Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder.

You will recall that I have been talking rather a lot about the trans-European race,

an extraordinary venture where the idea was to get from the centre of London to the centre of Istanbul,

a distance of over 1,560 miles, by the fastest possible means using only public

transport.

Well, that competition is now over.

Anybody who didn't make it to the sunset cruise disappearing down the boss for us on Saturday

night was too late, and I'm delighted to say that I'm joined once again by James Finity, the race director from Lubine Travel. James, how are you feeling?

Yeah, brilliant. Thanks, Simon. Pretty tired, but yeah, thank you for having me this morning.

Tell me how you felt with the main race, which of course was to get there as soon as possible,

it seemed to happen an awful lot faster, I think, than you, or indeed I, had predicted.

Yeah, 100%. I think one thing we've taken away from this event is to not underestimate

people's competitiveness. We also couldn't have hoped for a better finish. We ended up with

a foot race across Istanbul and a separation between the winners of approximately 60 seconds or so,

which again is a better ending than you could

write, really. But yeah, they made it there faster than we've anticipated. I had to make a

last minute switch of flights to get out there inside to invigilate this very close finish.

But yeah, it's just a fantastic ending. Couldn't have wished for anything better, I don't think.

They came in at just under two days and nine hours, and much of that, indeed, from the winner,

Eleanor, was entirely by bus, which is a triumph for that form of transport.

But then you've been watching other people coming in, I guess, during the week

and going for the other categories as well. How have those worked for the highest number of countries

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