Trains, Trains and More Trains

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a train geek. Yes, I really liked playing with my model train set when I was a kid and perhaps I never grew out of it. Even today, whenever I get a chance, I'll go out of my way to see a model railroad display (the one at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry is particularly impressive). I even "drove" the diesel locomotive at Monticello's Railway Museum (they'll let you play engineer if you pay them some cash). So it's no wonder that when I got back from Europe and unloaded my digital camera, I found that I had taken a lot of train pictures.

Unless you live in the Northeast corridor, train travel in the U.S. is not very popular. However, in Europe everyone takes the train. One reason could be that gas prices are much higher in Europe. But the most obvious reason is that train travel is just so much more civilized. Most intercity trains have a dining car that serves beer and wine, and an espresso cart comes down the aisle every now and then. Besides, Europe's rail network is so well developed, you can pretty much take a train to anywhere. Even though long distance intercity train travel is expensive, it's still well worth it to avoid the hassle (and expense) of getting to and from an airport. And of course, the long lines at airport security checkpoints don't exist at train stations.

As a designer, I have a keen interest in logos, identity and branding -- and the high standards of European railway graphics did not disappoint. Each country has its own national railway, complete with a distinctive logo and a well-executed identity system that integrates color schemes, uniform design, fabrics, interiors, glossy promotional materials and a fully branded web site. The web sites are so functional that one can plan detailed itineraries complete with transfers and track numbers. If you buy European rail tickets online from the U.S., they will mail you the tickets across the Atlantic. Automated ticket machines at stations are also available in English and are fairly easy to use.

But what impressed me the most was the design of the trains themselves. Depending on whether you're riding a local, regional or intercity train, the railway cars themselves could be completely different designs. Each country had its own aerodynamic, super-fast flagship "tilting" trains that can travel up to 200 MPH. The Swiss have the ICN, the Germans have the ICE, the French have the TGV (the fastest train in the world?), the Italians have the Cisalpino -- and they each have a distinctive look. Even the interiors have distinctive color schemes and layouts. The German ICE had the best seating arrangements. If you wanted to, you could choose a six-seat private compartment and close the door -- even in second class. We got lucky one day when we took the train from Basel to Zurich to check out a museum. Without planning for it, we rode the ICE to Zurich and the TGV back. We even managed to get our own private compartment on the ICE because the train wasn't very crowded. On another occasion, when the second class cars on the Golden Pass line were very crowded we were able to upgrade to first class for only $15 per person.

The German trains are all owned by Deutsche Bahn, the German national railroad. But the Swiss had both a national railway and privately owned regional railways like the Zentralbahn and the Jungfraubahn, each with their own branding and color schemes. The Jungfraubahn specializes in scenic and historic rail routes like the narrow gauge Schynige Platte line and several gondola lifts. They also own several hotels and lodges in their region, which we figured made good business sense since cheap hotels help sell train tickets. The Zentralbahn featured the Golden Pass line which runs the amazing scenic route from Interlaken Ost to Luzern complete with panoramic cars. Ticketing for all Swiss trains are available on the Swiss Federal Railway site regardless of which line you want to travel on, and the timetables are all coordinated to make transfers easy and convenient.

If you've traveled on Amtrak, you know that our trains never run on time. Not so in Switzerland or Germany. If the train is supposed to leave at 4:10, it leaves exactly at 4:10 -- to the second. I've watched this phenomenon again and again: about 30 seconds before departure, the conductor blows his/her whistle, the doors close, and when the second hand strikes 12 (and not one second later), the engineer releases the brakes and we're off. For some reason, the Italians aren't that concerned with promptness. In fact, because intercity trains often cross borders and make connections with another country's trains, the Swiss tend to blame to the Italians for screwing up their schedule.

Trains are great for intercity travel, but for local travel, take the tram (a.k.a. "street cars" like the ones in San Francisco). The major cities we visited -- Basel, Zurich, Berlin -- all had impressive tram systems. And where trams don't go, there are electric buses. Berlin had it all -- trams, buses, subway (U-Bahn), and the S-Bahn, an above-ground city train system. Ticketing on city transportation is based on a trust system. There are ticket machines at every station, but no one checks your ticket. Sure, there are random checks to keep people in line but those checks are few and far in between.

