Beautiful Berlin

Thursday Evening, Berlin

Berlin’s new central station, the Hauptbahnhof is just amazing. Gliding in there from Warsaw’s dilapidated old Soviet-era monstrosity is such a contrast I stand in awe at the sheer scale of this temple for trains. Different lines, main, underground and commuter criss-cross through this extraordinary glass edifice and I stand in wonder for fully a quarter of an hour before venturing forth to find a taxi to my hotel.

Great Hotels of the World have kindly booked me into Hecker's Hotel, just a few steps away from the famous Ku-Dam shopping street. It´s small and friendly and the reception staff are probably the most welcoming I have had so far on this trip.

The local tourist board has planned a very full programme, so there’s only time for a quick shower and change before I am whisked away by Henrik, the boss of Urban Insider tours and his friend, Sasha. Henrik, a 33 year old Swede, spent several years in the UK and Spain before deciding that Berlin is the place for him. Now, he specialises in showing off some of the special places of the city he clearly adores. Sasha’s a local boy, who for 14 years grew up in that strangely divided city before the collapse of the wall.

The duo wax lyrically about the enormous changes since unification – this is, they say, the most liberal and ´happening´ city in Europe. I like their style. We have an excellent Gazpacho in one of the Gorilla chain of natural fast-food restaurants before crossing town to the up and coming Mitte District to have our main course in a somewhat bizarre courtyard run by an organisation called the Zagreus Project. This is an eating-place for those in the know, but you have to be a member and ´rent a chair´ to keep everything legal and above board. The guys are very disappointed when their choice for pudding, Cookies, with its entrance tucked away near the dustbins underneath the Westin Berlin, is closed, so we repair for cheese and dessert to the ultra-trendy Solar, 17 storeys up above the city and accessed via an external lift.

It´s an amazing introduction to Berlin and I take my hat off to Henrik for his unique and refreshingly lively tours.

The breakfast buffet at Hecker’s is, by far, the best I have had since I set off from home. I am, it has to be said, not a fan of buffets, especially ones where hot food sits for hours and is not regularly refreshed. But this is all top grub, with an excellent range of very tasty breads, fresh juices and fruit plus a chef on duty to cook to order. It’s so nice to have coffee that is freshly made rather than several hours before.

My first port of call turns out to be a huge disappointment. Clearly there has been a breakdown in communication at the Berlin underground tour office. I take a 45 minute subway journey right across town to visit the WW2 underground shelter, to be told by a frosty-faced fraulein at reception that the tour is full! This despite the confirmation email between the tourist office and her boss. When she, very reluctantly, agrees to let me join the tour, one of he colleagues, a really officious school-prefect type, tells me very sternly that I cannot take any pictures. Really useful for a press trip! So my supposed 90-minute tour consists solely of an in-depth study of the ladies latrines before Miss Jobsworth decides to exert her enormous authority and demands to see my press credentials. At that point I give up.

So there’s an unexpected opportunity to use some of Berlin’s excellent public transport network for a couple of hours and I take full advantage. After some obligatory tourist-type visits to take some photos for this feature, I find myself in the Hackescher Markt, where I find myself in the authentic and very good Vivolo Spanish restaurant. It´s a lovely area to read my ´Berlin in My Pocket Guide book and enjoy a tapas or two.

My afternoon programme is sensational. The Trabant car was once almost the only car available to East Germans, but there are now very few around. Entrepreneur Rico Heinzig has snapped up 60 of the 26 horsepower cars and runs ‘Safari Tours’ around the cityand in Dresden. My guide, Simone, surprises me when I am told I have to actually do the driving! Luckily a Trabant gear box is not dissimilar to that of my Citroen 2CV, so I don’t disgrace myself. Simone and I have great fun while she chatters away on a walkie-talkie link to a Canadian family travelling a few metres in front of us, in a stretched-lino version of the car. It´s a complete hoot and chatty, smiley, Simone totally restores my faith in the German female species. Afterwards, we are shown under the bonnet, where a gravity-fed fuel tank comes complete with a dip stick to check levels.

Simone also directs me to the nearby Bob Box Off store, which serves excellent copy and has some really tasteful quality souvenirs. Two metres in front of the shop, a row of cobles mark the line of the Berlin Wall and a few hundred metres away, there’s the last remaining section. We are near Checkpoint Charlie which, for some reason is a huge tourist attraction. Don’t bother. It´s crowded, the area is full of tourist tat, and there’s actually very little to see.

I want to go up the Norman Foster designed dome at the Reichstag, the German Parliament building, but the queue stretches forever, so I skirt round the back of the Brandenburg Gate and have a lovely walk beside the river to pick up my subway home at the wonderful Central Station.

Berlin has certainly got my vote for the most impressive city f my trip so far. I haven’t been here since just after the fall of the wall, but the change is just incredible – and clearly continuing.

Yet, surprisingly, Berlin is a very affordable capital city. Eating out is very reasonably priced, apartment rents are very low compared to many other cities, and there is a real feeling of confidence.

Henrik and Sasha are right. Berlin really is a happening place.

Tomorrow I set off (at 0718 am!) for Hamburg and Copenhagen, before turning south for home.

On the Poland Germany Border

Wednesday 4pm

Approaching the Polish-German border

I go to bed early and sleep wonderfully in the most comfortable bed I have had so far. In the morning, I am relieved to discover that my washing is nearly dry and I’ve discovered that the trouser press in the Radisson has got a built in ironing board with an iron attached, so I set to. I sometimes wish that people who design ships´ cabins and hotel bedrooms could be let loose on our homes. They just seem to be SO clever at fitting things into little spaces.

