<< Introduction
After months of careful planning and countless hours spent looking at train times, hostel prices, monuments to see, and museums to visit, I was ready. I wrote a long note on my phone with everything I wanted to do and see and every train I had to take day by day for the entirety of the journey. I like to plan ahead. My luggage consisted of a suitcase filled with clothes, a bag with my PC and other important things, and a backpack with everything I couldn’t fit anywhere else, which will eventually be the place where I put all the souvenirs and food that I bought along the way. It was already heavy and barely enough to fit in everything I needed for such a long trip, but I made it work.
The journey started on September 6, 2022, just two days after my birthday. I took an early morning train from Rovigo to Padua and from there to Verona, where I boarded my first international train. Soon, I reached the first destination of this long trip: Innsbruck, Austria. On the first day I already took three trains, that’s a good start. After a short tram ride to the hostel and then back to the city center, it was finally time to start exploring.
I started from the eighteenth-century Triumphal Arch, I walked past the large Liberation Monument and then I reached Maria-Theresien-Straße, an important and central street with many decorated buildings and featuring Saint Anne’s Column, one of the most famous landmarks in Innsbruck. Next, I visited the Tyrolean Folk Art Museum and the adjacent Hofkirche (Court Church), a sixteenth-century church hosting the elaborate cenotaph of Emperor Maximilian I. I passed by the cathedral, which was unfortunately closed, and the Innbrücke, a bridge on the river Inn with a view on the colorful riverside houses and the mountains surrounding the city, before finally heading to the heart of the old town, where the symbol of Innsbruck, the Goldenes Dachl, is located. This is a Gothic balcony adorned with thousands of copper tiles overlooking the main square of the old town.
Lastly, I visited the local art and history museum known as Ferdinandeum, or Tyrolean State Museum. I walked a bit more around the city center before heading to a restaurant to have dinner. There, I ate Gröstl, a delicious local dish with meat and potatoes topped with a fried egg. While I was in the restaurant it started raining a lot, and I left my umbrella at the hostel, so I ran to the tram stop and I reached the hostel without being too soaked in water. Being located among the beautiful Alps of Tyrol, I had high expectations about Innsbruck, but it felt more like a modern city rather than the traditional mountain town that maybe I was looking for. Still, I enjoyed it and it was a good place to start the journey.
I left Innsbruck early the next morning on a train headed west, traveling through Tyrol and getting some great views of the mountains before arriving in Feldkirch after a two-hour trip. From there I boarded a bus, not included in my Interrail pass, to Vaduz, the capital of the tiny state of Liechtenstein. For years, whenever I tried to plan an Interrail journey, I would always start with Innsbruck and Liechtenstein, then taking different paths from there, so it was already feeling like a dream come true to be able to follow this itinerary I thought about for so long. Also, the country of Liechtenstein always fascinated me, being so small and tucked among the mountains between Switzerland and Austria. Maybe it turned out to be even too small, as there wasn’t much to see, but it was still pretty nice and surrounded by gorgeous sceneries.
I got off the bus close to the vineyards owned by the prince of Liechtenstein and then I walked to the city center. Already from there I could see the Vaduz Castle, but I didn’t walk up to it since it is not open to tourists, being the private residence of the royal family. I left my luggage in the lockers near the town hall and then I visited the small art museum, the Postal Museum, which hosts a large collection of postage stamps, and the National Museum, with exhibitions on local history, culture, and natural environment. Later, I wanted to get an ice cream, but it was really expensive, so instead I bought a box of Fürstenhütchen, local chocolates shaped like crowns.
My visit to Vaduz continued with the small and peculiar parliament and the Cathedral of Saint Florin. I then had to walk a bit to reach the Alte Rheinbrücke, a beautiful old covered wooden bridge crossing the Rhine and the border with Switzerland. I walked across the border to the other side and then back to Vaduz following the road along the river on the Liecthenstein side. I took a last walk around the small town and then I went to the bus stop. After waiting a bit, I realized that something was missing. Everything was missing. I was about to leave the country without all of my luggage, on the second day of my journey. Great. Thankfully Vaduz is so small that I was able to go to the town hall, retrieve my luggage, and go back to the bus stop maybe in less then ten minutes, before the bus arrived.
That bus got me to Sargans in Switzerland, where I boarded the train to Murg. “I’ve never heard of Murg” is what you are probably thinking. It’s a very small village on the shores of Walensee, a lake among the Swiss mountains, and the reason I went there is because a friend I met in Greece offered me a place to stay. Switzerland is very expensive so his kindness was very much appreciated, and I also had the rare opportunity to explore the area with a local that knows the place very well. However, he doesn’t really live in Murg, but a bit further away, we arrived after a forty-minute walk. It was a bit tiring, especially near his house where the road gets very steep, but he warned me in advance so I was prepared. My friend’s house was on an elevated position and the view on the lake was amazing. We spent the evening talking for hours and, at some point, I noticed that he had an old Nintendo 64 with various games. After messing with the cables for maybe half an hour, we managed to make it work, so we played Mario Kart 64 for almost two hours to well after 3 a.m..
The following morning we went down to the port of Murg and we took a boat ride to the other side of the lake, where the village of Quinten is located. This tiny hamlet can only be reached by boat or on foot, and it is a very beautiful slice of the traditional mountain life I wanted to see. There, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch where I ate Käsespätzle served in a pan. This is a traditional dish made of dumplings and cheese, with fried onions that you can add on top. Similarly to the Gröstl I had in Innsbruck, it was a really big dish, but a very good one nonetheless. Also, my friend paid for the entire meal, and this just made the food even more delicious.
After lunch, we took the footpath linking Quinten to Walenstadt, the main town in the area. It was a difficult hike up and down the lakeside mountains that took over three hours, but the incredible views on Walensee made it absolutely worth it, and I also got to pet some cows that were grazing along the path. In Walenstadt, we met by chance my friend’s sister and she invited us to have dinner at her house, so I also met her Italian boyfriend. Like her brother, she was also very kind, and the pasta she made was honestly among the best food I had in the entire trip. We spent the rest of the evening at another friend’s house before going back to Murg by train.
We had plans to go on another hike in the mountains the next morning, but it rained all day so we just stayed inside and played videogames for most of the time. Between Mario Kart 64, Pokémon Stadium and FIFA, we truly had a fun and relaxing time. I really needed it after the tiring hike of the previous day. I also got to try some more great food such as a sausage of local pork and pasta with ragù of deer from this region. I stayed at my friend’s house for another night and, before leaving, to add to his infinite kindness, he also gifted me a swiss knife that actually turned out to be very useful during the trip, especially as a bottle opener. What a great guy, I’ll come visit him again for sure.