Train travel is so embedded in European culture that one can catch special train movies on late night cable TV. One night, as I was randomly clicking around, I stumbled across one channel showing an unedited video of an express train running at 200 MPH as seen from the engineer's point-of-view. It was raining the day the video was recorded, so the windshield wiper was going, making a rhythmic beat that mixed nicely with the sound of the rails flying by underneath. So I sat there glued to the TV, mesmerized by the scenery flying by for what seemed like an hour. As I sat, eyes glued to the TV screen, I noticed that I felt very much at peace and in balance -- with my mind emptied of random thoughts. Now that's train magic.

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Germany's Rhine Valley

After a week in Italy, we're back in Germany to tour the romantic Rhine valley, also known as Germany's castle region. Our destination was Cochem, a small town in the shadows of a castle on the Mosel River (which feeds into the Rhine). Cochem is just a few hours by train to Basel where we fly back to the States in a few days, so it seemed like a good idea to make one last stop before our vacation was over. Our Ryanair flight took us to Frankfurt Hahn airport which is nowhere near Frankfurt, but it's a short bus ride from the airport to Cochem. So we waited by the bus stop for a bus, but a taxi came instead. The fare was cheap, so we hopped in for a dizzying, stomach-turning ride up and down mountain roads. Fortunately, the ride was only 30 minutes, but it seemed much longer than that.

In Cochem, our home was at Weingut Rademacher, a bed and breakfast on a vineyard next to the train station. As soon as we checked in, we rented bikes and started exploring the town. I even took the bike on a boat to Beilstein, the next town over and rode back along the Mosel River. The weather was good and life was easy. But as we looked around, we didn't see many people our age. It seemed that all the tourists in the area are retired folks in their 60s. And the food in the restaurants reflected this. It seemed that almost every restaurant in town served the exact same menu -- tomato soup, schnitzel, and bratwurst. Fortunately, we found a Turkish döner kebab place to tide us over until we got back to civilization.

I don't know why, but I'm a big fan of fairy tale castles. Maybe it's all those Disney movies I watched when I was a kid or maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic, but one of my favorite movies is Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky. To fulfill my castle fantasy, I wanted to visit Burg Eltz, a castle hidden deep in the forest near a town called Moselkern just up the Mosel River. This castle has been in the Eltz family for over 800 years and is one of the very few castles that was never abandoned or destroyed. According to Rick Steves, the hike to the castle from Moselkern was supposed to be magical and Burg Eltz was supposed to be Rick's favorite castle in all of Europe. Unfortunately, neither the hike or the castle lived up to my fantasies. The only way to see the castle was with a guided tour and it seemed like our guide was still in training. We only got to see a small portion of the castle, perhaps eight rooms at most. Although the history was interesting, the overall experience was rather disappointing.

Instead, the real highlight of the Rhine valley turned out to be a steamboat ride from St. Goar to Bacharach. Many boats go up and down the Rhine, but there is only one Goethe, a paddle wheel steamer built in 1913 and is operated today by the KD Line. The Goethe only runs once a day, so with a little planning, we timed our train trip back to Basel with a scenic detour on a historic river boat.

Stepping onto the Goethe was like stepping through a time warp. This was truly a boat built for first class travel, complete with original art deco motifs and outfitted with beautiful wooden interiors. We chose the most romantic section of the Rhine for this cruise and we were not disappointed. There's nothing quite like having a cold Franziskaner wheat beer while watching fairy tale castles float by. If I were to do this over again, I would have planned more time on this boat so that we could have a sit down meal as well.

The train trip back to Basel itself was a scenic journey itself along the both the Mosel and Rhine rivers. We rode a combination of local trains, regional trains and the super-fast ICE. The Deutsche Bahn web site was so well designed that we were able to plan this whole itinerary using the Internet.

When we got back to Basel, we stayed with Immanuel for one more night before saying good-bye and heading to the airport once again for the flight home. It felt great to be home again. I was away for four weeks -- the longest I've ever been away from home. And it's going to take weeks to process this amazing trip.