Over an excellent breakfast with an extremely tasty freshly cooked omelette, I meet with another Agnieszka, this time the hotel’s PR lady. She tells me that some Warsaw taxi drivers have a similar reputation to the ones in Prague. Once bitten, twice shy, I make sure that the receptionist books me a reputable firm. The girl tells me the price should be ‘a maximum of 25 Zlotys’ (around six pounds) but the man agrees to charge me 15. The meter actually shows 10, but what the hell.

I go in search for a plan of the train, so I can position myself near to the carriage listed on my ticket, but I can’t find one. Although most of the announcements on the platform are in Polish, the international nature of the train means that a tape-recorded voice informs us in which sector of the platform each carriage will be and there’s a massive scramble as half of Warsaw realises that they are in the wrong place. Luckily, through a combination of luck and experience, I have guessed right.

Agnieszka has told me that ‘the train is lovely’ but six of us are squeezed into a compartment and I go in search of rather plusher accommodation. The restaurant carriage is split into two with only 3 passengers in the 10 non-catering seats. At Poznan, a lot of folk get off and I am left with half a carriage all to myself, apart from an occasional staff luncheon.

Poland has not been cheap, but the Polish Railways Restaurant is not overly-priced and, as a result, very busy. I am surprised how many people the waiter allows just to have a coffee, thus blocking up tables for genuine meal takers.

I am half way round my circuit and reflect that I haven’t been on a really high speed train since arriving in Barcelona. In fact the only one I have seen was an Italian-built Pendolino, like Virgin use, and that was in the Czech Republic.

So far, the Eurail/Inter Rail pass has worked extremely well although it´s nigh on impossible to make a reservation on a train via the internet, although everybody assures me it is theoretically possible. What happens in practice is that the English bit of the foreign railways´ web sites runs out at that point and you go round in circles. So, to avoid endless queues at stations during your travels, my strong advice is to plan well ahead and book both your tickets and your seat reservation through an agency who can handle everything.

The Polish countryside has been lovely, very agricultural with freshly-harvested fields and lots of forests and rivers. I am reminded often of the landscape in the film, ‘The Great Escape’.

Today’s diary is being filed early, courtesy of Mr. Vodafone’s 3G data card for my laptop, because the Berlin Tourist Board has put together what looks like a fascinating and very full programme which starts soon after my arrival with a ‘private walking and gastronomic tour’. If you can’t wait, check it out at www.berlinagenten.com and www.gastro-rallye.com, which, I must confess I haven’t yet actually done myself.

Wonderful Warsaw

Tuesday, Warsaw

I’ve had a dreadful night´s rest! If it wasn’t the crashing of bottles into the skip in the courtyard or the bin men at crack of dawn, it was the noisy waste disposal device on the loo whirring into action.

I have had less than four hours sleep, but, wide awake at 5am, at least there’s plenty of time to read some of the plethora of leaflets Warsaw Tourism has provided and pick a few personal favourites to add to the grand tour.

There’s a clear sign at breakfast that the ´Horrible Harenda´, which is the name I have dubbed my accommodation, has not yet woken up to the post-Communist era. The scrambled eggs are finished and the girls on duty cannot be convinced to provide any more. So I tuck into tomatoes and toast, Spanish-style and jolly nice it is too.

My guide, Agnieszka, has brought her 18-year old daughter, Ana, with her. Ana, who, like her mother, speaks excellent English, turns out to be Poland’s third best hammer thrower at junior level. I later feel her upper arm muscles and realise what it takes to send the Scottish-invented device nearly 51 metres.

Our first port of call is to the right bank of the river Vistula, to the Praga District. This is where Roman Polanski filmed ´The Pianist´, which I vow to look at again when I get home. I am shown a 100 year-old Russian vodka factory, which closed only last year. Apparently, a Russian soldier was given half a litre of liquor per day.

Of course Poland has had more than its fair share of conflict and the Jews suffered terribly during Nazi occupation. It brings you up short to be told that six million Poles lost their lives in World War Two, half of whom were Jews. At the former Gestapo Paviak Prison, you can see part of the ghetto wall and a memorial to the 30,000 who died while incarcerated in that dreadful place.

Ana is off tomorrow to Tel Aviv on a student exchange scheme; there’s still a strong feeling in Israel that Poland was as much to blame for the holocaust as the Nazis, so there’s a lot of bridge-building still to be done.

Almost the last thing the Nazis did as the Russians moved in was to obliterate everything of any value or history in Warsaw.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed by the endless list of horror statistics, I ask Agnieszka to lighten up a bit. Having just scratched the surface of man’s inhumanity to man, I just can’t imagine what emotion I would feel if I was ever to visit Auschwitz.

Stalin gave Warsaw the ´Palace of Culture´ in 1955 as ‘a gift from the Russian people’. There was quite a debate as to whether it should remain after Communist rule ended, but it´s certainly an impressive reminder of that era of history.

I want to go to a market and have mentioned one I found in my guide book. My two hosts look at each other and Ana tells me a truly horrific story about the place which I shan´t repeat here but persuaded me that it was certainly not to be included on any itinerary. The market is in an old stadium, built by the Russians in 1954 but hardly ever used and now about to be flattened in preparation for the European Football Championships in 2012.

I hadn’t realised that Chopin grew up near Warsaw, being the son of a French father and Polish mother and there is much celebration of him in and around town.

Agnieszka tells me a little bit about Polish politics. Apparently, in a play of words on part of their surname, the Kaczynski brothers who were President and Prime Minister until one lost his position in last year’s election were known as Big and Little Duck. The new Prime Minister is called Donald…..

