The undulating nation of Slovakia was to be our next stop as we terminated our eastward bearing and began our return journey in earnest. This was my first occasion within its landlocked borders having skirted close by while Interrailing many moons ago. Lowri, however, had visited before and even knew how to order a beer in Slovak, absolutely priceless knowledge.
With Vishnu temporarily repaired and teaching done for the weekend, we could loosen up, relax, and start to find out what it means to be Hungarian and what better way to do that than by taking a nice warm beer bath.
Following a festive weekend in Vienna we embarked on the short seventy-kilometre hop directly south into the great nation of the Magyars, otherwise known as Hungary. A slight oddity in the heart of Central Europe, the country is quite unlike any of its neighbours, especially in terms of language.
Following the advice of our new favourite fiftyish Austrian roadside café owners, we were going to Graz. Our original plan was to cross the slightly flatter northern part of the country straight to the capital: Vienna. However, southern Graz was most definitely worth the rather large diversion, according to them at least and I now trust them with my life.
Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Julie Andrews, the list of prodigious Austrian musical talent goes on and on and nowhere exemplifies her harmonious heritage more than our second destination. Following a few drinks over the ice hockey in the western town of Feldkirch, we spent a couple of weeks bouncing around Bavaria before re-entering Austria in the most melodious of cities: Salzburg.
From beer diplomas in Bamberg to fairy tale castles in Füssen, our first week in Bavaria was more German than an evening frying Frankfurters with Jürgen Klinsmann. Into week two and we were to base ourselves in the region’s largest city, Munich, while splashing out on a few vanless nights with an attractive wooden guesthouse in the suburbs for Lowri’s birthday.
Attempting to explore all of Germany in a little over two weeks would be both foolish and quite impossible. We didn’t even bother. The south-eastern state of Bavaria, despite being Germany’s largest, would be just about manageable if we kept our wiener stops and bratwurst breaks to a minimum while being extremely selective in our choice of picture-perfect villages to besmirch with our presence.
You rejoin us following an extremely restless night on the outskirts of Schaan, Liechtenstein’s most populous municipality, trying and failing to collect countless drips from our increasingly leaky ceiling. Thankfully, the rainstorm we had endured since entering the country had temporarily ceased and we were finally able to inspect the damage thanks to our ingenious portable ladder we had stashed away for just such events.
While I love a micronation perhaps more than the next man, the prospect of touring the diminutive country of Liechtenstein filled me with even more wonder than usual as she is, without a doubt, the European nation I know the least about and, therefore, the most mysterious.
Having dipped our frigid toes into the fondue of Swiss life in our first week proceeding across the undulating north, we were now fully equipped to take on the challenges and enormous heights of Switzerland’s Alpine south.