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A Week in Italy

Unfortunately, if you're flying cheap, you might also be flying at inconvenient times. In order to catch our 8am Air Berlin flight to Milan, we had to get up at 5am. On the flipside, we were already in Italy at 9am with a full day ahead of us. Cheap European airlines also tend to fly into smaller airports, so we ended up in Bergamo, about an hour east of Milan. This was good for us because we had no interest in Milan anyway, so we headed straight for the Cinque Terre.

Long distance rail travel in Europe is expensive, so we rented a car from Budget instead ($229 per week with unlimited miles, no international license required). With a rental car, we had the freedom of traveling around Italy on our own schedule. Driving on the autostrada in Italy was not much different than driving on the interstate toll roads in the U.S. except that the signs were in Italian. The one major exception was the speed. Even though the posted speed limit was 110 KPH (about 68 MPH), everyone ignored it. And if you weren't moving fast enough in the left lane, you will be intimidated into moving over by aggressive tailgaters.

A partial explanation for this aggressive driving might be the coffee symbol that shows up on roadside signs about every hour. And since we were in Italy, a coffee cup symbol really means espresso and at every rest stop, the espresso counter was hopping. No time to rest here (we are on the autostrada afterall), got to push into the line to pay first (in Italy there's no such thing as an orderly line), then wave your receipt at the barista while shouting "macchiato." No time to sit, so we end up standing at the counter to slurp it down before heading back on the road. After a couple of shots of macchiato (espresso with a little milk), I was driving 90 MPH like everyone else.

The Cinque Terre is five well-preserved villages located on the west coast of Italy in the area known as the Italian Riviera. Isolated for centuries between the mountains and the sea, access to the villages was available only by boat until the 1920s. Of the five villages, Vernazza is the most charming, so we decided to make it our home base for the next four nights. Vernazza doesn't have any hotels, so all the rooms are in historic buildings and rented by locals who simply put up a sign saying "rooms available." If we had a cell phone, the process of getting a room would have been easier. But after ringing door bells and hoping someone was home, we looked at several selections and chose an apartment with a kitchen off a narrow side alley.

During the day, Vernazza is filled with tourists who arrive by train or boat. But in the evening, things quiet down and Vernazza becomes a tranquil village frozen in time -- a great place to hang out. All the Cinque Terre towns restrict automobile traffic to just service vehicles, so we parked our rental car in a free space off the side of the road and didn't touch it again until we left for Tuscany.

The five villages are connected by scenic walking paths along the sea, some easy and some challenging. With a little planning, one can walk a path one way and then return by train or boat. During the next four days, we managed to walk all of the paths and visited all five villages, each with a distinct personality. The view was spectacular and there was even an espresso stop between Vernazza and Corniglia, the next town over. There were plenty of restaurant choices of all types in every town and even with the Euro exchanging at 1.5 to the dollar, eating out was affordable.

After four nights in the Cinque Terre, we drove to Tuscany stopping in Lucca because it was on the way. Lucca is a charming walled city where we rented bikes and spent a few hours exploring the town as well as riding on the top of the walls. We wanted to stay longer, but we had a room reserved in San Gimignano, a well-preserved medieval town in Tuscany. San Gimignano could very well be the most charming of Tuscany hill towns with 14 (out of 60) of the original medieval towers still standing. From a distance, the town almost looks like a modern city with skyscrapers.

Our room in San Gimignano was in a historic building called the Palazzo Tortoli. Our jaws dropped when we saw our room: it was on the third floor overlooking the main square and furnished with antique medieval furniture. There were high ceilings and original rock walls and the view from our window was amazing. Too bad we were only able to stay two nights here.

Unfortunately, we found the food in Tuscany to be more expensive and much less tasty than in the Cinque Terre. The much hyped wild boar that was the specialty of the region tasted no different than regular beef but much tougher. Even the wines we tasted in Tuscany didn't compare to some of the local wines we tasted back in Corniglia. But being in a medieval town and staying in a beautiful historic building made up for the disappointing dining experiences.