Today, there’s concern here that the leaders of Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Ukraine and Estonia have all flown in the same aircraft to Tbilisi to show their solidarity with Georgia against Russia.

Agnieszka has of course saved the best till last. The restoration of Warsaw Old Town from rubble is nothing short of miraculous. Most of it was completed in the early 1950´s, but it took another twenty years before the Communists would sanction the building of the Royal Castle. What works for me is that it looks completely authentic, where it could have been rather more Disneyesque than even Donald Duck.

We eat an excellent dumpling lunch in lovely surroundings near the Barbican, the name for the double walls which surround the old city. I am intrigued by the name, because I did much of my formative drinking at the Barbican in Plymouth. An investigation of word origins is clearly called for.

Ana disappears off to buy her Israeli host a present and her mother and I take a trip to the Polish Versailles in the enormous Lazienski Park. My lack of sleep and the fact that the rush hour has started combine for me to call an excellent day to a close.

There’s good news too from Warsaw Tourism. They have relocated me to the SAS Radisson and my bags are already there. Joanna has queued personally at the station to get my seat reservation for Berlin tomorrow, so she wins a fistful of gold stars for excellent service.

The Executive room in the Radisson has even got a kettle, the first one I have so far encountered this trip. (I am in fact equipped with a travel kettle and universal sink plug, both of which I regard as indispensible travelling companions).

One challenge on this trip was always going to be the washing of clothes and I am delighted to find a washing line in the shower. Although I hate hand washing, it´s the only practical solution on this trip, some hotels charging ten pounds a shirt for their laundry. As I hang my last shirt up, the line breaks and everything lands in the puddle on the floor below.

Ah happy days. It´s clearly time for a swim in the pool downstairs.

Prague to Warsaw

Tuesday 1am, Warsaw

Mad scramble this morning to catch the train. I was told that the Warsaw train would leave from Holesovice Station where I had arrived, but it turned out that it was leaving from Central Station. I got there with 3 minutes to spare and then couldn’t find the platform. Nightmare! As it happened, the train left 10 minutes late anyway, so I would have had time to arrive in less of a fluster.

One bonus was that at Holesovice, I saw the bastard who’d conned me over the taxi fare on arrival, so I discreetly took photographs of both him and his car, which I will pass to Prague Town Hall and the newspapers there. Might not achieve anything, but it sure makes me feel better! (He´s the one in the blue t shirt).

The train journey was scheduled to be 9 hours, but it was an hour and a half late, so it was a long old haul. Mind you, by the time you have had coffee, lunch and an afternoon tea, the journey does pass quite painlessly.

My reserved seat was in a corridor carriage which wasn’t all that busy. But four female American teachers talked incessantly. Four hours without drawing breath. God it was a pain. But, on reaching the Polish border, a new compartment carriage was shunted onto the front by the new locomotive and I relocated there, like Lord Muck, in glorious isolation.

The route took us past the site, near the Polish border, where there’d been an awful train crash a few days ago. A motorway bridge collapsed on to the line and the express train smashed into it. What a mess. But the delay, at that stage, was only half an hour or so.

The Polish countryside struck me as fertile and flat, with a lot of trees and dense woodland. From the train, you could see lots of folk on bikes pottering about the countryside. Interesting to see a fair few freight trains as well. There are lots of buildings in poor states of repair; clearly there’s still a lot of work to do on the Polish economy.

Joanna from Warsaw Tourism had very kindly arranged to meet me at the station, but Warsaw Central is a maze of escalators and we didn’t manage to meet up. The Harenda is pretty naff, by far the worst hotel I have stayed in a long time. No lift, which is no fun with three weeks worth of luggage to cart up several flights of stairs. The room is poky, has no air conditioning and it´s about 26 degrees Celsius. There is one of those loos with a device that chops up the unmentionables that suddenly starts churning and making you jump. Out the back there’s a bar and a skip for bottles. You get the idea. Probably why it´s 1am and I am still up writing this.

I did pop out round the corner for something to eat. Warsaw has got a lovely feel to it and the little restaurant was very nice. I am very much looking forward to seeing the place in the morning.

Fighting the crowds in Prague

Prague, Sunday

I must say that the Radisson SAS have really been very kind to help me get over my disappointment of yesterday. Alexandra even visits me at the hotel’s impressive buffet breakfast to ask how I am feeling. While I am sure they have had many guests in the past who have experienced similar problems, I am also certain I will not be the last.
Prague really must clean up its act or the golden goose will stop laying.
Every time I come here, I find the architecture jaw-droppingly amazing. The city has a lovely feel about it and the pavement culture is super. The tram and metro system is frequent and cheap, which is lucky, because a promised transport card from Czech Tourism hasn’t arrived and, being a weekend, can’t be sorted out until after I have left for Warsaw.
But August is not the time to come. The charm of Prague is completely ruined by the impossible scrum of tourists everywhere. Just like Dubrovnik, here is a tourist destination which needs moderation or it will completely spoil the reason people have come here.
I do make a trip up the old town bridge tower but, although it’s not late in the day, you can hardly move for crowds, so I decide to escape across the river to Mala Strana Park, to take the funicular railway to the top of Petrov Hill. There, the 60 metre-high look out tower, a sort of miniature version of the Eiffel, offers outstanding views across the city. But the locals and the tourists are already out in force and it´s quite clear that a long wait in the sunshine will be necessary. I consult my Time Out and revert to plan B, a visit to the National Technical Museum. Promising everything from steam trains to aircraft and even a coal mine, this looks very promising indeed. No tram or metro goes especially close and it´s a long walk up a steep hill to reach the museum. Which is closed. Zavreno. Geschlossen. Until 2010.
I repair to a local hostelry for a most pleasant and inexpensive chicken salad lunch, but, as I descend the hill, advise several other museum-bound tourists of the closure. I see some local supporters of Sparta Prague heading to the football stadium and I am very tempted to join them.
By the time I get back to Old Town the hordes have become more akin to a football crowd leaving a big match. It´s hot and it´s not at all enjoyable. I am wary of pickpockets and clasp my bag, from which I have put almost everything of value in the hotel safe, tightly to my body.
I escape to the backstreets, find some lovely arcades, lots of interesting-looking eateries and happen upon the Havelska market. When I was last here, it was a really nice place to go and buy produce. Now, like most of central Prague, it´s full of tourist tat.
I´m really disappointed with my experience. I like the place a lot. But on this occasion I´ve experienced the seedy side and the greedy side and that has, for sure, soured my view.
The saving grace, undoubtedly, has been the care shown by the staff at the Radisson who have been great. It´s refreshing to find personnel at a big hotel who really care about their clients.
I´m sure they will choose a different taxi firm to take me to the station in the morning.

