Dateline May 30, 2016, Vienna, Switzerland, Milan, Hello Italy
From Budapest the trains carried us west into a different world, where the prices doubled and the mountains began.
Vienna. We caught the morning train from Budapest and arrived at Vienna's central station, where we promptly muddled the directions from our host, waiting for her at the metro while she stood waiting at the flat. We never did learn her name, but she handed over the keys to a wonderful spot, across the street from the Opera House, steps from the metro, and just down from St. Stephen's Cathedral. We asked about opera tickets and found we were a few days too early; the season opened on May 29.
We set off on foot toward St. Stephen's, and the first thing we noticed was the shops, Chanel, Prada, one expensive name after another, a long way from Eastern Europe.
The cathedral itself was beautiful, ornate the way the churches over here tend to be. It is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna, built between 1339 and 1365, and its multi-colored tile roof is striking. The roof was destroyed in the Second World War and rebuilt with a steel frame beneath the tiles.
We strolled back and ate at a restaurant just below the flat. The food was good, but we had forgotten the prices of "the West." After a run of dinners with a bottle of wine for under thirty dollars in the East, this bill came to a hundred.
The next morning we took the metro out to Schonbrunn Castle, with only a few hours before we had to be back for our luggage and the next train. There was a delay to get inside, so we skipped the tickets and simply walked the square and let ourselves into the gardens.
The back gardens were lovely, half of them still being struck from a concert, but it was perfect for us.
Then it was back to the flat and on to our next adventure, Chur, Switzerland.
The night train. We left on the 3:30, changed at Sargans near half past ten, and caught the 10:32 on to Chur. As we rolled along, John talked about his army days in Germany and the cities they had passed through. Suddenly he said to look left, the Salzburg castle should be coming up, and holy cats, there it was, remembered after fifty years. The old boy still has some brain power left.
We reached Chur to find reception closed and our keys left in an envelope, with instructions good enough that we let ourselves in the back and fell asleep in seconds.
The Bernina Express. We woke to a beautiful view from our window in Chur, ate the breakfast that came with the room, and took a taxi to the station for the Bernina Express, the climb up to the highest train pass in the Alps and down the far side into Italy. The line is a single-track, meter-gauge railway, part of the Rhaetian Railway, and its cars have great rounded glass windows so you miss nothing.
It tops out at 7,392 feet, the highest railway crossing in Europe and one of the steepest adhesion railways in the world, with grades up to seven percent. As on so many of our travels, in Alaska and other high places, we were amazed at the hikers and bikers out on the mountains.
One brave soul was pushing his bike along the path, about two weeks early by our reckoning, and what he could not yet see was a great snowdrift waiting around the bend. The pictures tell it better than we can.
Hello Italy. We came down off the pass into Tirano, a small Italian town, found a local restaurant, and celebrated with a calzone and a bottle of the local wine.
Milan. We caught the 3:08 to Milan for a quick overnight stop, there for one thing above all. We pulled in around six to find, "holy daylights," a soccer match just ended or about to start, with thousands of fans chanting and marching in their jerseys, flags flying, the whole piazza outside the station packed with people eating from food booths and drinking a great deal of beer. It took us a while to get our bearings, but our flat was only five hundred yards off, the owner met us with the keys, and we found an early dinner from Yelp, a lovely shrimp appetizer, a salad, fresh local fish, and plenty of good red wine. A fine start to Italy.
The Last Supper. The next morning we found the metro out to the Piazza Santa Maria delle Grazie, collected our tickets, and waited for our slot. The viewing takes place in the old Dominican monastery refectory, and you are given fifteen minutes with a guide who tells you the story behind it. It was painted between 1494 and 1498, and yes, by Leonardo DiCaprio. We mean da Vinci, of course.
Our guide explained what sets it apart. Rather than the old way of showing the moment Judas is found out, Leonardo painted the instant just after Christ says "one of you will betray me," and let the shock run through the apostles in their faces and their hands. He worked the perspective so cleverly that the painted room seems to carry on from the real one, and you feel yourself standing among them.
We had both seen photographs of it, but had no idea of its size, nor that it was a fresco painted straight onto the wall. We were in awe that it survived at all, especially in the war, when a bomb struck the wall behind it and somehow left the painting standing. The last restoration took twenty years and was finished in 1999, lifting away centuries of overpainting to bring back what original color had survived. We were even allowed to take pictures, so long as we used no flash.
On the opposite wall is a Crucifixion fresco by Giovanni Donato da Montorfano, the two scenes facing each other across the room.
The scale of the restored hall, and of the painting itself, is something to stand in.
It was truly amazing, and we felt blessed to see it. It was more than worth the stop in Milan. From there we set off for Venice and Florence.
