European Rail Trip 2023 - Part Two - A Walk In The Footsteps Of Artists and Monsters
“So there was this English couple, slightly older than usual, backpacks, a little scruffy but friendly enough, well, I told them that they had made a good choice deciding to travel by rail today, what with the strikes at the airport and demonstrations and stuff in Berlin. Anyway, I got them from the hotel to the station in plenty of time, sounds like a long journey they had ahead of themselves, rather them than me!”
And he was right, our friendly taxi driver from Nigeria, it was a long journey we had ahead of us. From Berlin to Vienna. A total of almost 500 miles, leaving at around 10am and arriving in Austria just after 5.30pm. A day for relaxing, for beautiful scenery, for decent weather and a couple of good books.
Not really a day for feeling rough, as I mentioned in my previous post. But I did and I managed to survive.
Sadly we didn't have the decent weather we had hoped for but that's another one of those things outside of our control. In fact, when we arrived in Vienna it was overcast and wet and our taxi ride to the hotel during the rush hour was. let’s just call it interesting!
We stayed at a hotel outside the centre of Vienna and planned to use the UBahn to get around which proved to be a really good decision. The hotel had a young vibe, was relatively new and right next door to the very smart station (and also a large Westfield store, make of that what you will).
We had arranged only two full days in Vienna, not enough to even scratch the surface really of a very old, cultured but ultimately, for us at least, a rather confusing place.
Travelling on the UBahn was great, nowhere was too far and we got to see a fair bit. But what we did see was such a mix. Old and new. Beautiful and downright tacky. Colourful and really very dull and grey.
Especially the Danube.
Forget the blue Danube. It was, and apparently always is, very dull and grey, even muddy looking. And forget using the name in the singular. Because there is actually the Danube, the Old Danube, the New Danube and, just to confuse people even further, the Danube Canal, all located in central Vienna. We did succumb to a river cruise, albeit a short one, which started on the canal (tacky with a lot of the wrong sort of street art) and finished on the new Danube (I think anyway, it really can be confusing). Would I recommend it though? Well, maybe, although a significant part of our mini cruise was spent going through the very large Danube lock (and yes, there is more than one of these also) so it was perhaps more of an interesting experience than a beautiful river cruise. But we had fun anyway with a large crowd of rather excited non-English speaking Italians from The Dolomites sharing the experience with us.
There were beautiful buildings everywhere we went. We chose to visit the Museum Quarter on a couple of occasions and this was a lovely area, located in the old imperial stables dating from the 18th century. We visited the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig View (a real mouthful, so much easier to say the museum of modern art) and also the Leopold Museum. The Leopold in particular was fascinating as it held a significant number of pieces from one of my favourite artists, Egon Schiele. To see some of his work for real was wonderful, especially to see the reaction from visitors to some of his more explicit paintings. If only we had found some space for me to bring back a souvenir or two.
The joys of travelling light.
I was also keen to check out something rather historic from the movies during our visit to Vienna. The Third Man, released in 1949 and the winner of the best cinematography Academy award, was filmed largely in Vienna. In what was probably the film’s most memorable scene, Orson Welles has his famous “cuckoo clock” speech whilst on the famous big wheel, the Wiener Riesenrad, at the Prater amusement park. We managed to visit the Prater, an old fashioned fair ground and still one of Vienna’s most popular tourist attractions. Whilst, perhaps, it really was past its best, it was still fascinating to visit such an iconic location from the world of films. (continued after the photographs)
Sadly, after only three nights in Austria, we found ourselves back at the Wien Hauptbahnhof and ready for our next leg. This time it was a slightly shorter trip to Nuremberg in Bavaria, just a little over 250 miles away, and a place we had stopped at on our journey to Vienna a few days before. This time we found ourselves on a four seater table in a quiet carriage with a very friendly couple from Seaford in England, Colin and Margaret. Needless to say we soon got chatting and the four hour trip went very quickly.
Whilst we had only planned one full day in Nuremberg it proved to be one of the most memorable stops of our adventure. We arrived on a lovely, sunny afternoon and found that our hotel was in the old town, a beautiful area enclosed by walls that had been almost entirely rebuilt after the end of the Second World War in the old style. Amazingly, we discovered that 90% of the town had been destroyed by just one Allied bombing raid that had lasted just a few hours. We made the most of the weather and explored in the late afternoon, visiting the medieval castle, which dominated the skyline, and taking a walk around the old streets.
But it was the next day, a day that was wet and miserable and, in some ways, symbolic of what was to come, that had the most effect on us. I was aware that Nuremberg had been central to the Nazi party, before and during the Second World War. I had heard of the Nuremberg Laws and the Nuremberg War Trials. But mostly, the image I had in my head was of the Nuremberg Rallies, massive events organised by the Nazi party and held from the late 1920’s right up until 1938. I was surprised to find that the rally grounds are still largely intact so it felt like a missed opportunity not to take a look.
