What I did on my holidays: 2 – To the hills! (2)

The story so far: on the way to Austria by train from London, we have arrived in Zürich after more than ten hours’ relaxed travelling (and about an hour-and-a-half of pretty fraught travelling).

We awoke in the Hotel Adler, in the pedestrianised Old Town of Zürich. The Adler was a mix of old world décor with some contemporary touches and fairly modern equipment. The restaurant where we had breakfast was panelled in wood and on the corner of the building, looking out onto a cobbled square. Church bells were ringing and a few tourists were beginning to stir; and the sun was beginning to get warm.

Hotel Adler

Hotel Adler

Our train onwards to Innsbruck was at the civilised hour of 12:40pm, giving us a couple of hours to explore the Old Town, and to stroll by the River Limmat.

Zürich; the Limmatquai

The Predigerkirche

Predigerplatz

Sundial on the Predigerkirche

All too soon, it was time to head off to the station for our train to Innsbruck. This was in the form of an ÖBB (Austrian State Railways) Railjet service, a set of modern coaches (mostly built in the last ten years or newer) with a locomotive at one end or the other, normally a Siemens-built Taurus, a class of engine that for three years (2006-09) held the railway speed record for an electric locomotive (357 kph/222 mph). The route out of Zürich follows the shores of the Zürichsee for some distance, and then heads along deep Alpine valleys, past castles and villages to the town of Buchs, where it reverses before traversing the entire railway system of Liechtenstein and finally arrives in Austria at the town of Feldkirch.

An ÖBB Taurus on a Railjet train in Salzburg (later in the trip)

Sargans Castle

Beyond Sargans (the castle can be seen at the foot of the mountain slope on the left)

Vaduz, Liechtenstein, where allotments seem popular

On the west ramp of the Arlberg Pass

From there, the train passes the town of Bludenz, where the Swiss chocolate makers Milka have a factory (they have another in Germany – things are seldom what they seem), and then ascends the Arlberg Pass before dropping down into Innsbruck itself. I had not been over the Arlberg since 1996; many of the intervening stations have since then been closed, and long-term improvement works have resulted in increasing lengths of the line being put into tunnels, which have allowed speeds to increase through the easing of gradients and curves, at the expense of the traveller’s experience in terms of the scenic wonders of the region.

Arrival in Innsbruck was a little like stepping into a sauna. 35 degree temperatures were unprecedented, but fortunately, our taxi to the hotel was air conditioned; the hotel, alas, was not. We waited until later in the early evening before venturing out, and found a very pleasant pizzeria in a nearby square, where we wined and dined in the open air as the sun went down.

Previous: day 1, London – Zürich

Next: day 3, Innsbruck

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