You can see all the photos from my trip at: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/MDSouter/MikeSEuropeanRailTrip

Vienna to Prague

Vienna to Prague

Saturday

The Journey from Vienna to Prague is most enjoyable, despite the boarding chaos at Vienna Station. The world seems to have gathered on the platform. I seem to be the only passenger who has bothered to look in advance at the train layout, so I am waiting in exactly the right place. People rush on, realise they are in the wrong carriage, and try to turn round against the oncoming tide of humanity.

I wait until the worst of the nonsense is over and then calmly find my seat. By then, of course, the luggage storage is in a mess, so by careful repacking, there is plenty of space for my bag. In the middle of my organisation a German man remonstrates with me for not asking permission to touch his property!

I am impressed with the service on Czech Railways. A very nice and reasonably priced pot of coffee is served at my seat, announcements are in Czech, German and English and the restaurant car is very comfortable with a good choice of fare. I select ‘Grandma’s hearty vegetable soup’, followed by some pork medallions and roast potatoes, washed down with a glass of Pilsner Urquell. Good value at around sixteen pounds. We have crossed yet another international border and I have not been asked for my passport since leaving Spain on the overnight train. Why, then is there such a hassle at airports over the matter?

The train arrives in Prague forty minutes late, which may well be down to a major rail accident the previous day in which 10 people were killed. But, I am not even clock watching, it’s been a nice journey and I am totally relaxed.

At Holesovice Station, being used because Hlavni station is undergoing a major refurbishment, here are signs to the taxi rank, I check the guy has a meter and he hurtles to my hotel. He drives like a complete madman and I am somewhat flustered, to say the least, by the time I get to the hotel. Maybe that’s part of the con.

It’s the first time on the trip we’ve moved out of Euros. The meter says 600 Czech Crowns, he gives me a receipt and I get to reception. Then it dawns on me. I ask how much the 9 kilometre trip should have cost. I have paid twenty five pounds for a trip which should have cost about eight. My Time Out Guide says ‘Taxis have a well-deserved reputation for rip-offs. You are just about guaranteed to be overcharged’.

I am angry. More at myself than anything. I am a very experienced traveller.

The lovely Alexandra and Marketa at reception do their best to cheer me up, but it is several hours later and a lot of walking before I regain any sort of composure.

It’s not the money. It’s the fact I should have known and the absolute scandal that Prague Town Hall do very almost nothing to stamp it out. I think I am as wary a traveller as anyone, but when you see a price on a meter, you think it is right.

Anyway, that off my chest, I am determined I will go out tomorrow and see the better side of an architecturally awesome city which has, in the main part, really nice and friendly people.

Whistlestop Vienna

Thursday pm and Friday, Vienna

My lovely Innsbruck Guide, Elizabeth, told me that Austrian bureaucracy comes from the Germans and their enjoyment of life comes from the Italians.

The Fraulein on reception duty at Vienna’s 360 pound a night Ring Hotel has certainly studied the former characteristic and passed with first class honours. While I understand that hotels do not want people to leave without paying their bills, I am always astounded that they get away with their insistence to not only have your name, address and passport details, but want to charge your credit card up front too. The Ring wants a daily deposit of 100 Euros. I am especially annoyed because, in my case, I am here supposedly to give the establishment a good write up and feel the welcome is less than I would have expected. The PR lady apologises, then, to add insult to injury, makes some feeble excuse about a journalist who’d once emptied the mini bar and left without paying as being the reason the front desk were following ‘policy’.

Anyway, I am forbidden to use the mini bar, the telephone is barred and, if I want anything in the hotel, I will have to pay for it there and then.

As a small bottle of Heineken is, I later learn, almost a fiver, more fool anyone who uses the said mini bar or, for that matter, a hotel telephone. I use Skype on my laptop to call home for 17 Eurocents a minute, so, boo sucks to the front desk.

I must say the room is exceptionally well appointed, with all sorts of hi-tech things to confuse and entertain. I find it odd that the handset in the shower has not got a wall attachment on which to hang it and while I fiddle about with a myriad of gleaming knobs and buttons; I receive a soaking, fully clothed, by a large volume of water from a separate and very large overhead shower rose.

Fraulein’s revenge!

