Today we bid farewell to the Balkan States where we’ve been for most of the last five weeks. We’ve really enjoyed travelling through here, seeing many different landscapes and experiencing first-hand the slightly different way of life of the people who call the region home. There are a lot of similarities to travelling in western Europe so day to day life as a tourist is not completely foreign and certainly not daunting. Signage and menus are more difficult because the Balkans are Slavic nations and therefore use Slavic languages compared to western Europe which is mostly based in Latin and Germanic languages, much more familiar to we Anglo-Saxons. But that’s why you take Google Translate with you on your phone! Most people understand a little English, enough for us to get by. No insurmountable language problems. A tip for travellers to this region…. people of the Balkan States are quite direct in their verbal communications. For example, at a cafe an Englishman (or an Australian) might say “Sorry to bother you, but would it be too much trouble to pass the salt?”. A Croatian would say “Salt”. He’s not being rude, just not wasting words that don’t need to be said to get the desired outcome. My advice would be to follow their lead as the risk of confusion and misunderstanding grows exponentially with each extra word used…. in any language.
The history lesson has been fascinating too. I wanted to get a better understanding of the more the recent history (that is, the Balkan Wars of 30-odd years ago) which I reckon I have but I also learned about the much less recent history of the last couple of millennia. I also expanded my understanding of the reach and reign of the Habsburg family and the Austro-Hungarian Empire over the 650 years prior to the end of WWI.
As I write, we’re on the train from Bled to Vienna. Our trusty taxi driver, Brane, picked us up a few minutes early and delivered us back to Lesce-Bled station in plenty of time ahead of our 10:06 train. As he had predicted, the train was 30 minutes late. A “local” woman who catches this train regularly confirmed our driver’s advice. On the 60 minute journey to Villach, just over the border in Austria, we chatted with a young Canadian girl from Vancouver travelling solo on her first European adventure and another girl from Koper on the Slovenian coast just taking a few days off to visit Vienna. Before we knew it we were at our first train change stop. I’d allowed 66 minutes to change trains which was just as well since we left Lesce-Bled 30 minutes late. The driver must have put his foot down because we still had 55 minutes to walk across the platform to our next train to Vienna when we got to Villach. Well, in a transport sense, you certainly knew that you’d left the Balkan States behind. Everything was well oragnised, well sign-posted, clean and efficient. In Lesce-Bled there was no indication that any train was even due, let alone running late or even still coming at all or which platform to stand on to catch it if it did arrive. In Austria, things were the polar opposite as I had hoped. We knew everything about the train well before it arrived and it left at precisely 12:13. You can always bet on that legendary Germanic efficiency. I’m now intrigued to understand why it never found it’s way into the way of life of the Balkan nations, given that they were ruled by Austria for such a long, long time.
The train made its way through very pretty scenery along it’s 4.5hr journey Vienna. Pine-clad hillsides, rocky gorges, small towns and little villages kept us company along the way. Occasionally up would pop a small lake to further enhance to landscape. This was our first journey of seven acquired under the auspices of our Eurail passes. We had opted for the “seven travel days in a 30 day period” ticket. Under this scheme a travel day starts at 00:01 and ends at 23:59 so one needs to plan one’s travel accordingly. On this ticket if you were to take an overnight sleeper train that left at 10:00pm and arrived at your destination at 07:00am that constitutes two travel days. None of that is happening for us on this trip. The landscape flattened out as we entered the Vienna Basin at the eastern-most reach of the European Alps. I reckon the train sped up too now that the terrain had become relatively flat. Along the way I checked the details of this leg in the Eurail Pass app on the phone. To my delight I discovered that the train was scheduled to make a stop at the Wien Meidling station, which is quite near our accommodation so we re-arranged our plans around alighting there. Wien Meidling is a significant station with a complex arrangement of tunnels, passageways, levels, halls and platforms but nowhere near the same complexity as I figuired Wien HbF would have been. Before we emerged into the daylight we found a ticket vending machine and purchased a couple of 48-hr travel passes for just €14.00 a piece, giving us unlimited travel on the city’s trams, buses and trains.
As is usually the case when one pops up from an underground train line in a foreign city it can take a little while to get one’s bearings. In some places finding landmarks and even street names can prove to be difficult. Google Maps in hand and the location of our hotel plugged in we set off on foot….. in the wrong direction. When the little arrow starts moving away from your destination you know it time for an about face. Thankfully, due to the accuracy of GPS maps one rarely travels more that 50m the wrong way. 1.6km down the right road, after some twists and turns, we found our hotel, or to be more accurate, our apartment. The street it lies on is far from a leafy green oasis, lined with nice properties. It’s more residential/industrial. But the Somerset Schönbrunn is a great premises. Brand new, clean, a bit young-person “funky” and staffed by very friendly and helpful people. We had a minor booking challenge which was overcome with a minimum of fuss. Our self-contained apartment is bright and clean, large and new and has a balcony.
After some clothes washing in the bathroom (the apartment has everything except a washing machine) we headed to the only place to eat in the area, a good Italian restaurant a few doors up, had dinner then hit the sack.
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