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Glacier Express through the Swiss Alps

We embarked on our next journey to Austria. It was a train-ride day for us on board the Glacier Express – the famous Swiss mountain railways that pass through the Alps in the heart of Switzerland. It was an awesome train ride with stunning views of different seasons flashing pass the window. We passed through the snow-capped mountain ranges with captivating glacier landscapes; the Alpine meadows with spring flowers blooming everywhere; and the onset of a bloom after the deep winter.

The frozen stream.

Initially, we thought we would be sitting in this kind of carriage with large window panels to enjoy the scenic views, but it was only for First Class ticket holders, and we bought Second Class tickets =( This is First Class Glacier Express!!

This is Second Class Glacier Express!! We didn’t know there is such a big difference!

Next: The 700-yr-old hostel at Feldkirch, Austria!

Posted by eunice Posted in Europe, Glacier Express, Switzerland Comments (4)

Meet the World Largest Ice Caves in Werfen

We embarked on an exciting journey to the world largest limestone ice caves located in Werfen – The Eisriesenwelt (German: “World of the Ice Giants”).

We met two friendly English old couple from Yorkshire. They were leaving the resort and they offered us to get into their cab to the train station. It was snowing in Schladming.

But during our way to Werfen, we missed our friend as he hopped onto a train first and before we could board the train, a train officer shouted at us and warned us that the train was leaving. Then we also realised our friend was in the wrong train. A kind man told us that the train would terminate at the next station and we could meet our friend by taking the another train too.

When the next train came, Jacky asked another train officer if it was the right train , but the officer simply ignored us when his colleague went up and talked to him! They completely ignored us! Feeling helpless, we boarded the train and we thought it was the right train until Jacky asked a conductor and was told that the next train was the right one instead. Immediately, we got out of the train, so scared that the train would just go before we could get down, just like our friend who failed to do that!

So, the train to Werfen was late. We went to the ice caves without our friend as we had too many doubts about the train timing, plus unhelpful train officers.

Finally, we reached Werfen. To get up to the ice caves, we took the shuttle bus to the next bus-stop. From there, we had to walk for another 20mins upslope in the cold to the cable car station. The cable car took us to somewhere near the ice caves entrance, and we had to walk for at least another 20mins upslope in the cold again, while gasping for breathe in the thin mountain air. However, it was a lovely walk in the snow. In fact, it was snowing.

Despite the problems that we encountered on our way to the giant ice caves, it was a well worth visit. We had a German-speaking guided tour in the ice caves; we were given an English description of the ice caves instead.

At the giant ice caves entrance.

The giant ice caves entrance that overlooks the mystical yet enchanting landscape of the Salzach valley.

We climbed a lot of steps in the gigantic ice caves and we had to be very watchful with our steps on the slippery ground. The ice caves are covered with bizarre and beautifully shaped thick ice-layers. The tour lasted around 75mins.

Very cold inside, my fingers were numb as I wasn’t wearing any gloves in the giant ice caves, and the skin cracked.

The mighty Hohensalzburg Fortress watching the giant caves.

At the town below the ice caves, we met our friend in a supermarket! Guess friends think alike in a foreign land! He told us he had also finished his ice caves tour. He was lucky as his cave guide spoke English and even allowed him to take photos in the ice caves since his tour group size was very small. When he told us he got a discounted ticket as a student, we were surprised as the ticket seller told us no discount for students! We met another unhelpful officer again…Gosh!

We went back and had to make another tiring walk up to our resort at the mountain again – 1 and half kilometres UPHILL! We were surprised to see an entire different view of our resort – the roofs were snow-capped! It must be snowing quite heavily when we were away in Werfen.

For dinner, I fried chicken fillets, boiled broccoli, warmed precooked curry and prepared mashed potatoes.

Hallstatt and the cuckoo-clock houses

Posted by eunice Posted in Austria, Europe, Werfen Comments (7)

Hallstatt, the UNESCO World Heritage Site

GOSH! We missed the train to Hallstatt and wasted almost half day! The trains changed their arrival platform but the train schedule on the notice board was not updated! We blindly waited from 12plus to 2plus for two hours. Then we realised something was wrong when no one was left waiting at the station.