I decide that twelve quid for a club sandwich in my room is a bit steep, so I walk all of fifty metres to the local Spar supermarket and stock up with a pre-prepared egg salad, a freshly sliced fruit platter and a couple of beers; I have change out of a fiver. Advantage me. There’s even a knife, fork, plate and napkin provided in my room.

Game, set and match Souter.

I take a walk through the main drag and am hugely surprised by the graffiti, the number of vagrants, beggars and general riff raff. For the first time since I left home, I feel unsettled, ill at ease and clasp my bag even more closely to me. To contrast this impression, there are also vast numbers of veiled ladies completely covered in black, with only their eyes showing, darting in and out of the hugely expensive designer shops. It appears that Vienna is very much the playground of moneyed Middle Eastern Arabs. The Ring Hotel is owned by a Saudi Prince, so I am informed.

Down by the Danube canal, it’s a total contrast, with hordes of drop outs, drug dealers, alcoholics and other assorted society cast offs. Bizarrely, I feel much less at risk than in the centre of town, but I wouldn’t venture here in the dark.

I thoroughly enjoy the private dining facilities in my room and have a wonderful night’s sleep on a luxuriously appointed sheikh size bed.

My guide is art historian Alexa Brauner. But my brief to all the tourist offices on my itinerary has been clear. No museums, no art galleries. I want to see the unusual, the hidden spots, and the quirky.

Alexa sets off at breakneck speed, cramming what I was led to believe would be a full day itinerary into just two and a half hours. Well, it’s Friday and she has a two-hour drive to her family’s country home, west of the capital.

I am staggered by just how big Vienna is. There are over 1.6 million inhabitants and that’s projected to return to the previous two million by 2035. It appears that all the residents of the former Austro Hungarian Empire want to re-establish old connections with the place. Austria’s second largest city, Graz, is tiny by comparison, with around 280,000 people.

We take the underground to see the giant Ferris wheel in the vast Prater Park. This is the famous Riesenrad, dating from 1897, that has featured in films such as the Third Man and Living Daylights. There’s even a museum in Vienna dedicated to the Orson Welles’ classic, but, sadly for me, it’s only open on Saturdays. Alexa tells me there is also a museum dedicated to funerals and undertakers. Apparently, the Viennese are very keen on having a decent send off, so start saving early. Her own funeral plan was started by her mother.

The very efficient subway has five lines, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6. Line 5 was planned but never built.

Alexa takes me on a tour of lesser known Vienna at a canter, her eye constantly on the clock. The Naschmarkt is well worth a visit, with some really unusual stalls, including one that specialises in a huge range of vinegars. At night, the market’s restaurants are especially busy.

Nearby, a whole range of incredibly quirky shops and restaurants. My favourite is Gabarage, where former drug addicts, as part of a rehabilitation project to normal employment, make a wide range of useful objects from discarded materials. I am thrilled when Alexa propels me, by now almost at a gallop, towards her favourite coffee shop, the Café Sperl. I am gasping for a cuppa and am pleased to have the chance to experience somewhere rather less touristy than the over expensive tourist haunt of the Café Central. But, no, there are more shops to see, hills to climb, statistics to trot out. I wish I’d planned to stay the average 3 nights of the city’s 10 million overnight visitors. After this madcap circuit, I now need at least 2 nights to recover.

In the museum quarter, we stop at last for a much needed coffee. Alexa heads off for her long weekend and I limp a few more yards for lunch, seeing more city centre graffiti than I have seen in a long time.

The Glacis Beisl offers a very decent two-course lunch for just over six pounds, and I am lucky to get an outside table at this very popular local haunt, just at the edge of the museum quarter.

I spend the afternoon pottering the back streets, soaking up the atmosphere. While I know that every big city has its odd-ball characters, I am convinced that Vienna has more than most. There are substantial numbers of seriously weird looking people around, with dreadlocked hair, tattoos and strange body piercings. That’s even before I get to the Kalrlsplatz subway station where, Alexa has told me, most of the drug dealers hang out.

The hotel has a superb steam room and spa area, so I repair there to recharge my batteries before committing these thoughts to paper.

On completion, I look at the room service menu, fall off my wallet, and so return to Spar.

I am beginning to feel rather like an American tourist. Tomorrow will be Saturday and so it’s Prague.

Innsbruck

Innsbruck, Wednesday.

Written en route to Vienna on Thursday

Approaching Innsbruck from the south is almost like someone has waved a magic wand to change the landscape in a trice. Steep hillsides give way to an enormous flat plain surrounded by towering mountains. I have been here before, so I shouldn’t be surprised. But it still takes my breath away. After the chaos of Italian stations, it’s nice to get to Innsbruck, which has escalators, lifts and thus easy access to platforms.

The Grauer Bar, or Brown Bear, hotel has not won any gold stars for their communication skills prior to my arrival, so perhaps I should not be surprised by their complete lack of knowledge about me. Or my urgent and much notified need for the services of their laundry. But at least I have a room, which is modern and spacious.

The following morning after a breakfast battling through coach loads of tourists from India and China, the hotel still cannot find any information about my laundry or locate my press pack from the tourist board.

I am approached by a sprightly lady in her 60’s, dressed in a pretty local costume. She turns out to be Elisabeth Grassmayr, my guide for the day. She takes charge, very kindly insists on taking me to her home to put my clothes in her washing machine, and then takes me shopping for my replacement camera.

