Sunday 14th April Our coach took us from Lyon to Annecy in about an hour and a half. One could see the country changing as we went along. Still morning when we arrived in Annecy, we had time to walk around and have lunch before our lake cruise at 3pm. What a gorgeous place! Beautiful lakeside parks and promenades, classic French architecture in the town, the old canals carrying fresh mountain water from the lake (yes, away from the lake, it is the outflow, which ends up in the Rhône River later on). The narrow streets are crowded with restaurants, and were very crowded with people too, as the weather was sunny and there were street market stalls. All this with the spectacular backdrop of rugged mountains. The Annecy Marathon on the Lake was also running, ... read more

Wednesday 10thApril Up at ten to six and onto the coach to the station. With 22 people in our group, the luggage was always going to be a bit of a challenge, but we managed. High speed Spanish AVE train along the coast, reaching 300 km/h at times. There was a number of police on the train, walking through a couple of times. They arrested a man and escorted him off in handcuffs at the next stop – maybe he was trying to flee Spain? We had to get off and change onto a local TER train at Nîmes. Overall it was a very pleasant journey. Our hotel in Avignon is in the centre of the old town, opposite the hôtel de ville. Old Avignon is very beautiful, with the narrow, crooked streets crowded with restaurants. ... read more

Tuesday 26thMay. The 7:30 ICE train from Jenbach brought me to Munich by 9:00am. Some nice countryside along the way, but couldn't see any of the towns as the railway is all walled in with 'sound barriers', more like 'graffiti walls', through every town. My hotel, quite near the station, was extremely accommodating and allowed me to check-in at 9.30. I had advised them of my train time. A very grey day, with occasional rain sprinkles. I spent the morning at the Deutsches Museum Verkehrszentrum, basically their transport museum, about 20 mins walk from here. Very interesting and well laid out, with some classic and wonderful cars, trucks & trains. They also had a number of interesting displays on road safety, electric cars, railway technology, etc. In the afternoon I walked around the historic city centre, ... read more

Sunday 24th May. Jenbach is a bit of a different rail hub. There are three railway gauges in the station, the standard gauge ÖBB main line, the 1 metre gauge Achenseebahn rack railway, and the 760 mm narrow gauge Zillertahlbahn, which runs a half-hourly service up the Zillertahl Valley to Mayrhofen, a ski resort. Today I took trips on both the narrow gauge lines. I first headed along the Zillertal Valley to Mayrhofen. Very pretty scenery, with the mountains either side shrouded in mist and clouds. Mayrhofen is a picture-book alpine village, with many hotels, guesthouses, ski schools, sports stores and restaurants. It was cool there but not really cold. I took the Ahornbahn cable car up into the clouds. A really steep cable car, with some great views, until we entered the clouds. Lots of ... read more

Friday 22ndMay. I am conscious that I am now in the last week of my vacation, and the low clouds every day, and rain most of the time here in Salzburg, are frustrating. I am not seeing the mountain-scape. My plan for the day was to take the train from Obertraun as far as Bad Ischl, the railway station there has luggage lockers, then to leave my suitcase there and take the bus to St Wolfgang to ride the Schafbergbahn rack railway to the top of the mountain. On arriving in Bad Ischl, I discovered all the luggage lockers were out of service, and the weather was deteriorating. I phoned the Schafbergbahn and they told me that it was very cold, windy, snowing and raining at the top and they had cancelled some of their trains, ... read more