In the end, we waited for another hour for the next train ride to Hallstatt. Our friend didn’t want to wait anymore and hopped on to the next arriving train to Graz. We didn’t follow him as we thought by the time we reached Graz on a 2-hour ride, it should be almost the same timing as we reached Hallstatt. We thought that was nothing much to see in Graz too.

We didn’t take the direct train to Hallstatt. We went to Bad Aussee first to enjoy the beautiful scenic ride.

To get the Hallstatt, we took a ferry ride from Hallstatt train station. It was a short ride across the opposite side of the lake to the “Cuckoo Clocks” town. It is called that way as the houses at the bank are pretty and look like cuckoo clocks. There are many salt mines and ice caves in Hallstatt. In fact, it has the oldest salt mine in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site for Cultural Heritage.

We were late when we reached Hallstatt, thus, didn’t join the salt mine tour. The bone house next to the Catholic Church was closed for the day too. In fact, many sites had closed for the day by the time we reached there. It took us half a day to arrive at Hallstatt, but the small town can be easily toured on foot in less than thirty minutes. Read More »

Posted by eunice Posted in Austria, Europe, Hallstatt Comments (3)

The Journey to Prague

The Munich station was nice and clean. We returned to Austria for connecting trains to Prague. Our first stop in Austria was Salzburg, followed by another train to Linz. Austria is also famous for its yummy apple strudels. I bought one at the train station and it cheap and tasted good too. From Linz, we took a train to the Austria-Czech border, then another train to enter Czech.

The train to enter the Czech’s border was funny; it had only one carriage and we were the only few passengers in the carriage. It looked more like a bus running on the railroad! We often hear stories from travel agencies about the tense atmosphere at Czech’s border, with strict-looking custom policemen carrying big rifles while checking everyone’s passport on the coach. We prayed hard that it was not like what was told.

It really wasn’t what was heard about the scary Czech custom. There were only two custom policemen carrying small pistols entered our train. They checked our nationalities from a little booklet and gave us an entry-permit stamp. Our Singapore passports were checked quickly, but Jacky’s Malaysian passport took the police officer a while as he babbled with his colleague and went through the booklet again.

Fortunately, we didn’t face any problem with the Czech custom. So far, we had only got two custom stamps from Austria and Czech; we didn’t get stamps when we entered France and Switzerland.

The trains and train station in Prague were very old. They appeared much older than the rest of the trains and stations we went over the past two weeks; seemed that not much restoration was done to the station for the past decades. In fact, Czech Republic is formed on 1 January 1993, after Czechoslovakia, which was then a communist country, peacefully split into Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Having heard stories about pickpockets in Prague, we were extra careful with our belongings. Guess what?! We had our first suspect appeared the moment we alighted the train at Prague station! A young man awkwardly bumped onto my friend as soon as my friend came out of the train. The platform was so wide with no crowd, why would the man walk to our direction and bumped onto him? The young man apologised in English with an awkward accent. ENGLISH! We had not heard any stranger and even customer service staff whose first word was English throughout our two-week stay in Europe. We often had to start the conversation with, “Excuse me, do you speak English?” The biggest surprise was, the young man went up the train that we just came down, and we all knew that the train terminated at the station! Very suspicious man.

The train station in Prague was gloomily lit and quiet. There wasn’t anyone queuing for ticket at the counter. Another suspenseful incident happened again: Jacky went to the ticket counter to check on the train ticket to the old town square where our hostel was located. Then, a uniformed man walked toward Jacky and beckoned him to go somewhere else. We were puzzled. Jacky was simply making enquiry about train tickets at the counter, why the counter officer didn’t help him and let someone outside the queue to do the job? Of course, out of safety reason, Jacky ignored that suspicious uniformed man. And that man could not do anything more but to walk away.