Elisabeth has responded magnificently to my request to be shown some parts of Innsbruck which are ‘different and not generally known to tourists’. She bustles into delightful hidden courtyards and opens doors to private buildings from which, I am sure, any lesser mortal would have been barred. I am swept up a magnificent staircase into the Parliament building, taken to see ancient ceiling decorations immediately outside a McDonalds and whisked in to see two, three or maybe four quite wonderful churches. Almost every few metres she is stopped by a friend, a neighbour or local shopkeeper to exchange greetings. After a while I point out that I am Scottish rather than the ‘Engelander’ I keep picking up in the conversations.

We need to visit her family business to pick up an Innsbruck Card to replace the one the hotel has lost with my press pack. Grassmayr’s have been bell makers since 1599 and are one of the leading firms in Europe. Elizabeth gives me the grand tour while simultaneously chatting in French, English and German to anyone she finds looking lost who will listen. She is utterly charming and, quite clearly, has a set of batteries far superior to Duracell. Meeting her husband later in the day in their delightful garden, I discover that a typical bell would cost about 13,000 Euros.

At the top of Innsbruck’s famous ski jump, I jostle to take a photograph of the scary view of the landing area far below with the same French party who had hoovered up the last of the bananas at breakfast.

We take lunch with Nicholas Boekdrukker from Innsbruck Tourism on the upstairs terrace of Klaus Plank's excellent Weisses Rossl Restaurant. It’s full of locals, which is always a good sign. Mushrooms are in season so the talented chef has designed a seasonal menu around them. But there’s no time to linger. Elizabeth is impatient that I should miss nothing and I am whisked away. Actually, I am despatched to catch the brand new and somewhat lavish 55 million Euro funicular railway while she drives her car to join me half way. From 570 metres, the funicular climbs to 900 and, two cable cars later, I am standing at 2334 metres on the Hafelekar Mountain with stunning views to Italy, Germany and over the valley far below. Elizabeth points to an almost vertical slope. ‘My husband and I often use that run, it take us nearly to our house.’ She tells me that a newspaper has recently reported that the healthy lifestyle of Innsbruck folk mean that they live an average of ten years older than their Vienna counterparts. Out of a population of 125,000, Innsbruck has more than forty centenarians. I am convinced Elizabeth will become a longstanding member of that club.

It’s back to her house to collect the Tyrolean aired laundry and to chat with her husband in the garden. Almost next door is the house where the secretary of Emperor Maximilian lived, now the home of the local priest. Except he’s married, so can’t say mass, which is done by a colleague from town.

I worry that the Grassmayr’shouse, in the shadow of the mountain, is in danger from avalanches. Apparently not, they haven’t had one since 1935. A complex network of defences and electronically detonated explosions keeps the locals safe.

In the evening, Nicholas entertains me at the excellent Dengg café bar restaurant and introduces me to Austrian red wine. The Cabernet Sauvignon from the Weingut Salzl vineyard in Burgenland, south of Vienna, is outstanding.

Not surprisingly, I am late to breakfast. The coach parties have gone and so are all the best bits of the breakfast buffet. The staff seems rather keener on clearing away the detritus than finding more fresh fruit salad and bananas for the remaining hour of the service.

I love Innsbruck. Elizabeth has generously given me a treasured insight into some of the secrets. But do avoid brown bears which seem to concentrate more on attracting coach parties than customer service.

I am writing this in the restaurant car of the train somewhere near Salzburg. No, I am not eating. I have a reservation, but Austrian Railways’ first class compartments are full of unreserved Chinese families with an extraordinary number of children and an even greater number of bags. Most of the children and bags are piled on my seat. Club Class is completely empty, but the guard is insistent that I should attempt to squeeze myself in with the Chinese. The more I protest, the less English he claims understand.

But the view from the train is lovely. It’s a glorious day with cloudless blue skies and lush green grass and freshly gathered hay.

I trust there’s rice for lunch.

Italy to Austria

Tuesday 1900

On the Italian/Swiss border heading to Innsbruck

Crossing Milan by taxi is painless, although I am surprised that my Thomas Cook European Rail Guide doesn’t suggest that I can get from Centrale to Lambrate by simply catching the train that connects both stations with the airport every thirty minutes. The journey passes uneventfully, but the driver’s habit of counting his takings as he drives is somewhat disconcerting.

There’s one fail safe way to know you are in Italy, there is an extraordinary amount of graffiti. Everywhere is covered. Railway carriages and locomotives seem to be a special target.

The Trenitalia Regionale first class carriage is full of people who clearly have not paid the supplement. That’s not snobbery; it simply reflects the fact that there clearly is not a regular inspection of tickets. I note that the loo just flushes the deposit directly on to the track. Isn’t there a European regulation about that sort of thing?

I am heading to the Franciacorta wine region and the tourist board has reserved a taxi for me. I arrive safely at the delightful Cappuccini Hotel, but the driver’s persistent habit of texting from his mobile telephone as he drives does not instil confidence.

I have technical difficulties with the shower, already much needed midway through the hot and humid day, well how am I to know there is a device to empty the water hidden behind the shower curtain? I am similarly technically challenged with the hi tech coffee machine, which stubbornly refuses to work. Later I am shown the on off switch at the back.

The main reason for being here is to look at the wine. The sparkling variety is what they do and Franciacorta is its name. Unless you’re a wine buff, you probably haven’t heard of it, the Italians keep 95% of the stuff for themselves.

Berlucchi started off less than 40 years ago producing 3,000 bottles a year, now the output is five million. Between them and one other, they produce have the country’s output. I need to don a jacket is to visit the chilly cellars, where somewhere between 13 and 15 million bottles are stored, many of them being automatically turned by computer.

The grapes are all hand picked in late August Around 200 workers are brought in from Bangladesh and Thailand to do the back breaking work.

