesting, I’m going to write them down and share them. This week, I have discovered that…
Europe’s longest train route goes from Malmo to Innsbruck
When I was searching for Europe’s longest train service for a quiz on European train journeys, I had expected it to be something like Istanbul to Paris or Madrid to Berlin.
However, the winner, covering 1,720km in 22 hours, is the somewhat idiosyncratic train service from Malmo in Sweden to Innsbruck in Austria. Running a few times every winter, it’s largely used by skiers wanting to get to the Alps. Presumably absolutely knackered skiers.
There’s a challenge to visit the cardinal points of the European rail network
For the same quiz, I was interested in knowing where the westernmost station on the European rail network is. Turns out it’s Tralee in Ireland.
In the process of finding that out, I discovered a challenge to visit all four cardinal points of the European rail network. Sticking to countries within the Interrail/ Eurail scheme, they are Tralee (west), Narvik in Norway (north), Akyaka in Turkey (east) and Algeciras in Spain (south).
There’s a city you can make four anagrams from
Tangier in Morocco has a name that’s already an English word. But it is ideally suited to cryptic crosswords, as it can be made into four one-word anagrams. These are granite, tearing, ingrate and, slightly more dubiously, gratiné.
Suspended railways are still a thing
The German town of Wuppertal is home to the world’s oldest suspended railway, which opened in 1901. I challenge you to see the pics accompanying Mary Novakovich’s Guardian article on the Schwebebahn and not instantly want to ride it.
It also made me click that this is where the Shweeb, a ridiculous pedal-powered monorail race in Rotorua, New Zealand, gets its name from.
The world’s longest suspended railway, however, is in Chiba, Japan.
Dengue fever is becoming a big problem in the Asia-Pacific region
Several popular tourist destinations in the Asia-Pacific region are dealing with a spike in dengue fever cases. The Pacific Islands seem particularly badly hit, with Fiji declaring an outbreak earlier in the year and the Cook Islands following suit in May. The symptoms of the so-called break-bone fever sound utterly horrible and efforts to eradicate it using mosquitos infected with Wolbachia bacteria are being hampered by unusually hot weather.
