It’s not often that you get to enjoy a train journey through some of the most dramatic scenery in southern Europe in the company of the Queen, the former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, the one-time Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, and Jawaharlal Nehru, the first leader of an independent India.
But there I was tucking in to some Vojvodina pork cutlets and familiarising myself with a fruity Macedonian red, when, in addition to the striking mountain ranges and ravines I kept spotting through the window, I couldn’t help but notice the presence above me of an extraordinary array of past and present world leaders and heads of state.
They were not, of course, there in person, but instead were the subjects of a series of black-and-white photographs adorning the upper reaches of the dining car in which I had settled for what I hoped would be a very long lunch breaking up the magical journey between the Serbian capital, Belgrade, and the Montenegrin port of Bar.