I am given a very special treat by being invited to view Guido Berlucchi’s home until his death, which he gave to a foundation to ensure it didn’t fall into the hands of unloved relatives. In the interests of research I try a glass of two of the product.

I will refrain from discussing the accompanying parmesan cheese, local sausage, Parma ham et al in any detail because a friend has suggested to me by email that all I have seemed to do so far on the trip is eat and drink. Which is a somewhat accurate assessment.

Elide, my Italian guide, who speaks impeccable English as well as teaching French, suggests a quick trip to Monte Isola, the biggest island on any European lakes.

It’s one of these places where cars are banned for the 1800 inhabitants who have to get around by bike or moped. The local priest of course has a car. It’s cobbled and hilly, not good news for someone whose foot was almost severed from his leg, so, after a quick drink, we head back to the jetty for the advertised boat. Which doesn’t arrive. After much telephoning, it turns out that ‘the timetable missed the fact that the 1647 only runs on weekends’, so we are stranded. Elide takes charge, commandeers a boat, which apparently circumnavigates the entire northern peninsula of Italy before depositing us in the charming lakeside resort of Iseo.

Back at the Hotel du Charme Cappuccini, I am concerned that I am not assigned the room occupied by the reputed ghost of this 16^th century former monastery. While I ponder the reality, take a swim in the pool, heated to bathwater temperatures by the output of the hotel’s air conditioning units.

Marco Pelizzari, whose hotelier father started the renovation work of the complete ruin in 1988, now seems to run everything, a tall order for a 28 year old. Mind you, he was brought up in the industry living, he says, in room 102 in another hotel until he was 10 and here at the Cappuccini in room 109 until he was 20. Now married with two children, one aged 7; he’s clearly a quick learner.

The following paragraph should be skipped by anyone sensitive about food writing.

Marco’s chef produced the most wonderful home baked bread including parmesan crackers and thin bread sticks called, I think, Grissini. Quite wonderful porcini mushroom soup, the hotel’s own very distinctive lemony olive oil. Fettuccine or some other sort of pasta stuffed with prawns, simply divine pork in honey.

Marco chose the wine to mark the passing of a wine producer friend aged just 52. Out of respect, I left a bit of the Montepulciano Marina Cvetic for the Gods. Or maybe the ghost.

After a wonderfully welcome full night’s sleep, Elide is on the doorstep bright and early to take me to the Il Mosnel wine cellar in Camignone. A very different proposition to Berlucchi, Lucia Barzano and her brother are very happy not to increase their production beyond their annual quarter of a million bottles.

I love Lucia’s idea of sending me out for a bike ride with Roberta, her able assistant who studied English in Cardiff for six months.

Cycling through the family vineyards is an absolute delight, aided by the need to quaff the best part of a bottle of Il Mosnel Franciacorta, strictly in the interests of research, of course. The Barzano’s grapes are, I learn, picked by a team from Poland, who will complete the job in just 15 days.

Back at the cellar, I tell Lucia that I think the idea of cycle picnics is brilliant. I can tell that she’s pleased and has clearly warmed to me but, as she owns two dogs, I decide that I won’t ask her to marry me.

Elide kindly drives me to Brescia to catch my train to Verona, then Innsbruck. As I write this, the crew has just changed from Italian to German and we have gone into a very long tunnel. In a little over an hour, it will be the Brenner Pass and Italy will have changed into Austria.

In four days I will have travelled through four countries. I have had my luggage scanned just twice and not waited more than 30 seconds in total for it to be done. I have not queued once for passport control and I am carrying well over 20 kilos of luggage with no question of any supplements to pay.

On the downside, I have somehow mortally wounded the LCD screen of my digital camera, so will need to go shopping in Innsbruck.

Where I do not expect to find the prices low. Never mind, I’m a birthday boy next month, so I deserve a treat.

Overnight from Spain to Italy

1000am Monday, approaching Milan

It’s been an amazing 24 hours.

The day starts with Senora Floren, my landlady, in danger of slitting her wrists while trying to open the top of some lavatory cleaner with a sharp kitchen knife. She seems rather impressed when I showed her the technique of pressing the top of the Toilet Duck’s cap together.

Sra. Floren was augmenting her pension by letting out two rooms in her house to Expo visitors, there being an acute shortage of accommodation in town.

Footsore from too much walking on Saturday, I adopt the Spanish custom of having an easy Sunday. Actually, I always do try to create a different atmosphere for the Sabbath, so I repair to a nearby café to read the papers and enjoy a leisurely coffee or two. Thence to the local park, where it was just nice to sit in the shade, listen to the fountains and watch the children make their first attempts on two wheels with stabilised assistance.

How bizarre it is to see a family walking with a pram, or youngsters cycling in a group with one of them chattering away on their mobile telephone, totally isolated from their friends and family.

It is stiflingly hot, so I seek refuge in an air conditioned bar, where a delightfully cold beer helps wash down various unmentionable parts of animals, otherwise known as tapas.

First Class I the AVE from Zaragoza to Barcelona is less than half full and it seems that all the other passengers have already had lunch on the sector from Madrid, so I feel rather spoiled as the smartly dressed crew press gin and tonic, wine, brandy and coffee upon me. Oh, and an extremely nice lunch too. With REAL cutlery which, with modern day air travel, I had almost forgotten existed in travel catering.

It seems very odd transiting Barcelona to get from one station to another, the taxi whizzing past the cruise terminal and the bottom of the Ramblas en route between Sants and Franca stations.