This proved to be a good decision.
We took a bus out to the rally grounds and immediately were hit by the scale. I had never heard of the Kongressehalle before, but this hall had been based upon the Colusseum in Rome and was massive. Building work had stopped in 1939 at the advent of war and the hall was never actually finished. Like so much of the rally grounds, after the war it had all been selectively forgotten as no-one seemed to know what to do with it all. It was only in the last 20 years or so that the local government had made a decision to keep what remained but not to maintain these relics of the past.
After the congress hall we spent some time at the temporary exhibition that covered the growth of the Nazi party which seemed to be equal parts fascinating and horrific. We went exploring in the rain without really knowing where we were going and found the great road (Gross Strasse), a massive parade road that was again built on the back of the rallies but never actually used due to the advent of war.
But for me the most impressive part was when we found the famous Zeppelin Field. This was where the main rallies took place and so much of it looked familiar due to the footage seen on television. Named, as the name suggests, after the field where a Zeppelin landed long before the Nazi’s were around, we were able to walk along the main parade area and arena and climb up onto the terraces where the leaders used to stand for the rallies. It really was remarkable how much of the place was still there. You could stand, if you really wanted to, exactly where Adolf Hitler stood when he made his speeches to the thousands of loyal party members so many years ago.
The grounds were sobering and had a power about them that, like the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, is difficult to describe. We didn’t see everything. The weather was really not very good. But we saw plenty and it was enough to leave us contemplating how such a beautiful town and country could descend into the madness that allowed the German National Socialists to take power.
After our sobering morning we wanted to lighten the mood for the afternoon. So we found our default mode and hit the art museums of Nuremberg. Three museums, one of them underwhelming (although I did appreciate the rather subtle photographs), one quite frankly weird and the other a beautiful old building with an eclectic mix of paintings. And it was at the last place that we got chatting to a very friendly American veteran (his words, he was very keen that we knew he had served his country) who had decided not to go home after his posting and was now married to a local with German raised children and grandchildren. A very big character in a rather bijou gallery.
And so we reached the penultimate leg of our trip.
We jumped onto a double decker train, nicely empty after our initial concerns on what felt like a very busy platform, and the only trip of our adventure with no seat bookings. It was only a couple of hours from Nuremberg to Stuttgart and in some ways it was the most pleasant and peaceful leg to date. We arrived in a very warm Stuttgart to complete chaos, with a major station refurbishment underway and a big football match just down the road. We eventually found a sunny corner to hide in (behind one of the police vans actually) and spent our time watching the football fans, most of them dressed in lederhosen for some reason, and catching up with my teams score back home on my mobile (they won).
Our connection was another double decker, this time a fast service from Stuttgart to Paris with just the one stop in Strasbourg. A pleasant and unremarkable journey, we arrived to a warm and sunny early evening in Paris and jumped on a couple of Metro trains to our destination at Saint-Francois-Xavier.
Our accommodation for the evening, well, let’s just say that it was funny in a way although maybe it didn’t feel it at the time. Having thought I had booked a decent hotel in Paris, we arrived to find a place closer to one star than the three I had anticipated. Still, we enjoyed listening in to the conversations in the other rooms and, as it was our final night, we navigated our way through an interesting night without it feeling that bad.
The good part was a lovely walk to see the a beautifully lit Eiffel Tower in the evening and then a couple of hours the following morning checking out some more of the sights. It was busy, hot and sticky, but we found plenty of photo opportunities and still managed to get back to our hotel in time to collect our luggage. We found a lovely little cafe with tables on the street and decided to grab a late Parisian breakfast and people watch for what was to be the last time on this trip.
And so it was back on to the Metro to the Gare du Nord and our Eurostar check in. Funnily enough we bumped into our friends Colin and Margaret, who we had first met a few days before on the train from Vienna to Nuremberg, in the lounge and had another good chat before boarding the final train back to London.
And that, as they say, was that.
We had a great adventure, visited some wonderful new places and met some really friendly and interesting people.
We travelled on 30 different trains (overground and underground) and clocked up a total of 2,222 miles (3,571 km’s). Whilst it was not really a massive amount of travelling, it certainly beat heading to numerous soulless airports and wondering what effect our travel was having on the planet (a very negative effect, that’s what). But as I had hoped, it was really all about the experience and the engagement with the people we met and the places we visited.
So, would I do it again? Yes, absolutely yes. And would I recommend it to others? Again, yes. But I accept that it’s not for everyone and if you don’t find the idea of making your own arrangements and actually enjoying the thrill of the adventure appealing in any way then I wouldn’t bother.
The joy of a full backpack and a European train ticket is probably not for you!
