David S. Demarest

More than a few days have passed since my last post, and many more miles have been covered!  Those miles include, of course, the flight home on Monday from Vienna (12 hours in the air and a nine hour time change).  But those miles also include travel by train from Ljubljana in Slovenia to Salzburg and Vienna in Austria.

As I am sure many have heard, the trains in Europe are great.  They are reasonable cost, the numerous and frequent, and they seem to go everywhere!  The infrastructure is amazing that is in place to support the network.  And with the exception of the high speed trains, it is a mode of transportation that has changed little.  As an example, waiting in the station for the train, I saw a worker moving alongside the train using what was effectively a ball peen hammer on a long handle to check the wheels.  Tap the wheel and hope it “rings true” – if not the car gets pulled and the wheel replaced.  I wonder how many years the wheels have been checked that way?

Travel by train, and to a lesser extent, provides a great opportunity to see the countryside.  Small villages, each with at least one church, set in a valley or on the side of the hill.  The mountains in Slovenia and Austria were stunning.  Still covered with snow at the higher elevations – and everything else was green.  Not a whole lot different than home – except the mountains are bigger, the villages more frequent, and the distances are much greater.  Consider that in Washington State you can go from Seattle to Cle Elum in 90 minutes and in that time you will have gone from sea level, up to 3,000 feet through the pass, and down into Eastern Washington.  From Ljubljana to Salzburg is four hours, most of which is in the mountains.  And in that four hours you have crossed half of Slovenia, and most of Austria northward almost to the border with Germany.

  View through the glass on the train

Salzburg was stunning.  Less in the mountains than I expected, but the mountains nonetheless provide an incredible backdrop.  The city itself in fascinating.  For those of you that might be fans of The Sound of Music, you may recall some of the scenes that were filmed in Salzburg.  Two in particular that I enjoyed visiting were the cathedral where the Captain and Maria were married, and the cemetery where the von Trapp family hid while escaping the Nazis. 

Salzburg is much more that a place made famous by a movie.  It is a city full of history and vibrant with culture.  It is home to Salzburg University, located in the heart of the old city.  It is a city full of cathedrals, a flourishing open air market, music (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born there), museums, sidewalk cafes, clubs (have I mentioned Europeans like to eat dinner at nine and party till the very late hours of the night) and friendly people.   I would return to Salzburg in a heartbeat – it is deserving of much more than one day.

  Yours truly, enjoying the view of Salzburg      Looking down on the old town

  The river though Salzburg, with pedestrian malls that bustle with activity

  One of Salzburg’s cathedrals. 

  The open air market – and yes, I did enjoy some fresh fruit

      The potted tree was located at the corner of a sidewalk cafe.  As I was approaching, so was the fire department.  Seems their normal duties include the recovery of wayward swarms of bees.  By the time I took this photo, at least half of the swarm had already been put in the hive.  Needless to say, the cafe was empty, and staff looked very unhappy!

       Fascinating cemetery, surrounded by walls and chapels, and recognizable from The Sound of Music

  As always, one can’t help but appreciate and enjoy the architecture

The morning of the 25th I caught the train to Vienna.  Again, a pretty ride, but nowhere near as stunning as the previous day.  Arriving in Vienna, I checked my bag at the train station (after all, I could figure out lodging later – either in town or near the airport as I had a 6:45 am flight), and caught the subway downtown.  Speaking of the subway, it is clean, fast, and apparently run on the honor system.  People had passes or bought tickets from machines or a ticket office, but there were no turnstiles or ticket collectors!

The subway took me to the square where St. Stephens Cathedral is located.  It is the heart of old town Vienna.  Like so many of the other cities I visited, vehicular traffic is very restricted resulting in expansive pedestrian malls with cafes, shops, etc.  Limited on time, and it already being later in the afternoon, I visited St. Stephens, toured the Catacombs (originally built back in the 1400’s), and wandered around the palace grounds, past the Spanish Riding School, and other landmarks. 

Vienna, like Salzburg, requires more than a day.  There is so much to see and do.  And while there are certainly similarities, there are dramatic differences.  Vienna is a big city, and while Salzburg is not small, it is a lot smaller than Vienna and has that small town feel.

      A couple examples of Vienna statues

      Views inside St. Stephens Cathedral.  It is immense!

  Vienna architecture

As I mentioned, I flew home starting early the morning of the 26th.  As had happened so many times, I met some wonderful people, two of whom I shall mention.  The first is Carmen.  Carmen is from Romania, speaks fluent English, and was on her way to Juneau Alaska to work in a duty free shop on one of the major cruise ships.  Carmen talked about life in Romania, the mountains, the beaches on the Black Sea, and the friendly people.  We had a great visit!

Sitting next to me on the flight to Seattle was Julian.  Julian is from Budapest, and was also enroute to Juneau to join his cruise ship where he functions as the safety officer.  We had a great visit, talking about our various trips, where he has been (many more places than me), families, life at our respective homes, and – of course – American politics.  It is likely we will get together for dinner during one of his Seattle port calls.

As you know, I am home.  All is good here.  That said, I am still jet lagged, but doing better.  Actually managed to sleep until 5:15 this morning, which is much better than the 3:00am yesterday.  Tomorrow will likely be even better.

In a few days I will post some closing thoughts.   In the meantime, I hope you have enjoyed my writings.