True, they all have “Romance Languages” and nowadays while traveling on their trains, passengers in those countries can have a quick romance with high-speed trains since those are the three countries in Europe that have high-speed trains that span the country from their capital city. The speed of high-speed trains doesn’t match an airplane’s, however, when you consider the hassle of getting to and from the airport of departure and to and from the airport of arrival, if the distance is under 1,000 miles, a high-speed train is your best bet.

Tourists take cruises so they sightsee during the day in different ports and sleep in the same bed for the duration of a trip. High-speed train tours have the same attributes. Since all high-speed trains in France, Italy and Spain lead to the capital city, you tour during the day all over France, sleep in the same bed in the same hotel in Paris; tour during the day all over Italy and sleep in the same bed in the same hotel in Rome; tour during the day all over Spain and sleep in the same bed in the same hotel in Madrid. The advantage over a cruise is when not touring — you’re in a hotel in the capital city and can sightsee new sites on your own and have your choice of entertainment in the evening.

My parents took me to London from Paris when I was a child. It took over an hour just to get from our hotel in Paris to Orly Airport, and then we waited at Orly for the weather to improve before the plane could take off for London. From Heathrow Airport to London, it took well over an hour just to get to the center of London. Recently I visited London from Paris. I took a train to London that took the same time it took getting to and from airports in London and to and from airports in Paris – just a little over 2 hours.

High-speed trains have made my childhood travel seem archaic. I can imagine grandparents in the mid-19th century telling their grandchildren, “When I was your age, I took a horse and buggy from Paris to Brussels; it took 2 days. Now, it only takes 8 hours by train. When I visited Brussels as a child it took almost 5 hours to go from Brussels to Paris. With high-speed trains, it’s just 82 minutes! Now, in 2025 with the advent of high-speed trains, flying short distances in Europe wastes valuable time that could be better spent in a museum or in a restaurant – or better yet in an elegant restaurant in a museum such as Ombres the restaurant in Paris’ Quai Branly Museum, London’s Portrait Gallery restaurant overlooking Trafalgar Square or the Capitoline Museum restaurant overlooking Rome.

Through the Middle Ages pilgrims took a long route across France and Spain, frequently by foot, to get to Santiago de Compostella in Northeast Spain. When my parents took me back in the last century, getting there was also a long pilgrimage. It took the better part of the day, 9 hours traveling by slow train. Bored on the train I walked up and down its aisles so I could at least brag that I also walked on my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella. Today, it takes just 3 hours and 2 minutes.
My mom knew the great Bolshoi Opera’s prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya and took us to see her when the Bolshoi danced at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. We made a special trip from Rome, stayed in a hotel overnight in Milan and went back to Rome the next day. Today, you can take the TGV from Rome to Milan, see a La Scala performance and return to Rome the same evening. In other words, with high-speed train travel in the 21st century – you can make the most of time. One thing you can’t do? See Maya Plisetskaya dance, since she died in 2015.

One of my favorite cities in France is Bordeaux, not just for its great wine, but also for its great architecture. My parents took me by slow train from Paris to Bordeaux. We were so exhausted when we finally arrived, we checked into the hotel and went right to sleep. This time my tour group took the TGV from Paris to Bordeaux (2 hours and 3 minutes) for a day trip and saw much more than we saw in two days overnighting in Bordeaux.

Paris’ Place de Concorde is one of the great squares of the world, designed by the great French architect Gabriel which recently got even greater. While the Gabriel building on the left is the elegant Hotel Le Crillon, the newly-restored identical Gabriel building on the right is the sensational new Musee d’Hôtel de la Marine – with fully furnished 18th-century interiors — which I call “Versailles in Paris.” The other city in France that has a Gabriel main square is Bordeaux – designed by father and son Gabriel architects.
I attend the opera in Europe for many reasons, among them to see the spectacle on stage and to experience the lush, opulent interiors of its grand opera houses. Spectacle in performance and in interiors — that’s hard to get on a cruise ship. When I led a TGV daytrip to beautiful Bordeaux for professors, my educated upscale travelers noticed that Renee Fleming was appearing in an opera. They all asked to see it and take a later TGV back to Paris. I called the terrific concierge at Paris’ grand, Grand Hotel where we were all straying. The Grand Hotel’s concierge not only bought us the opera seats but also rescheduled us on a later TGV returning to Paris. Besides Paris’ Gabriel architects designing Bordeaux’s main square, the stunning Bordeaux Opera House was designed by the same architect, Victor Louis, who designed Richelieu Theater in Paris’s Palais Royal opposite the Louvre.

The Bordeaux Opera House has a classical multi-storied pillared facade stretching the length of the building. Its refined interior has restrained Neoclassical elegance with blue velvet seating instead of opulent NeoBaroque everywhere at the Paris Opera with the ubiquitous red velvet theater seats. My favorite opera house used to be St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Opera House (also with blue velvet seats) – which sadly is not on too many tourists’ must-see lists since 2022. Now it’s Bordeaux’s opera house. If I had a daughter born in the 21st century, her name would have been “Bridget Bordeaux Goldsmith.”