Another scary incident happened again, at the train station. Our friend wanted to withdrawn money at the ATM. Two suspicious men that looked like crooks were loitering behind us. There wasn’t anybody nearby except these two men. We kept staring at them, while guarding behind our friend who was withdrawing money. Fortunately, no robbery.

This was the only place where people came to us and spoke English to us, promoting their hostels and other things that had never happened before when we were in France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany.

Eat like a King in Prague!

Posted by eunice Posted in Czech Republic, Europe, Prague Comments (3)

A Journey on the Night Train, from Vienna to Venice

The four of us occupied the whole cabin in the train when we were still in Austria. A cabin had six seats; three seats in a row facing opposite the other three seats. All the seats could slide down so that we could lay down to sleep. Not too comfortable, but cheaper than buying a ticket with sleeper.

We read that night trains are dangerous and there are thieves that might spray sleeping gas in night trains. Thus, we were extra careful with our belongings; we slept on our bags. Our friend even chained our cabin door so that we could all have a peace of mind that no one would come in and took our things when we were asleep!

Around midnight, there were suddenly a lot of passengers boarding the night train. We thought they were Italians. Then came a loud knock. It was an Italian police officer. He wanted to check our passports as we were entering Italy. My friend quickly unchained the door for him.

Magical Venice!

Posted by eunice Posted in Europe, Italy, Venice Comments (1)

Rome is not built in a day; we combed it in a day! [part 2]

Leaning Tower is to Pisa as Colosseum is to Rome. The mighty Colosseum is the largest elliptical amphitheatre ever built in the Roman Empire and one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and engineering. When we think of Colosseum, we think of the brave gladiators who fought for their lives.

Admission to Colosseum is not free and we did not enter it as we thought we could just peep through the gaps to see its interior.

We headed to the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum near the Colosseum. The forum was closing when we entered and there was hardly anyone in the forum which is now left with ruins of the past. But from a historical perspective, it’s much more interesting than Colosseum.

The Roman Forum was the political, legal and religious centre of the mighty Roman Empire. Imagine standing in the Roman Forum which was once a centre of splendour and glory during the mighty Roman Empire is like stepping into the biggest film set ever.

To take a better picture of the Roman Forum, we climbed up a pillar and jumped dangerously from one pillar to another.

The National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II is behind the Roman Forum. Not many people around that area and we had a quick bite there on the steps later on.

We all read about gypsy women carrying drugged babies to beg for money and some even pick pocket. The most atrocious story I had read was about a gypsy woman throwing baby doll to the victim and snatched away the victim’s belongings. Then, when we were in the metro, we really saw a gypsy woman carrying a sleeping baby walking through the crowded metro. When she was walking toward us, the four of us stayed close together and ignored her.

The night fell when we reached the Trevi Fountain, the largest Baroque fountain in Rome. Remember to throw a coin into the fountain so that you will be brought back to Rome!

At the Spanish Steps, it was too dimmed for us to take a clear photo anymore. An important note here: be careful of the drunk sitting on the step above you as he or she might drop the bottle down the steps.

It was really getting very late – another five minutes to twelve! We headed to catch a glimpse of the Pantheon. On the way there, we witnessed a young man who dashed across the road and was nearly hit by an oncoming taxi driving at a fast speed. Luckily the taxi driver could react fast enough to brake, if not the young man would be hit and thrown to some where far down the road. What a close shave! We had seen many cars in Rome driving very fast and never give way to pedestrians. So when we need to cross a road, we had to walk across carefully to cut their path at a distance that was enough for them to stop before us!

The dimly lit Pantheon at midnight.

It is not advisable to stay out late at night, especially in a foreign land where we are not familiar with the place. Nonetheless, we felt safe walking around at night in Rome. When we reached our hostel, the two other dorm mates were not back yet so we could switch on the light; if not we had to fumble in the dark. The dorm mate returned and was thankful that we still kept the light on and he didn’t need to stumble around.

Forgot where this photo was taken, but the site exhibits models of buildings and structures of Rome in showcases on a hilltop.