Now that I’m back in Italy Amy and I finally got the chance to go on a little mini-vacation outside of Italy. Europe, being a little more compact than the U.S, gives the opportunity of taking a four day weekend and enjoying a completely different country while still being back home in time to go back to work on Monday…well, one of us anyway. In this particular case we had a good excuse. Dec 20th, 2013 is Amy and my 10th wedding anniversary ( I know, I know, I look so dashingly young, could it really be 10 years?). Originally we had intended to re-visit where we spent our honeymoon but being on a different continent we decided that wasn’t going to work on our schedule. Instead, we (and by we I mean she) picked out Innsbruck, Austria (wife/editor’s note: this was actually “if Venice didn’t work out”, Options are nice :). Not that I didn’t want to go mind you, I essentially was told to look for a way to get there and a place to stay…oh, and maybe some stuff to do while we’re there. Of course, that’s fair enough, given the amount of time I have on my hands. Innsbruck, Austria it is. If you don’t know where that is, Innsbruck is a beautiful and old city located in the Tyrolean region of Austria not far from the border with Italy. It’s nestled in a valley in the Austrian, Alps. Picturesque doesn’t quite do it justice.
Traveling from where we are in Italy (because we’re in the heel of the boot) by and large means flying to Rome and then flying somewhere else. However, flying into Innsbruck in particular is a little expensive, and we learned that the train ride in from Verona, Italy is spectacular. I want to be perfectly clear here, while I may have time on my hands I apparently lack the gene that drives people to be travel agents. Trying too coordinate flights with train schedules made my eyes cross. The solution? Lets go by train the whole way. I was skeptical at first really. A short train ride to another city in Italy would be one thing, a 12ish hour train ride to Austria is something else entirely (especially being the first time we try it). The stop and go nature of it that gives me pause, imagining 12 hours of riding in stop and go traffic, but at least in this case I don’t have to get a pat down and body scan so there is an upside (not to mention getting to keep your shoes on…).
There is in fact a train station in Grottaglie, but they don’t sell tickets there anymore so we decided to start our trip in Bari (this, coincidentally, is where the nearest IKEA is located. I think Amy had an ulterior motive here). We did a little recon the weekend before (and the weekend before that at IKEA, sensing a pattern here?) so we could figure out where to park the car, how to get around the train station, and where a Burger King was (that was an accident, but it was pretty tasty). So when we got there a few hours early (there was a truckers strike going on so we left really early and they were in fact blocking traffic in Bari) we spend some time at the mall (….this is no longer a pattern, it’s diabolical) and then found our way into the city to park…and we were still an hour and a half early. So as all good Italians do we sat down in the cafe and ordered something with espresso in it. As it turns out while we sat and waited for our train we struck up a conversation with an older gentleman who knew “a little” English (“a little” can often be translated to “I can probably talk about just about everything but don’t know slang”). He was incredibly nice and asked us if we could look up the “football” (come’on man, I hail from SEC territory, you’re talking about soccer) scores for him. He was also headed in the same direction on the same train and said he would help us get started since this was our first trip. (he also said his grand kids would get a kick out of hearing he sat and talked with us…goofy Americans :) He did get us on the right train smoothly, sadly it dawned on us that he never asked for our names and we didn’t ask his. I do, however, have his picture for posterity. Thank you sir:
In order to make this trip seem shorter we started with a sleeper car for the first leg of the trip. This in fact turned out better than the first time I used one. Back in college when Amy and I spent a couple of weeks in Russia we took one between Moscow and St Petersburg and decided to open the window for some air (this was another “we” translates to “she” moment)…which then got stuck open. You could have hung meat in that little cabin, brrr ( I did eventually manage to get it closed, but our portion of the heat that trip was gone for good). On this trip it got more chilly the further north we went but it didn’t feel like Siberia in there. Even more fortunate was the fact that you couldn’t open the window unless it was an emergency, so Amy wasn’t allowed to touch the window unless we derailed…good plan. The flip side to this was that even though it was a late night and made few stops it was only a 6-ish hour ride which meant only a few hours sleep. It is, however, better than driving the whole way.
The non-sleeping car portion of the trip started in Bologna (I can hear you singing it already, sadly it’s not how they pronounce it here. You’d think the original owners would get it right, sheesh). This portion of the trip involved waiting for the train in 20-some-odd degree weather we weren’t quite prepared for in order for the train to “open” but other than that it went fine. The train from Verona though, was as good as advertised. As you move north things start to change. The most notable is the architecture, you are still in Italy but things start to look more “Bavarian”(think less Godfather and more Sound of Music). Along with that you start to notice the snow capped mountains. It truly is a beautiful thing to watch go by through the window. Passing out of Italy and into Austria it only gets more beautiful, with the last few miles outside of Innsbruck making the whole trip worth the half day it takes to get there.
Next up, Innsbruck.
Sounds like lots of fun for you young and adventuring kids. Oh to be young again. I love you two so much. I hope this is only the beginning of your trips. I love reading about them. Stay warm.