Category: 2023-08 Corfu to London

🎶 The hills are alive with the sound of…beer halls 🍻

From Slovenia, we crossed into Austria to spend a couple of days re-enacting The South Of Music in Salzburg, before taking the train to Innsbruck to go hiking in the Nordkette mountains.

Our coach from Ljubljana to Salzburg hit a few delays en route, but this did at least give us a good amount of time to savour the views as we crossed the Austrian Alps. We finally arrived at the bus station (5 km south of Salzburg city centre) with only half an hour until reception closed at our guest house (5 km north of Salzburg city centre). With no other option, we hopped in a taxi to make the journey. It quickly became clear that our taxi driver wasn’t going to let us down, and what followed was a mildly terrifying but ruthlessly efficient journey on two wheels through the city centre. We finally screeched into the drive ready to check in with 5 minutes to spare.

Our guesthouse was a quintessentially-Austrian chalet in a quiet and sunny suburban neighbourhood. It seemed to have all the essential features – the guesthouse name written in huge letters, a large sloping roof, window shutters and a borderline-excessive number of window boxes.

We were excited to be visiting Salzburg, not just for its beautiful old town centre, but also because Salzburg is where much of The Sound Of Music was filmed (if you’re not a fan of the movie, you’ll have a lot in common with me! You might want to skip down to the first roast pork photo below). Anyway, Sara is a fan so we’d booked onto a cycle tour that would take us around many of the key locations, starting in the gardens behind Mirabell Palace, through which Maria dances in the crescendo of Do-Re-Mi.

Next up was Residenzplatz, where Maria playfully splashes the horse statues in the fountain while singing I Have Confidence.

Later in the movie, Nazis are also shown marching through this square, and although the production company had permission to film this scene, the local authorities changed their minds right at the last minute. Apparently, when the producers suggested they could instead use real footage of Salzburg citizens cheering the arrival of the Nazis, the authorities had a sudden change of heart and allowed them to film after all.

Our tour then took a short break in Kapitelplatz, where we indulged in two quintessentially Austrian refreshments – an Apfelstrudel (apple pie) and a bottle of Radler (shandy), which literally means “cyclist”. It was the perfect pick-me-up and refreshment on an already seriously hot day!

We then climbed the hill to Nonnberg Abbey (where Maria studies to become a nun), with a beautiful view over Innsbruck’s rooftops. Legend has it that the filming crew cut out one of the bars of the metal gate (to Sara’s right) without permission to make space for a camera. At least they had the good manners to weld it back again, and the welding scars are still visible to this day as proof!

Our tour continued through the beautifully sun-drenched meadows surrounding Salzburg to our final stop – the two von Trapp houses. These buildings were used as the front and back of the von Trapp house in the film, and although they look very different in real life, no one seems to notice in the movie.

To recharge after our cycling adventure we headed to Augustiner Braustübl, a monastery-brewery founded in 1621 with a 1,400-seater (!) beer garden. Inside is huge vaulted beer hall, surrounded by a food court selling traditional beer snacks. Our favourite was definitely the kümmelbraten – slow roasted pork belly with caraway seeds, a staple across Austria. This came with a side of grated horseradish, which wasn’t quite up my street but Sara made short work of it!

  • Kümmelbraten and grated horseradish
  • To buy a beer, we had to first pay at the till and pick up a tankard…
  • … then rinse the tankards in cold water and handed them over to a chap in a yellow shirt along with a receipt to have them filled
  • Success!

We returned to our guesthouse to find a local festival in full swing just down the road. Having been cancelled for the past five years through a combination of global pandemic and poor weather, these Salzburgers had donned their lederhosen and dirndl and were in the mood to celebrate. The following morning, a tractor pulling a brass band trailer arrived outside our guesthouse at breakfast and we were treated to private performance of a few numbers. We just couldn’t work out whether this was all part of the festival, or if it was a way to apologise for all the noise last night!

The next stop on our Austrian detour was Innsbruck, a city with a medieval old town nestled in a valley between the Karwendel Alps, and the Patscherkofel and Serles mountains, which were the fictional location of the Chalet School books, one of Sara’s favourite childhood series. Actually, walking the narrow pedestrianised streets reminded me more of Diagon Alley in Harry Potter, with every building’s bay window protruding into the street, and every business’ sign hanging further across the thoroughfare. Talk about atmospheric!