There’s quite a wait at Franca station and, with the temperature now 38, I seek sanctuary in the air conditioned comfort of the customer service area.

n hour before departure time, I seek out an official to ascertain the platform from which my train will be leaving. The smartness of the oak/leaved red cap of the station master is somewhat spoiled by his jeans and t shirt, but his information is spot on and I am in prime position to get on board the 29 coach train and enjoy a cool shower.

Yes, a shower. On a train. I am travelling to Milan ‘Gran Clase’ on Elipsos, a collaboration between Spanish and French Railways. My years of understanding of how to stow luggage in warship cabins comes in very useful, the compartment is really very comfortable.

Gran Clase customers have a gourmet dinner as part of the package. The head waiter is brilliant, the food is excellent and my favourite wine, a Ribero del Duero, arrives in the shape of a 2004 Crianza Mayor de Castilla.

I am surprised there are only 14 eating at 2030, but am told that another 27 southern European passengers will be dining in two hours. I discover there are a dozen nationalities on board, including Brazilians, Mexicans and Australians. The train is at 95% capacity. Five Italian teenagers cram into a space designed for four, totally at ease with ordering wine and dinner and clearly out to spend the rest of their holiday money before returning home

By the time I return to my cabin, the two seats have become a bed’ there’s even a chocolate on the pillow.

I can’t claim that sleep came easily, but I did peer out of the window at 0220 to discover we were stopped in Valence Station in France, the overnight route to Italy taking us somewhat more north than I had expected.

ere were periods of smooth travelling, but I suspect the night train uses lines that are rather more uneven than those used by the high speed services.

Then, it was 8am, I have overslept. I peer out of the window, somewhat bleary eyed, to see a couple of teenagers engaged in deep kissing. I am clearly in Italy!

There is just time to have a quick shower and a very nice breakfast before arrival in Milan. In the middle of the second cup of coffee, the guard returns my passport and ticket. Who knows when or where the formalities were completed, but it’s as easy a way to cross a border as I have ever experienced.

Zaragoza, Capital of Aragon

9am Sunday, Zaragoza

My feet are sore. It was my first sensation on waking up. Mind you, I spent yesterday walking for my country. Setting off at 7am, I transited the enormous Expo site at least three times and have probably seen more hidden corners of the city than most locals do in a lifetime.

The local tourist office provided me with the loveliest guide I have ever had in all my years of travelling. Arantxa is a highly intelligent 23 year old law student who speaks excellent English and French and who just loves her city, culture and region. The fact she could put up with me from 10am until almost midnight is also testament to her impressive staying power!

Zaragoza is delightful, with much superb architecture, nice walking streets, a plethora of excellent bars and restaurants and many wonderful green spaces.

Arantxa and I got into a fairly deep discussion about the veneration of inanimate objects. In the Basilica of Pilar, an impressive cathedral with a couple of domes decorated by local lad, Francisco Goya, there’s a column of stone on top of which stands a 36cm tall virgin. Folk kiss the base of this lump of rock. Pretty unhygienic, methinks. One chap pressed his lips against it three times, rather loudly. My little brain cannot comprehend how folk can get so carried away with such things.

But my thoroughly modern guide totally believes in it all. ‘The virgin guarded our cathedral during the Civil War. Surely it’s a miracle that three bombs came through the ceiling and failed to explode? I certainly couldn’t argue with the fact that two of the holes made by the bombs can still be clearly seen, while all three are proudly displayed on the cathedral wall.

A miracle? A large stroke of luck, at the very least.

Zaragoza is a place which appears to me to be something of a conundrum. It’s Spain’s fifth largest city, the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Aragon, with great road and rail infrastructure to bring it, potentially, successful trading links with a huge portion of Europe. The folk are friendly and all the ingredients are there for it to be a really progressive and happening place. Yet, perhaps overshadowed by Barcelona and Madrid, the Aragonese seem almost too nice to want to get involved TOO much with the nasty world of marketing. Perhaps they have that inbred insularity so common in island races?

Don’t get me wrong, I thought Zaragoza was great and, for sure, I will return. It just seems odd to me that a place with such a huge tourism potential is not achieving much greater success on a wider stage. It deserves many more foreign visitors, for sure.

As for the Expo, the original reason for selecting the visit?

There’s certainly some impressive new architecture and they are putting on some pretty good shows. Having just missed Diana Kroll in Malaga, Arantxa and I joined a packed auditorium (picnicking on the concrete floor) to hear her sing. ‘You guys sure hang out late´, she said, not only half way through her set as the cloak ticked towards midnight.

While Expo made Seville, it’s certainly not going to make Zaragoza. They are falling woefully short of their projected 6.5 million visitor numbers. Half way through, they are still 4 million adrift of their target and their audience has been almost totally Spanish.

Now, in mid August, they have decided to pump 2 million Euros into attracting the rest of Europe. It’s much too little and much too late.

Their organisation is shambolic. In 30 years of journalism I have not come across such a poorly organised set up. Their left hands have been totally disconnected from their right since the very early days. My impression is that they have replied on high tech when a simpler solution would have worked. Nobody ever seems to be able to make decisions.

However, It’s true that Expo did actually open on time.

Now that IS a miracle.

I feel sorry that I can’t be more positive; I thought that Expo would be a really impressive milestone in my travels, to remember for years to come. After the event, heads are undoubtedly going to roll and fingers are invariably going to be pointed. Expo gave Zaragoza a once in a lifetime opportunity to attract the world to enjoy what is actually a really nice part of the world. Perhaps nobody is actually to blame.

Aggressive marketing cannot be done by just being nice.