20 Years On - Part 13 of Account of Travelling by Train Around West Germany and Austria

I certainly remember the train carriage filled with the solicitous elderly women. It was a good thing they were there as the sandwiches I had packed had gone mouldy and they gave me replacement food. Later walking through Nürnberg I had burnt up so much energy that I experienced what I now know was a hypoglaecemic attack, i.e. my body lacked sufficient blood sugar for the activity I was doing and I wolfed down the pallet of peaches one of the women had given me and the fruit sugar helped get me back to normality. I also remember being pestered by American religious people dressed in smart suits who seemed to haunt the railway station and you had to dodge away from.

As in Koblenz, the youth hostel in Nürnberg is in a castle with a great view down across the city. The medieval historic nature of the city is one reason Hitler used it for his rallies. In keeping with that I dined in a restaurant in a cellar. By the time I returned there in 2004 my knowledge of German had deteriorated so much I could no longer understand the menu, which had, however, changed little.

I remember on the tour of the castle, a local family: husband, wife and grown-up daughter taking around a British couple who in the UK would have been perceived as 'caravanners' wearing rather dated, dull, cheap synthetic clothing and almost 1950s hairstyles which contrasted sharply with the big hair of the two German women and very expensive designer leatherwear all their hosts had on. For some reason I remember the wife had a leather skirt suit with a nipped waist held with a bow at the back of the jacket, all very Eighties in style. The Britons almost seemed like their pets, being patronised and led around the place like children. I just wondered how these two groups of people had met because they seemed so different.

Saturday 3rd September 1988

Todau I actually overslept for the first time this holiday. I got up, had breakfast and talked to some Americans. I caught the train to Nürnberg at 09.20. The one [that left] an hour earlier would have got me there two hours earlier.

Just as an aside, here sitting in a train surrounded by three middle aged women - two Austrian and one German, all doing crosswords, those difficult arrowed ones without black spaces; German women seem addicted to crosswords. I also know now why there are so many cinemas in Wien - they are listed by district - because the television is so bad and boring.

I arrived at Nürnberg by 15.00 and walked quickly to the youth hostel which is just North of the centre, in another castle. After unpacking I went to the castle and had a guided tour, then I went out for a meal with Nick, an English cyclist, we had a tasty if basic meal - I had a hunk of meat, dumplings and salad. Then we came back to talk to two Finns before going to bed.

Weather: Dull, some rain.

Nürnberg Youth Hostel, September 1988

Nürnberg Castle, September 1988

Note the Bavarian Flag flying at half-mast

View across Nürnberg, September 1988

20 Years On - Part 12 of Account of Travelling by Train Around West Germany and Austria

My attempts at cycling in Vienna were terrible. I set off down a one-way street on the wrong side of the road (it was the first time I had not been a passenger on continental roads where they drive on the opposite side of the road to the UK). In these days no-one considered wearing a cycle helmet even in a city like Vienna. 'Brunn' means fountain in German and this was something common at the Schönbrunn (literally 'beautiful fountain') palace on the outskirts of the city.

Friday 2nd September 1988

Today I woke up promptly and hired a bicycle. I cycled off in the wrong direction at first but got on the right, if busy route to the Armoury war musem but it was closed on Friday. I bought some drink and biscuits and unsuccessfully tried to find the entrance to the Belvedere. I then went back via the city museum and dropped off my purchases. I picked up my kagoul and then set off for the Schönbrunn Schloß and walked around the gardens and had some lunch after which I cycled back into town. I looked around the market, Stephans Dom and then the Parliament and the Rathaus buildings in the pouring rain. I walked back through town where I bought some bananas and some chocolate before going to the youth hostel where I sat talking to two Germans about politics, having already eaten my dinner.

An interesting thing I noted was the number of Hungarians stocking up on electrical goods - hi-fis, stereos, videos and televisions and small shops selling all this stuff where the proprietors spoke Hungarian. I forgot to mention all the newspaper sellers who stand at the street corners in the afternoon and at night selling their city paper, dressed in bright red and yellow livery.

Weather: Dull in the morning, heavy rain by afternoon.

