Continental holidays by rail from London

A VILLA IN PROVENCE
The journey: now here’s a thing. Provence is, as anyone who’s made the mistake of driving there knows, a long way away - but, if you hop on a morning train from London, you’ll only just have time for lunch before you step off in Avignon. The journey time is just 6hr 10min, which includes a simple cross-the-platform change in Lille. Sorry if we’re being effusive, but that’s a marvel.
The fare: from £109, booked direct with Eurostar (0870 5186 186, http://www.eurostar.com/ ).
The holiday: it’s tempting to stick around in Avignon itself, wandering the superb Papal Palace and the clutch of excellent museums huddled inside the 14th-century ramparts - but we’re here for the Provençal good life, so it’s off to the hills.
Tucked away in the craggy countryside of the Dentelles de Montmirail, Les Ramiers fits the bill. It’s a smart four-bedroom place with a pool - new but traditionally built, with tiles, beams and, on the walls, some decent pieces by the artist owners.
The village of Le Barroux is nearby, with a good local restaurant and a 12th-century chateau. Les Ramiers sleeps eight comfortably, and prices start at £1,195 for a week in June, with Vintage Travel (0845 344 0433, http://www.vintagetravel.co.uk/ ).
You’ll need a car: Carrentals.co.uk will do you a couple of littlies for £134 each for a week, picked up at Avignon station. Tot it all up and eight of you have a week of gorgeousness for less than £300 each, without setting foot in an airport. Not bad.

WALKING IN THE ALPS
The journey: 7hr from St Pancras to Geneva. The 8.32am from London will see you safely into the Swiss city by 4.35pm, so you’re in the hotel with time for a snooze before dinner.
The fare: our priciest option, from £149 with RailEurope (0844 848 4070, http://www.raileurope.co.uk/ ). Or book it as part of a package - see below.
The holiday: the GR5 is the classic Alpine walking trail, a mazy old smugglers’ path that traces the French-Swiss border, past the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc. It’s bare rock and snow-clad peaks high up, descending to meadows strewn with wild flowers and dozily grazing cows that are straight out of Alpine central casting - in short, the perfect landscape for a life-affirming walking holiday.
On an 11-day stroll with Headwater (01606 720199, http://www.headwater.com/ ), your luggage is transported between small, family-run hotels, leaving you free to tackle the climbs unburdened. They can be steep - much of the terrain is around the 6,500ft mark - but that’s how you get the awe-inspiring views across peaks to Lake Geneva and the Jura, and there are four rest days in case your thighs start complaining.
It’s wild: you’ll have ibex, chamois, red deer, eagles and falcons for company. Prices start at £995pp, half-board, including the train, pickup from Geneva, luggage transfers, maps and route notes.

CYCLING IN THE BLACK FOREST
The journey: we’re going right down to the southwest corner of Germany, but - thanks to the new high-speed track between Paris and Strasbourg - it’s going to take only 7hr 22min. With easy changes in Paris and Basle, the 8.32am from St Pancras will see you into Freiburg, capital of the captivating Schwarzwald, at 4.54pm, local time.
The fare: from £127, booked with RailEurope (0844 848 4070, http://www.raileurope.co.uk/ ).
The holiday: there’s history behind this one. That great Victorian Jerome K Jerome is remembered here only for Three Men in a Boat, his oft-copied travelogue of a trip along the Thames, but in Germany he’s celebrated for the later Three Men on the Bummel, about a cycling tour of the Black Forest. Of course, he went by train, and it took him, George and Harris a (highly entertaining) age to get there. It’d be a shorter book now.
In the rolling hills of the Schwarzwald itself, though, JKJ would find things much the same. The scenery is fantastic - not as high or wild as the Alps, but sweeter, subtler, greener, studded with picture-perfect Schlösser and quaint farmsteads. This was Hansel and Gretel’s home turf, and it feels like it.
True, there are quite a few ups and downs - this isn’t one for the cycle-to-the-shops crowd. For road-riders, the dedicated 233-mile Black Forest cycle route from Karlsruhe to Lörrach is a good starting point, but there are many more mazy lanes to explore. For mountain-bikers, it’s heaven, with a plethora of good trails through the thick forest.
You could easily take pot luck at the dozens of simple guesthouses scattered through the forest - our choice, though, would be a bauernhof, a real working farm with rooms. You’ll have to take the rough with the smooth - the livestock can get vocal at 5am - but for sheer authenticity, it takes some beating, and you can count on a Frühstück of epic proportions. (They start the day seriously here.) There’s a good selection at http://www.bensbauernhof.com/ , or, for a wider choice, go to http://www.bauernhofurlaub.de/ : it’s in German, but has links to home pages in English). Expect to pay £20-£40 per night for a double, B&B.
And the bike? You can bring your own, but it’s a bit of a faff. Better to rent one in Freiburg: there’s a hire shop moments from the station (Mobile; 00 49 761 292 7996), with modern road bikes from £38 a week.