They built train tracks before there was a train... - Luxurious Nomad ~ Ms Bella St John

Anyone who has seen “Under the Tuscan Sun” (or if you are like me and have seen it so many times you could just about recite the entire script), will recognise the following:

Martini: Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come.

I have always been fascinated by that idea – and the person who had that dream to build it in the first place…

…and today I actually WENT THERE! …and that was only a tiny part of an otherwise amazing day!

But first…

I was picked up – this time at a respectable 9:30am, and our first stop was what is proclaimed to be Vienna’s most elegant coffee houses (and having now been there, I do agree)…

…and along the way, it was fitting that we passed the Steiermark (Styria) festival, as this was where we were headed for the majority of our trip… Styria [from wikipedia] “is a mountainous, forested state in southern Austria, known for its wine, spas and castles. Graz, the riverside state capital, blends Renaissance and baroque architecture with modern designs such as Murinsel, an artificial island made of glass and steel, and the alienlike Kunsthaus, a contemporary art museum. A funicular runs up Schlossberg, a hill topped by the Uhrturm, a 16th-century clock tower.”

…but back to the coffee house…

From their website: Franz Landtmann, 1873 – Franz Landtmann did not plan to open just any old coffee house: it was to be the most elegant in the city. When he unlocked the doors on 1 October 1873, Landtmann demonstrated his pioneering spirit – with nothing but construction sites all around the new establishment. The splendour of the Ringstraße was nowhere to be seen; there was no Burgtheater next door; the Rathaus and the University were only just being built. But the residents of Vienna were thrilled, and Café Landtmann was a hit.

…and I love any establishment with this selection of automobiles in the parking area…

Since 1976, the Cafe Landtmann has been owned by the Querfeld family, who saved it from being turned into a bank!

Here, you can view some of the Landtmann Magazines that give you even more information:

Now, on to our next destination, the world-famous dancing horses of Vienna…

This was just the prelude for our real horse-related destination – their breeding ranch up in the mountains… but more about that soon…

For now, this is a sneak peek at their exercising…

Then back into Michaelerplatz and on our way…

I love the architecture here… whether it is baroque, medieval, Victorian or modern – it all blends beautifully…

…although I am not so sure I would want this on my house…

…and we head up, up, up into the Alps…

Oh, and from what I can gather, this sign is essentially ‘roadworks ahead’…

Past some more medieval castles (there are soooooo many of them here, it is wonderful!)…

…along a road that reminds me of the crazy narrow, winding roads in Italy…

Lots of energetic cyclists…

…and finally, Gloggnitz where the Semmering line commences.

The Semmering Line was the first mountain railway in Europe built with a standard gauge track and is commonly referred to as the world’s first true mountain railway. It was the brainchild of Carl von Ghega, and built between 1848 and 1854.

…and tucked away down here…

…is one of the original carriages…

She’s so cute!

[from Wikipedia] The Semmering line “features 14 tunnels (among them the 1,431 m summit tunnel), 16 viaducts (several two-storey) and over 100 stone arch bridges and 11 small iron bridges. The stations and the buildings for the supervisors were often built directly from the waste rock dug out when making the tunnels.

Across an overall track length of 41 km the Semmering railway overcomes an altitude difference of 460 m; on 60% of its length the gradient is 2.0-2.5% (equivalent to a 1-meter difference in altitude on a 40 m route distance) and 16% exhibit a curvature radius of only 190 m.” …and you can see one of the viaducts in these pictures… and some of the tunnels later in this post…

One of the other elements I love about this is that the Semmering railway had a focus on “landscape gardening”, in that it attempted a harmonious combination of ‘technology and nature’.