The couchette

Six berths, three on each side, folded up like a cardboard puzzle. My neighbours were a retired engineer from Bruges, a student with a cello and a woman who fell asleep before the train left the station and woke up, as far as I could tell, exactly at the border.

The best part of a night train is that it removes the decision. There is nothing to do but read, look out of the window and let the country go by in the dark.

What to bring

• A small bag you can keep on the berth with you.
• Earplugs. The brakes have opinions.
• Breakfast. The trolley is a rumour.
• Cash for the dining car, which is real and serves goulash at midnight.

We crossed into Austria somewhere between my second chapter and my third attempt at sleep. At dawn the window filled with wet fields and church towers, and then Vienna arrived quietly, the way cities do when you haven't flown to them.

Walking in the white

Fog changes how you hike. You stop looking at the view and start looking at the path: the cairns, the wet grass, the line where the cliff simply ends. Every walk here has a moment where the ground in front of you becomes sky.

1. Check the local trail notes before you go; some routes cross private land and ask for a small fee.
2. Carry a real map. The fog does not care about your phone signal.
3. Turn back early. The cliffs are unfenced and very, very tall.

Small towns, long evenings

The villages are tiny and turf-roofed, with churches painted black and window frames painted every other colour. In August the light lasts until almost midnight, so dinner happens late and slowly, usually with a view of a harbour that may or may not be visible.

On the last morning the fog lifted for an hour. I didn't take a single photograph. I just sat on the harbour wall and looked.

The rules I made (and broke)

What I'd go back for

The smoke alley, where you choose your meat raw, hand it to a griller and eat it at a shared table with whatever salsas you were brave enough to pick. The bakery stall that sold bread shaped like little people. The woman who taught me, patiently and with visible amusement, to order chapulines without making a face.

Markets are where a city tells you what it actually eats. In Oaxaca it was telling me to slow down, sit down, and order one more thing.

The stages

Notes for next time

• Book the huts early. The good ones fill months ahead.
• Bring a silk sleeping-bag liner; blankets are provided, sheets are not.
• Start at seven. Afternoon storms are a regular appointment in summer.
• Pack a headlamp for the dormitory, and the patience of a saint for the snoring.

The fourth day was the hardest and the best: a long climb on scree, a narrow ledge with a cable to hold, and then the hut on the ridge, glowing in the evening light with the whole range below it.

A walking day

1. Start low, by the river, before the tour groups.
2. Climb through Alfama by the stairs, not the streets. Get lost on purpose.
3. Reward yourself at the castle walls, or at any miradouro with a kiosk.
4. Descend for lunch. Grilled sardines if it's the season, a bifana if it isn't.
5. Climb again. There is always another hill.

The pavements

The streets are paved with small, polished limestone cubes laid in waves and patterns. They are beautiful and, after rain, as slippery as ice. Wear shoes with grip and walk like a local: slowly, confidently and never in a hurry.

Lisbon taught me to stop measuring a walk in kilometres and start measuring it in pastries.

By the last evening I'd stopped taking the tram entirely, not out of virtue but because the walk was the point.

Living in a rorbu

I stayed in a rorbu, one of the old red fishing cabins on stilts over the water. It had a wood stove, a tiny kitchen and a window over the harbour where the drying racks were full of cod. It smelled exactly as you'd imagine. I grew to like it.

Chasing the lights

• Check the cloud forecast, not just the aurora forecast. Clear skies matter most.
• Get away from the village lights, even a kilometre helps.
• Dress for standing still. You will stand still for a long time.
• Bring a flask. Hot blackcurrant juice is the local answer to everything.

On the fifth night, after three cloudy evenings and one false alarm, the sky turned green above the harbour. It moved like a curtain in a draught, faded, came back brighter and then was gone. I stood on the jetty for another hour in case it changed its mind.

Altitude first

Much of the region sits well above two thousand metres, and some of the famous viewpoints are far higher. I spent the first two days doing very little on purpose:

• Drink more water than seems reasonable.
• Skip the high geysers until day three or four.
• Walk slowly. Then walk more slowly.

The sky

On a moonless night the Milky Way doesn't look like a smudge here; it looks like a structure, with dark lanes of dust and bright clouds of stars. Our guide pointed out the two Magellanic Clouds, small galaxies visible to the naked eye, and I spent the rest of the night checking they were still there.

I'd always thought of the sky as a ceiling. In the Atacama it felt like a window.

Bring your warmest layers. The desert gives back its heat to the sky very quickly, and by four in the morning the stars were the only warm-looking thing around.

A sunrise route

1. A shrine with a tunnel of gates on the hillside, walked before the first train arrives.
2. Breakfast near the station: rice, miso soup, grilled fish, pickles.
3. A temple garden while the gardeners are still sweeping leaves off the gravel.
4. A nap. This is important.

Eating slowly

The best meal of the trip was in a small place with eight counter seats, where the cook made each course in front of us and explained, with careful English and a lot of pointing, which mountain the mushrooms came from.

• Many small restaurants take bookings only by phone or through your hotel; ask early.
• Department store food halls are a perfect, cheap lunch.
• Tea houses close earlier than you'd expect.

By nine the crowds arrived, and I was already sitting by the river with a coffee, very pleased with myself.

Window seat strategy

• Sit on the right-hand side heading south for the glacier views.
• The panoramic carriages are lovely; the regular regional trains run the same line, open their windows and cost much less.
• Bring sunglasses. Snow and sun at altitude are no joke.

The spiral

Near the end of the line the track has to lose height fast, so it does something wonderful: it loops around on itself on a stone viaduct, passing under its own arches. From the carriage you can see the rails you'll be on in a minute, curving away below you.

Snow muffles everything. Even the train sounded polite.

We arrived in Tirano in sunshine, with palm trees by the station, four hours and one whole climate after leaving the snow.

Three walks

1. A coastal path in the north, past basalt columns and a waterfall that drops straight into the sea.
2. A ridge walk on the Trotternish escarpment, long and exposed, with views over to the mainland when the clouds allow it.
3. A short evening stroll to a lighthouse, best timed for sunset, worst timed for midges.

Lessons learned

• Waterproof trousers are not optional.
• Midge repellent is not optional either, in late summer.
• Single-track roads have passing places; use them, and wave.
• Book accommodation early. The island is small and popular.

The last evening was clear and still. I sat on a rock above the sea, the hills turning purple behind me, and decided that Skye's weather is not a flaw. It is the reason everything here looks the way it does.