The next day, we drove 30 minutes to a neighboring hill town called Volterra and stopped at the Guarnacci Etruscan Museum and an Alabaster workshop. The drive was beautiful and Volterra was just as charming as San Gimignano. After six nights in Italy, we had to head back to Bergamo to catch a morning flight back to Germany. But that didn't stop us from making a quick stop in Florence just to poke around.

We arrived in Florence on Sunday and drove right into the center of town. Florence was packed with tourists and the prices immediately went up at least 50%. Even with limited time, we were able to visit the Piazza della Signoria, the famous Duomo (cathedral), walk cross the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge) and tour the Giardino di Boboli, a manicured garden with fountains and statues not that different from our own Allerton Park. But the most impressive sight in Florence was the street artists who made their living selling paintings on the sidewalks. Sure there were typical portrait artists and plenty of paintings of Florence landmarks. But some of the other street artists were extremely talented and were showing work that really should be in galleries.

Our last night in Italy was at a hotel near the Bergamo airport. The next morning, we hopped on a Ryanair flight to Frankfurt for the last part of our vacation -- a quick tour of Germany's Mosel valley.

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(Also see Smile Politely food column)

Two Nights in Berlin

After my Swiss Exchange program was over, my wife and I took the opportunity to travel around Europe for two weeks. With limited time and a limited budget, we had to choose our destinations wisely. Fortunately, flycheapo.com was there to help. We researched which cities were served by those cheap European airlines that advertise "flights to London for €0" and mapped out our route. Of course by the time you pay for taxes, fuel surcharges and checked luggage, the cost is no longer $0. Still, it was cheaper than traveling by train and we got good deals by booking way ahead (i.e. from Milan to Frankfurt on Ryanair was only $36 per person). So our itinerary took us from Basel to Berlin, then to Milan, then to Frankfurt and finally back to Basel for our flight home.

We've heard that Berlin is the cultural capital of Europe and the hottest city of the moment. Fortunately, Easyjet flew from Basel to Berlin so we decided to spend two nights and one day in this vibrant city. Since our friend Julie from Dublin was going to join us in Berlin, we decided to share an apartment in the former eastern bloc of Berlin called Apartment Mitte (run by the same people that run Pension Peters). Our Russian friends Katya and Dima also joined us in Berlin, so we all met up for dinner on Saturday night and brunch the next day.

Lucky for us, Katya's friend Anne was in town and she became our local guide for the weekend. Knowing nightlife in Berlin would be hopping on Saturday night, I asked Anne to book us a show. I requested something edgy and fun and uniquely Berlin, so Anne obliged by getting us tickets to a "variety" show called Chamäleon. This group turned out to be a hip, urban version of Cirque du Soleil with energetic acrobats who loved to be in the spotlight. One of the acts, a "lovers duet" on ropes was sensuously romantic and erotic as well as playful. And the post-modern "clown" act was brilliant in its simplicity -- a video camera was pointed at a raised set that was tilted at 90 degrees and the entire performance can be viewed both as a upright projection and a freaky gravity-defying acrobatic act.

Another highlight was a five-hour bicycle tour of Berlin with Fat Tire Bike Tours. Led by a very knowledgeable Canadian with a sense of humor, we toured the major historical sights including Checkpoint Charlie. Our guide explained that Berlin was a bankrupt city with abandoned construction projects that ran out of money before they're completed. There was plenty of evidence of this as we saw many buildings and facades draped with large digital prints "previewing" what the finished project would look like. A trip to Berlin would be incomplete without a stop at a beer garden, and our tour guide obliged by taking us to one in Tiergarten Park. Packed with colorful locals and complete with musicians playing accordions, the beer and bratwurst never tasted better.

At Anne's recommendation, we had dinner on Saturday night at an excellent Argentinian tapas restaurant called Pata Negra. Brunch on Sunday was even better at Cafe Vebereck on Sonntagstrasse, far away from the tourist neighborhoods. Both meals were extraordinarily dining experiences and the prices were surprisingly affordable even in Euros. True, our Berlin stay was far too short and we barely scratched the surface of this very vibrant city. But Italy awaits...

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(Also see Smile Politely food column)