Jon Jermey's Travel Blog

Jon Jermey : Melk and home via Delhi airport.  8 View photos You received this mail because Jon Jermey shared these photos with you. If you no longer wish to receive email notifications of shared photos, unsubscribe here . Get the Google Photos app Google LLC 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy Mountain View, CA 94043 USA

Packed up and left the apartment, and took my large pack to the station where the lockers are. These are probably the best bargain in Vienna - #4 for up to 24 hours' storage, provided you don't lose the little ticket that they give you. Then I had to wait half-an-hour for a train to St Polten, where I changed for Melk. The first train was delayed, so I thought I would have another half-hour wait, but luckily the connecting train was delayed too, and I caught it with seconds to spare. Melk is a little medieval town in sight of the Danube--in fact it has its own tributary to supply water-- and the old town is quite touristy and crowned with a magnificent Abbey. I strolled around a bit and then toiled up the hill to the abbey, stopping for coffee and a sweet cake on the way. Entry includes the abbey itself, the magnificent church in the centre, the gardens, and a few little side exhibitions of artworks. The Abbey is obviously still controlled by the Church, and

Jon Jermey : Thursday 6 June photos  14 View photos You received this mail because Jon Jermey shared these photos with you. If you no longer wish to receive email notifications of shared photos, unsubscribe here . Get the Google Photos app Google LLC 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy Mountain View, CA 94043 USA

Jon Jermey : Wednesday 5 June photos  3 View photos You received this mail because Jon Jermey shared these photos with you. If you no longer wish to receive email notifications of shared photos, unsubscribe here . Get the Google Photos app Google LLC 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy Mountain View, CA 94043 USA

The boat to Bratislava goes from Swedenplatz, which is at the edge of the Old City of Vienna. A 'platz' in Germany is a distinct open space with a specific boundary; in Austria it seems to be just a point where two or more streets meet. I got there early -- it's just five stops away on the U-Banhn -- and went looking for an ATM to restock with cash. They were surprisingly hard to find. Google Maps sent me first to one that wasn't there, and subsequently up into the old city to locate one that was there and actually worked. So I am cashed up for my final two days. I got here using yesterday's ticket, by the way, because that was a tram ticket and so remained unvalidated. Most of the stations are unmanned, and I haven't seen a ticket inspector in all the time I have been here, so I suspect that for most Viennese public transport is effectively free. Maybe that's why they have to charge tourists so much for museums. The boat was expensive -- #30 each way plus #

Took the D tram through town to Nussdorf. This passes most of the sights and is a good way to get oriented in Vienna. Nussdorf itself is a olde-worlde suburb -- think Woollahra -- where Beethoven and Shubert both resided at various times. It's also the basis for Walking Path 1, which goes up into the hils and down again.  The way up is pretty direct -- it involves following a brook, first along Beethovengasse which runs by the side of a park, past the backs of some posh-looking buildings, and into the vineyards growing up the hill. A few cyclists and walkers were coming the other way, but the numbers thinned as I got higher, and I eventually entered a block of forest near the top of the hill. This ultimately took me through a tunnel under a road -- unimaginatively called the 'Hochstrasse', or high street--and then alongside it for a bit. There is serious forest up here -- you could take a little path into the woods and not be found for days. The path then went back over the

The heat is taking its toll. There's no cooling facilities in any of these apartments, and this particular one is exposed to the sun all morning. I'm not sleeping well and not feeling up to big adventures. Took the U-Bahn to the Prater station, out in the same direction as yesterday, but not so far. The Prater is a big woodland park, though not so unspoilt as the equivalents in Munich or Frankfurt. The Austrians in particular don't seem concerned about running a freeway over their parks, or dropping in a museum, a gallery, a research station or even a little community here and there. I guess the parks are big enough to take it. I set off to do the long walk around, which advertised itself as 9 kilometres. It was fairly well signposted, although at one point I wasn't sure whether to head for the Gasometer or the Lusthaus. The Lusthaus sounded more interesting, so I went there, but it turned out to only be a restaurant. And I saw another deer, briefly, just off the path.

