What sort of person gets excited by a railway timetable? A pretty sad type, you might think: someone who lives in a bedsit, collects prewar matchboxes and has a humorously named stick insect.

But here I was, a non-collecting, pet-free householder, riveted by the 500 pages of tiny type that make up the Thomas Cook European Railway Timetable. What had happened to me? I’d got an Inter-Rail pass, that’s what. It’s a single ticket that lets you use just about every train this side of Minsk. Instead of being the most boring thing I’d read since More Joy of Accountancy, here was a continent of possibilities laid out on my lap.

There are two common objections to Inter-Railing. One: isn’t it just for students? No: in 1998, the powers that be realised it was just too damn good to be the preserve of unwashed youth, and now you can buy a pass whatever your age. Two: why take the train when you can grab a low-cost flight, or drive? Ah, but that’s the point. It’s not about just getting somewhere. It’s about travel.

In a plane, you’re separated from reality by five vertical miles; and a car is your own little world, a moving bubble of Blighty. Riding the rails, you’re part of the place. The trains themselves, the ever-changing cast of local characters who inhabit them and the views of a country’s unguarded back yard all plunge you into the experience like nothing else. The stark cultural contrasts of our continent hit you full-on. And that’s what I wanted: total immersion.

And total freedom. I’d paid to use any train I wanted, to anywhere I liked. There was an anarchic, mischievous element to the spontaneity. I did have a plan, of sorts: dash across France to Milan, take my time in Verona and Venice, then ... well, north, south or east, probably. Who knows?

A FRIEND who’d been Inter-Railing as a youth once told me that trains are a pretty reliable indicator of a country’s character. I realised the truth of this when we crossed the border into Italy and everything stopped working.

It was uncanny. I’d Eurostarred to Paris and taken the TGV to Italy (you can do it in a day), and everything had gone like clockwork. But within minutes of leaving France, the air conditioning packed in, the buffet closed down and what had been a sleek Gallic dart slowed to a timetable-busting crawl.

The gesticulating families in my carriage didn’t seem to mind, though. Why would they? They were Italian. It just gave them longer to play with the kids.

Still, it gave me a chance to find somewhere to sleep. In keeping with the happy-go-lucky spirit of the enterprise, I hadn’t booked a hotel in advance. Years ago, the price for this freewheeling approach was an occasional night on a park bench; now we all have mobiles, so we can organise accommodation en route. Like a good foundation garment, grown-up Inter-Railing offers both flexibility and comfort.

When we finally got there, the Stazione Centrale was huge and rather beautiful, in a fascist sort of way. I would have stood peacefully contemplating its aesthetics if that hadn’t meant being mown down by charging businessmen, packs of French students with fluorescent rucksacks and marauding electric luggage trolleys, driven by porters who were clearly frustrated tifosi. (Driving a train must be torture for the average Italian. The idea of a vehicle that can’t swerve goes against the national conscience.) For all its faults, though, the station is, as the name suggests, centrale. And here’s another of the great joys of train travel: instead of dumping you at whatever far-flung airfield Ryanair has started flying to this week, the train injects you into the heart of a city, so you can start sizing it up right away. Which is what I did.

Milan is an ugly town, which may be why everyone there is so beautiful. Having expended none of their sartorial capital on the place they live in, they’re free to splurge it on themselves. The emblem of the place is the Madonnina, on top of the Duomo, but it ought to be the statue of San Bartolomeo inside: you’ve got to give full fashion marks to a saint who, when flayed alive, drapes his skin over his shoulders like a pashmina, flexes his exposed muscles and strikes a macho pose. Despite his indignities, he looks fabulous — and the faraway power-stare on his skinless face suggests that, like a true Milanese, he knows it.

They all do. The girls were slim and chic, the men were macho yet peacock-beautiful. Even the tramps were better dressed than me. You only know they’re tramps because they’re lying on the pavement talking to themselves.

It’s all great fun to watch from a pavement table in Via Brera, but to be really a part of Milan, you’ve got to know your Prada from your Primark, and I don’t. So, I enjoyed the theatre of it for a couple of days, then moved on. Another of the joys of Inter-Railing (I think we’re up to six now) is that constant sense of possibility, the idea that something yet more fascinating is just along the track. Such as Verona.

AFTER A lot of hand-wringing at the Stazione Centrale’s erroneously titled information desk, and a couple of hours in a noisily friendly compartment of students, I reached Romeo and Juliet’s city. It was beautiful, but by God it was hot. Really hot. I slumped at a cafe to take stock.

I’d planned to up the cultural ante by seeing an opera that night, but suddenly the idea of three gasping hours of hysterical arias was unbearable. I couldn’t take Italy any more. I wanted somewhere well run and 10 degrees cooler, and the pass in my pocket meant I could have it. I never thought I’d say this, but I quite fancied Austria.

I had to run for the train, but it was worth it. Stepping aboard was like entering another country. It was cool and spacious. I shared a cabin with three fat Austrian housewives, all with immensely swollen ankles. They were gruff but maternal, and plied me with boiled sweets.

Innsbruck station was modern, spotless and calm.

The information desk, in place of Milan

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