My no-fly adventure to the Italian Riviera with seven trains and Unesco villages

My no-fly adventure to the Italian Riviera with seven trains and Unesco villages

It was 6am at St Pancras station as I met my fellow, bleary-eyed travellers. Our group of 40, gathered up by our tour manager, Julie, was about to about to embark on a round-trip journey of around 1,300 miles featuring seven trains (plus rail excursions) and one boat ride. I wasn’t the only one who snoozed through the Channel Tunnel as we headed to Paris. We roused ourselves as the sun rose and the low-lying plains of Northern France began to fl…