Jon Jermey : Photos from the Napoleon Walk and the Military Museum  1 View photos You received this mail because Jon Jermey shared these photos with you. If you no longer wish to receive email notifications of shared photos, unsubscribe here . Get the Google Photos app Google LLC 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy Mountain View, CA 94043 USA

Off to a late start for some reason, but by 9 I was on the train to the State Park on the other side of the Danube and hence in Lower Austria. The trip also involved a bus, which I had to hang about for. This took me to one entrance to the park, from which I had to scout about for the start of the trail. Some of the paths were signposted as to direction, but the only way to find the trail itself was to look at little 'You are Here' maps posted on poles along the way. They showed your position with a red dot; but usually the dot was at an intersection on the map when there was no intersection to be seen, or vice versa. So they weren't very helpful. I found some of the stones, however, that commemorate Napoleon's first defeat, and the burial place of some of his troops. Otherwise it was a pleasant enough walk along a broad fire trail which was sometimes gravelled but usually paved. I didn't see any wildlife more exotic than a duck and a lizard which had been run over

The heatwave persists. amd there's no longer even a pretence of thunderstorms to alleviate it. I caught the metro -- very much in the Munich style, though the same cheaper price as Frankfurt -- out to Schonbrunn Palace, along with about a million other people. This is obviously the thing to do in Vienna on a sunny Sunday, although ther were also a lot of tour groups, including large numbers of Chinese tourists. even though it was only just after eight. For once the audio guide was a decent length -- about five minutes on each room, covering the sailient features. And then out to the gardens, which were much less crowded, although nowhere near as empty as Nyphenburg had been. At $50  for admission to the palace and a few garden attractions, it was my most expensive ticket yet; and then they had the gall to charge #.50 for the toilets in the park too. But the prices obviously aren't deterring people. The view from the pavilion was magnificent, and the mazes were fun; but I had fi

Views from the train

Got up, packed and caught the U-Bahn to Munich Hauptbahnhof for the last time. But the powers that be had a couple of nasty surprises still in store; the U-Bahn was being worked on again and I had to wait and change trains; and when I tried to get money at the station it would only give me #200 rather than #300. Hopefully that should be enough; and hopefully my card will work in Austria if it isn't. The trip was on a relatively slow train, and although I didn't have a reserved seats, other people did; so at every stop there was a kind of slow dance where people with non-reserved seats were pushed out of their places and had to find new ones. Fortunately the train was never full. The scenery itself was excellent during the early part of the trip -- green farmlands, big rivers and snow-capped mountains in the distance. Once into Austria it got a bit flatter and more urban. But there were some nice lakes. And for the first time on my trip the train arrived late. The Vienna Hauptba

Jon Jermey : Bikes dredged up from the river, a colourful snail, and various Munich views.  2 View photos You received this mail because Jon Jermey shared these photos with you. If you no longer wish to receive email notifications of shared photos, unsubscribe here . Get the Google Photos app Google LLC 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy Mountain View, CA 94043 USA

Very quiet day today -- all I did was walk up from the apartment along the river until I got to the Englischer Gartens. This involved repeating the walk I did a few days ago and then continuing past the museum -- which is on its own island in the middle of the river -- to the north. There's one part of the Gartens on this side of the river that is home to the Angel of Munich statue and the huge Maximilieneum building, which now houses the Bavarian parliament. I strolled through that -- little ponds and woodlands and people on bikes, walking dogs and pushing strollers -- and then headed north again on a long wooded walk beside the river which finally brought me to a big weir. From here I was able to cross on to another island, more deserted, which seems to be a kind of adventure playground -- there were a bunch of kids there at something called a 'kindergartenwald'. And still I pressed on, seeing almost nobody but squirrels and woodpeckers, until I reached another bridge tha