Travel day

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Today I start my travel to Croatia, I slept in a little, had my last breakfast at the pension, packed up and headed out. I went back to the market to pick up some more bread, fruit and cheese, unfortunately, there was no farmers market this time. I caught a bus to Salzberg, then picked up my train to Zagreb. I had ended up with a first class ticket since it was less expensive than the second class ticket because it could not be exchanged. Once I got to Salzberg I had a yummy falafal gyro and got to sit in the first class lounge while I waited for my train. I had a nice compartment with 4 seats, very comfortable. When I got into my reserved compartement, there was a lady that was stretched out and she had to move, she seemed very irritated and said something in german, uh oh, not a good way to start. I watched the countryside go by and worked on my blog. We transitioned from the tall Alps to what seemed a more hilly country in Slovenia. It was very beautiful, very lush and green. It rained most of the trip until I got to Zagreb. I still saw the little grommet things on the tiles of the roof, so I figured that it still snowed here. I believe that these keep the snow from sliding off and landing on the people below. There was another gentleman in the train that started having a conversation in German with the lady, they talked for quite awhile. Once he left, the lady tried to have a conversation with me, but she did not know much english. She did rather well though and she turned out to be very nice. She gave me some yummy hard candies, just as a grandmother should do. She was from Frankfurt traveling to visit family in Villach. SHe got off a few hours before me, so I had a quite rest of the ride to Zagreb. I arrived in Zagreb at 9PM, I had 2 hours before my overnight train. I walked outside a little bit, I did not want to go far. It was very busy with lots of people around and it was warm out. I did not have a place to refill my water and I figured that there would be some amenities on the train, I was wrong. They say, don't take Croatian trains, and now I know why. My train pulled up, as I walked on it was hot and stuffy as if it had been sitting in the sun all day with the windows closed, which it was. I opened some of the windows on the hallway side of the train, I got to my compartment and oh my, not like the Austrian train. The compartments were small rectangles with 3 cushioned but hard benches on either side with a 2.5 foot place to stand in the center. The benches were the beds. When I tired to explain what it was like, someone mentioned like a prison train, that seemed an apt description, except there were not bars on the windows. There was a large window that could slide down, it was sooo hot. I had reserved a top bunk, not being able to tell on the website. I put my stuff on the top bunk and laid down on the middle bunk. I saw someone walk by with a pillow, I asked her where she got it. Everyone really does speak english here, more than Germany and Austria. She pointed me to the first compartment, she said we would get some sort of covers later. I walked around the car a little, it was all the same, compartments and a very small toilet. There clearly was no restaurant car, air conditioning, water, electricity to charge devices or WiFi. One other person came into my compartment, a young Parisian visiting his family in Croatia. Once the train started and after they took our tickets they brought us paper sheets for the bench, pillow and to put over us. We had to keep the window open for a little while at least until it cooled off, it was very windy and loud. I managed to sleep, I was tired. I kept waking up wondering if they will wake us once they get to Split, or am I going to end up hours from my appointed destination. They did wake us up about 30 minutes prior to arriving. What a difference in landscape from where we had left, dry brush, no lush tress. I see why the ticket was so cheap, I think I have an Austrian train going back to Munich overnight, thank goodness.

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Photos

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These are the bike parking lots in Salzberg, there were multiple of these in the squares.

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Statue in square across from train station.

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This is the train station in Zagreb, very fancy!

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Slovenia from the train