Twingomania, day one: Bordeaux - Utrecht

It is slightly absurd that it's currently easier for me to travel ten thousand kilometres than it is ten, and so I have apparently decided to buy a car.

I have been without a car for over a year and, living in rural France, probably do need one really. So I begrudgingly decided that there would be no better place to buy a new car than a thousand kilometres away in Utrecht, the fourth-largest city in the Netherlands. This is not as random as it sounds; I sent a friend a link to an advert asking what they thought, and shortly afterwards received a reply saying they'd driven it and that it was lovely.

So that is my slightly tenuous justification for dropping everything and hopping on the 05:56 TGV from Bordeaux to Lille, to start a 1,200km journey which is probably really just a jolly more than anything.

The morning was remarkably mild and it was nice to take in lungfuls of not-foggy air while making my ten-minute way from Jost – where I'd pre-caffeinated and prepared coffee for the journey – to Saint-Jean. My breakfast was a madeleine and a coffee in the hostel, and then a madeleine and a coffee on the train, with a bonus Bounty at 10 o'clock. I'd determined I wasn't going to get any more sleep once someone unleashed a feral child somewhere around Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, so I thought I deserved it.

This child-parent combination makes the SNCF's decision to ban anything under 12 from the new super-expensive first class "Optimum" offering such a good idea. There were two other children, each travelling with a single parent who explained in hushed tones how nice it was that it was quiet. Their mission was to keep as quiet as they could, and the parents made sterling efforts to maintain the peace. This little shit, on the other hand, was committed to its full-blown demonstration of lung capacity and ways of banging things for most of the journey, while its father made the occasional shh which was even more galling than the horrors emanating from his devilspawn.

I forgot that I'd packed a spare pillaged SNCF sleepy kit, so could have silenced the wailing and shut out the morning light as we rocketed north-east. Alas, I was destined to sit in my window seat, confined by the passenger in the seat next to me who was attempting to smother the racket of the petulant morning-child with that of his own snoring.

I relaxed my neck and let my head roll around free, hoping a sudden jolt to one side might furnish a blow to the head to numb everything until Lille, where someone would find me and carry me onwards. I waited in vain and turned to enjoy the view. There was not much to see out of the window at before-light o'clock, and attempts at reading were unsuccessful.

Little Shit discovered how to open and close the folding tables. Repeatedly.

It started to get light properly at around 8am. Little Shit started to wail, perhaps as its skin came into contact with sunlight.

In Lille, there was a quick change to the 11:08 SNCF/SNCB service to Antwerp Central, on which I was joined by the lovely mum-with-quiet-child as far as Mouscron, where I became excited at the sight of a Hilfiker-style clock and watched with glee as the second hand stopped at twelve to let the minute hand kerlunk into place. The journey was flat and uneventful, but any chance of sleep was scuppered by the caffeine and sugar rush, so I minded my own business out of the window until we pulled into Antwerp Berchem, where I met a friend for a spot of lunch and some speedy street-art seeing.

A short walk from the station is Cogels-Osylei, considered by some to be Antwerp's most beautiful street. Lined with stately mansions, it's easy to feel like the 19th-century bourgeoisie, out for a quiet stroll. From there it isn't far to Krugerstraat, one of Antwerp's most colourful street art spots which is painted with vibrant colours for almost of all of its length. Artists from around the world congregate each June to decorate the 2000 square-metre brick canvas, but on this occasion there wasn't enough time to enjoy all of it as I had a bus to catch. I do, coincidentally, have a spare seven-day pass to activate before June.

I took the 14:35 bus to Utrecht for reasons of economy and common sense: the bus is faster than the train, which needs a change in Rotterdam, and half the price. It was also very green, as it was a Flixbus, and it was not unpleasant. I don't think I'd want to do it for more than two hours because, well, that would be savagery and there was no dining car, but it got me to Utrecht absolutely on time and in one piece – and there were no screaming children. So in some respects it's already better than first class on the TGV.

Vriend whisked me to somewhere in Utrecht where I spent a half-hour adapting to cyclists knowing that they actually own the road, before my first experience of Dutch motorway driving which is very orderly.

In the evening, I was shown around the centre of a slightly rainy Utrecht, which despite the weather appears to be very nice and much more chilled and less weedy-smelling than Amsterdam. We progressed with a gentle walk to the cinema, where the screens were full but the bar, fortuitously, was not, and so sheltered somewhere warm with a roof until it was finally time to make the bus journey back to Vriendhuis.