Innsbruck’s proximity to the mountains is no exaggeration, with a funicular and cable car combo whisking hikers from the city centre to 2,000 m elevation in less than 20 minutes. However, this route came with a hefty price tag, so instead we opted to take a bus to Hungerburg and set off on a short hike through the forest. Even as we got off the bus, the view across Innsbruck and to the mountains beyond was already spectacular.

The first half of our route climbed steeply through the trees, which provided some much-needed shade from the summer sun. Every so often, the trees would give way to a clearing under the path of the cable car, leaving a wild meadow to take hold, framing more stunning views down to the city.

Just beyond our highest point we arrived at Umbrüggler Alm – an immaculately kept mountain restaurant with an incredible sun terrace. It seemed like such an unlikely place for a modern restaurant, given that it was nowhere near a cable car station and there were no paved roads leading to or from it. Sadly, the restaurant wasn’t open on the day of our visit, so I hope they didn’t mind us resting in their deckchairs while we enjoyed the view from the terrace.

The beauty of all this exercise was that we could we could visit yet another beer garden with little-to-no guilt. This time we tried out Siftskeller, a traditional Tyrolean restaurant with a large courtyard on the edge of Innsbruck’s old town. Once again the roast pork was our favourite, although this time it was served with a generous ladle of onion and carrot gravy, sauerkraut (natürlich!), and a pretzel dumpling that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in an English stew. Not exactly heatwave-appropriate food, but it was just what we needed after a tiring hike!

With our visit to Austria already coming to an end, we set our sights on our final country – Germany – before our return to the UK.

48 hours in fairytale Ljubljana

The next stop on our journey north-west was Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. We first visited on our 2010 interrail trip and, despite the torrential rain that plagued our visit, we loved it, so we were excited to return in the August sunshine. By the way, you might be wondering how on earth to pronounce the city name – we thought we had it nailed from our last visit (something like liub-liana), but the comments section on this guide is an absolute treat as no one seems to agree! I just hope we didn’t butcher the pronounciation too badly…

We began our 48-hour visit at the castle, where we felt like we had unfinished business, since last time we climbed to the very top of the highest tower (which in turn, sits on a very tall hill) only to be met with a wall of cloud and no view at all of the city. So, we made this our first stop and the weather couldn’t have been more different. Consequently, there were also more crowds, which came as a bit of a surprise although it really shouldn’t have been! Anyway, we had a great view of the Ljubljanica River weaving through the old town, the modern city beyond, and the mountains that surround both.

If last time we visited it was too wet, this time it was (borderline) too hot. Thankfully, though, we stumbled across a slightly bizarre rain installation in Prešernov trg, one of the central squares. It might not look like it from the photo, but as soon as we stepped inside the circle, it felt like there was torrential rain falling. Weird but refreshing!

Otherwise, we just spent time exploring the pedestrianised streets and soaking up the summer atmosphere. I do sometimes wonder why the makers of cheesy Hallmark movies feel the need to create fictional European nations, when they could just use somewhere that already looks like it’s from a fairytale! But then again, maybe this under-the-radar vibe is part of Ljubljana’s appeal.

We ate really well while we were in town, although if I’m honest this was mainly things like outstanding tacos from Patrón and great Japanese food and atmosphere in Matsuri. But we also couldn’t pass up the chance to sample some Slovenian food, even if what we selected wasn’t exactly weather-appropriate! We shared a bowl of ričet, which is a barley dish somewhere between a soup and a stew. I’ve only just read that it’s best known as being food served to prisoners, so I assume it’s not meant as fine dining, but that’s alright! Eaten alone, it was very mellow (akin to a lentil soup), but it paired perfectly with the punchy sausages on top and went down very well. I would happily eat this every day in the winter but I might not choose it again on a hot summer’s day…

Ljubljana definitely falls into the category of “cities where we’d happily live” and I’m sure we’ll be back again sometime soon – it feels like the perfect weekend destination and the rail route from London looks really cool. But for now, it was time to move on again, this time to Austria. Feel free to watch The Sound of Music in preparation for the next post! 😉

From Montenegro to Serbia on one of Europe’s most spectacular railways

Half of the reason we’d bent our route via Podgorica was to link up with the Bar-Belgrade Railway. Slated as “one of Europe’s most spectacular train rides” by the definitive authority on trains anywhere in the world, the Man in Seat 61, we were very glad to have secured tickets when we arrived in Podgorica for the bargain price of €21.25 per person – not bad for 11 hours of scenery! We’d never heard of this route before, so we were pretty excited to find ourselves in this lesser-travelled corner of Europe and able to weave our route around it.

