Europe Day 3: Zagreb to Salzburg
Shifting Train Numbers in Villach
After the day in Zagreb, it was time to re-start the journey early in the morning with an @eurail pass.
I was doing the thing that 20 year-olds from certain parts of the world get the privilege to do - get a pass, a backpack and travel the continent on a train for days. Except I was doing it for the first time at 40 and with a suitcase. Perhaps as post-pandemic shakedown or in response to a mid-life crisis. And as someone who had not done much "train-ing", I over-prepared with seat-bookings (which not many people do) and being super early, when all you do is be at the platform a few minutes before the train leaves, get on, and wait for them to check your ticket at some point in the trip. Also when they say the train number changes as you cross into a different country, it doesn't mean you have to change trains (which I did by mistake in Villach: got off the train, sprinted underneath the platform to get on the other side, got on to a train, only to discover it was the same train - much to the amusement of my carriage companions who saw me rush out 5 minutes before).
But this train (with two different numbers) to Salzburg will end up being the most scenic one in the whole cross-continent journey. In less than half an hour from Zagreb you cross the border (at least until the end of this year) into Slovenia and the EU. The track winds its way along the mellow river Sava as the plains turn into hills then mountains and it is just so breathtakingly green all around. The train is a cocoon gliding at the base of the eastern Alps where nature feels so alive. On top of the hills, you see little old houses or maybe even a church enveloped by trees. When the train gets to Austria (with a different number @unsereoebb) there is a chord change, it all goes a bit extra, and you rise to see towns below and mountain peaks above.
So when you get to Salzburg in the early afternoon, you’re not surprised to see tourist adverts for tours based on a certain musical.