I waited 30 years to try Eurail - and it led me to places I'd never imagined

I am on a train, and it is inching onto a ferry. This is how Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean, is connected to the Italian mainland by public transport. Once we're on board, the doors are released and we're free to wander to the deck to watch as Messina retreats into the distance.

Earlier in the day, I'd boarded the train at Siracusa, which had been my home for six weeks. As sad as I was to leave, a new adventure was beginning. At the age of 55, I was popping my train journey cherry with a Eurail pass. For the next fortnight, I'd be riding the rails from one town to the next, visiting places I'd never contemplated. Indeed, there were places on my itinerary I'd never even heard of until I found them on the Eurail network map.

On the 12.25pm from Villa San Giovanni, I'm on the coast side of the carriage and, while the Wi-Fi is good and the trip will take seven hours, the view is too captivating to achieve much in the way of work. Instead, I pass the time with a paragraph or two from my book and the changing landscape outside. On this long leg, I'm in a business-class carriage on a Trenitalia Frecciarossa train, which can zip along at up to 400kmh. At intervals, staff members push a trolley along the aisles, passing out water, espresso and snacks - salata (savoury) or dolce (sweet) or both if your smile is grande. When we pull into stations, passengers leap off, leaving their bags behind, to sneak a cheeky cigarette on the platform.

It's the end of autumn, and the sun has long disappeared even before I change onto an Intercity train for my final destination. Parma, in Italy's northern region of Emilia-Romagna, is a city of ham and cheese, architecture and music. But it's almost 11pm when I finally walk through the doors of my chichi Airbnb apartment that overlooks the galleries of the historic street Strada Cavour. It isn't until the following morning I realise I'm slap-bang in the middle of Parma's action, just steps from Piazza Garibaldi - and that it is significantly colder here than in Sicily.

For the next three days, I tour dairy farms where enormous wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano are produced and butchers where Prosciutto di Parma is hung and cured, marvel at the work of Futurist artist Giacomo Balla, and try on antique rings at a street market. At Trattoria Sorelle Picchi, the jovial maitre d' delivers plates of cucina tipica - tortellini in brodo and pork cheek braised in Lambrusco - and tops up my glass of Chianti during a leisurely lunch.

From Parma it's onwards to Milan, just over an hour away. As luck would have it, a handful of tickets remain for the famous Teatro alla Scala that night, where the Filarmonica della Scala plays a program of Gershwin, Rachmaninov and Mussorgsky. On a Eurocity train the following day, the snow-capped Alps come into view as we cross into Switzerland. I've chosen Thun as my next stop because I've read about the elevated footpaths of its old town. What I discover is so much more. With its looming castle, a historical wooden bridge over the Aare River, and a vast lake backed by the Swiss Alps, it is one of those places where I find myself audibly gasping at almost every turn.

Then it's on to another town unknown to me but with a train station. To get there requires transferring to a local service at Bregenz in Austria, where a woman boards carrying a pigeon. Not a dove or one of those pretty varieties with feathers like an aristocrat's ruff, but the garden-variety kind. She takes a seat and soon has the attention of a group of high-school girls on excursion. A teenage boy tries to take sneaky pics. A man across the aisle is fast asleep, blissfully unaware of the avian attraction. It seems a shame to get off and leave this odd vignette behind, but we've arrived in Feldkirch, in Austria's west. All cobblestone streets and tiny alleys, it was protected, back in the day, by Schattenburg Castle - variously occupied by Montforts and Habsburgs - that looms over all below it.

The following day on the way to Innsbruck, the train travels through a river valley, with villages and farms sitting above a striking blue river. As we climb the mountains, the snow becomes thicker and, when the sun peeks through the peaks, the ice crystals covering the ground glitter like a showgirl's discarded costume.

Unlike my travels in my early 20s, this trip is less about finding free ways to stay entertained and more about discovering quirky locales and taking comfort in the unknown. Then there's the winter wonderland magic of these towns, where tiny children dressed in enough layers to double their size toddle along footpaths and adults sip on gluhwein beneath heaters in the square. Running short on time, Innsbruck becomes a mere stopover. I stash my bags then ogle the famous Golden Door, buy a Hurra! Bier! print in a vintage poster store and scoff torte beneath a chandelier at Cafe Central.

Back at the station, waiting for the train to Bologna, I happen to look to my right where I spot the Bergisel ski jump, designed by Zaha Hadid and opened in 2002. A quick google reveals there's a panoramic restaurant atop the 50-metre-tall tower. For my next Eurail journey, I tell myself. For now, bitten by the rail bug, I am infected forever.

The writer travelled courtesy of Eurail