We’ve noticed that some subscribers didn’t receive an email yesterday when we posted about our visit to Montenegro. You might want to check it out before reading this post if you missed it!

We arrived at Podgorica’s colourful yet crumbling train station bright and early in anticipation of the journey to come. Our train arrived only 30 minutes late (which is basically on time based on everything I’d read), so we boarded and found our compartment, and joined a Serbian family who were on their way home from a seaside holiday (their fishing net and volleyball were a bit of a giveaway). The views were breathtaking almost immediately as the train climbed through the mountains and we crossed the Mala Rijeka Viaduct, which was the highest railway bridge in the world when it was finished in 1973. By the way – our photos almost certainly don’t do the scenery justice (there were one or two children and fishing nets between us and the window!) but The Man in Seat 61 has a video that does capture just how stunning it was, if you’re interested.

The spectacular views continued as we crossed the border into Serbia, but then the train began to slow. Eventually we ground to halt, confusingly just over the border into Bosnia and Herzegovina. The train shuffled back and forward before continuing along a 9 km loop of track and thankfully returning to Serbia without any explanation or border formalities.

The mountains eventually ran out and the train sped up on its final approach to Belgrade. We arrived roughly two hours late into Belgrade’s central station just as the sun was setting. Construction of this infamous station began in the 1970s, but to this day the building remains unfinished, with no commercial units or ticketing hall, and only a single bus connection to the city centre. But we didn’t mind, because we’d finally arrived in the 23rd country of our trip.

We were staying in a very comfortable apartment on the second floor of a quintessential Belgrade apartment block. The building’s main entrance was an atmospheric combination of crumbling plaster, wrought iron, graffiti and stylish pot plants. But best of all, we got to meet the mob of six cats who lived in a ground floor apartment and liked to wreak havoc upon the courtyard beneath our apartment’s balcony twice a day.

Previously the capital of Yugoslavia, Belgrade was bombed heavily by both Nazi Germany and the Allies during the Second World War, and later by NATO during the Kosovo War in 1999. As a result, Belgrade’s architecture is a mishmash of grand boulevards flanked by beautiful Neoclassical buildings, mixed with brutalist apartment blocks. There seemed to be a surprise around almost every corner.

For lunch we dropped into Mikan Restaurant, a Serbian kitchen right opposite our apartment that has been serving traditional dishes for three decades. We tried pljeskavica (a spiced meat patty), prepranac (baked beans) and breaded kackavalj (hard cheese). We made short work of everything on the table, but it was the prepranac that surprised us the most – the sauce was thick and rich, and more akin to a meaty stew. It was certainly a step up from the baked beans we know so well!

That afternoon, we took a walk around Kalemegdan – a public park enclosing Belgrade’s hilltop fortress that our guidebook assured us has been destroyed no fewer than 40 times in its 2300 year history. As if to prove its age, the fortress now contains a dinosaur ‘zoo’, a Roman well, an 18th century clocktower, an exhibition of modern military artillery and a handful of tennis and basketball courts. As incongruous as the collection might have appeared, it really did seem like there was something here for everyone.

Now, we couldn’t visit Serbia without trying kajmac again – a type of cottage cheese that we first ate in a Serbian restaurant on our visit to Slovenia 13 years ago. I remember we spent all evening arguing whether it was really cheese or butter, and to be honest, I’m not sure we’ve ever reached a firm conclusion. Further discussions weren’t possible this evening either, as the table a few down from ours seemed to have hired the restaurant’s raucous live band for the evening, and were belting out heartfelt renditions of (presumably) Serbian classics for quite some time. I guess we’ll never never get to the bottom of the mysterious butter-cheese!

As we prepared to leave Serbia after spending just two nights in a single city, we really felt like we didn’t do the country justice, but at least we saw a good amount of its natural beauty from the train window. And as we said goodbye to Serbia, it was time to say hello Slovenia, the first country of this trip to overlap with our inter-rail trip in 2010.