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Green Travel
You could ‘parachute’ into Germany at Frankfurt, which has the nearest international airport to Mainz. On the other hand, you could travel along the Rhine Gorge in a fast, clean, comfortable train, taking in the wonderful scenery (castles, vineyards, the river itself), and taking home a lasting memory…
Germany has a superb rail network, fully integrated with networks elsewhere in Europe and beyond. Just go to www.bahn.de, select your language (the flag symbol at the top of the page), type in a starting point, and find out how easily and from how far you can get to Mainz by train. Malaga, Stockholm, Istanbul, Beijing, Vladivostok… it’s all possible. Difficult to arrange and book? No, all the connections will be indicated to you instantly on the website and in most cases booking will just involve a phone-call to an office in your own country (number provided). You can make things cheaper by booking with the individual operators concerned.
For travellers within continental Europe the total journey time will not be much more than by plane. For sure, really long-distance travel takes longer by train, but the rewards for anyone with the least interest in geography are great. And you won’t be the only one doing it – there were a number of conference travellers on the Trans-Siberian when I journeyed from Derby (UK) to Beijing for IPC2 in 2006.
On the day of writing this section (6th February 2010) the thousands of air-miles clocked-up by IPCC Chair Dr Rajendra Pachauri made headline news on the BBC. Think what you can do for science, and sclerochronology in particular, by taking the ‘green’ option for travel to ISC2010.
Andy Johnson (UK rep)
P.S. For the really serious, freighters offer an option for overseas green travel. That’s how I got to ISC2007!
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