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Green Party leader Natalie Bennett spent more than four days sitting on trains to and from a conference in Croatia because she is opposed to flying.

Instead of hopping on a budget airline, she embarked on a rail journey via Paris, Munich and Zagreb, including two night journeys each way.

Critics said she was “out of touch” with the lives of ordinary families, who could not afford the time or money to copy her journey, but who might lose access to cheap holiday flights under Green policies.

Ms Bennett told the Evening Standard: “I haven’t flown for seven or eight years. I quite like train travel because you can work on a train and I sleep very well on them. I would do it again.”

She admitted that the costs were much higher than flying.

Her tickets cost around £350, including overnight trains between Paris and Munich, day trains and another sleeper in Croatia.

Had she flown, she could have travelled to Split, in Croatia, and taken the ferry to the conference in Vis for just £90, taking about nine hours in total.

“Adding up the parts of my journey it took around 48 hours to get there but I was sleeping for two nights of that and working during the day,” she said.

“I can charge my laptop and work at a table, it makes a nice office.”

But Labour MP John Spellar, a former Transport Minister, said she was “elitist” because most people could not afford to follow her example.

“Imagine trying to take kids on holiday on a train journey that took up days and days, and cost a fortune,” he said.

“This just shows how out of touch and elitist the Greens are. They have no idea about ordinary people’s lives and yet they would impose extra costs on holiday flights to fulfil their fantasies.”

But she was backed by rail expert Mark Smith, who runs the award-winning website Man in Seat 61.

“It’s a wonderful relaxed chill-out journey, by Eurostar and impressive double-deck 200mph TGV Duplex to Munich across rural France and into Germany on day one, then either a smart air-conditioned Croatian sleeping-car time-effectively overnight, or an overnight hotel and onward by daytime trains the next day,” he said.

“The daytime journey from Munich to Zagreb is fabulous, through the mountains of Austria to Ljubljana, then along the beautiful River Sava.

“Life’s too short to fly everywhere and miss everything.”