Entrance to Schöbrunn Palace outside Vienna, September 1988

Grounds of Schöbrunn Palace, September 1988

View across Vienna from the Grounds of Schönbrunn Palace, September 1988

Fountains in the Grounds of Schöbrunn Palace, September 1988

Avenue in the Grounds of Schöbrunn Palace, September 1988

Views of Park in Central Vienna, September 1988

Vienna Rathaus, September 1988

Austrian Parliament Building in Vienna, September 1988

20 Years On - Part 11 of Account of Travelling by Train Around West Germany and Austria

The thing that stunned me re-reading this entry is my admission of guilt as I have never fare-dodged at any other occasion in my life and knowing me in the late 1980s and how longer the guilt for wrongdoing lasted, I must have blanked this out. I could only imagine that it stemmed from not wanting to spend on a travel pass to go a couple of stops. There were no barriers to getting on the underground system though I heard subsequently that they introduced the so-called 'Black sheriffs' to catch fare dodgers so I was lucky to get away with it.

My memories of Vienna are of an even greater amount of simply walking around the streets and because of the cost of the place eating from sausage vans frequented by Hungarians. If I had realised it (and given that I had been studying East European history, I should have done) I was witnessing a symptom of the break down of the Eastern Bloc. Of the Eastern Bloc states, Hungary opened its borders earliest and allowed its citizens, who were comparatively wealthy compared to their neighbours in the bloc to travel into Austria to buy consumer goods, particularly electrical goods. I witnessed scores of Hungarians hurrying to their coaches with box after box of electrical items.

Austria was not in the European Community (as the EU was called at the time) hence the customs check when I left West Germany. I remember the train coming to a halt and having to get off and show my passport and then get on another train the other side of the barrier, far more stringent checks than I had faced crossing the Belgian-West German border.

The youth hostel I went to was not listed in the official guide but I had read about it in a guide book I had borrowed from a Canadian woman on the train. Two young women had sat down opposite me, the first, a German asked me in German to help put her rucksack up on the luggage rack. Then the Canadian came along and asked me the same in English and then we engaged in conversation, which visibly startled the German woman who seemed to have mistaken me for a German or an Austrian. At that time it seemed unusual, but since I have often been mistaken for something other than British, despite my poor ability with languages. Of course I always hoping for a kind of romantic encounter of the kind later shown in 'Before Sunrise' (1995) but of course was so inept at relations with the opposite sex that I would have not known how to handle it even if Julie Delpy in person had thrown herself at me. At the youth hostel I managed to get through a conversation in German with the woman at the reception and it was only when I spoke to myself in English when I forgot a word that she realised I was not German, probably because she was herself American. We switched to English which we both knew much better.

Running into eight people from my university course just about to leave where they had been sitting outside the gallery was typical of the unlikely things that used to go on in my life at the time. In Munich they had been compelled to sleep in a huge public tent on the edge of the city, constantly noisy with people coming and going. After Vienna and with no concern about damaging any potential career in the civil service they went on to Hungary and then Romania whilst I turned back to West Germany.

I must say that the crown jewels on show in Vienna far exceed the British ones and are a real 'must see' if you are in the city. I was annoyed that in trying to see the River Danube I missed the chance to see 'The Third Man' (1948) actually in Vienna where it is set as I only came across it as I was walking back having wandered far across the city. The ferris wheel is the one which features in that movie.

„“ is how the Germans put words in inverted commas and as you can see from these accounts, I was keen to affect as many German characteristics as possible in a way that now seems incredibly pathetic.

The building with the three round windows and a style which reminded me of Venice was the basis of the Merchants' Guild building in my novel 'The Karskoe Assassin' which I was just completing at this time. If you can tell the name of the building pictured or of the Italianate church close to it, I would be grateful .

Thursday 1st September 1988

Today I woke early and fare-dodged on the underground to the station. I then caught an almost empty (East German) train to Salzburg where I went straight through customs and then caught a train to Wien where I arrived at 14.00 and quickly got to the youth hostel by following two Finns. It is a small one, only 77 beds. Aachen had 170 beds, München, 510, and it is very friendly; cleaner and nicer than München, no curfew, 10.00 check out. There are four other hostels in town. Oh yes, I got my Austrian Schillings but I am having trouble calculating what they are worth. Nice views from the train.

I walked back into town and to the historical art museum outside which I met Richard from my History of Eastern Europe group and others from my university. The museum had excellent Egyptian and Classical items and I saw Rembrandts and Breugels. Then I walked onto the Imperial Palace - the Burghof and looked at the crown jewels and costumes. I then walked to the Prater Park, looked at the Ferris Wheel and walked along the very long Hauptallee. Then I walked back to the hostel and watched some chess. Everything here is so expensive - £0.75 for a can of Coca Cola, the museums are £2 per time. Whistle-stop tour tomorrow. There was "The Third Man" („Der Dritte Mann”) on at a cinema but I was too late and today is the last day.

Weather: Sunny and hot.

View of Austrian Countryside from Train Travelling Salzburg-Vienna, September 1988

Roof of St. Stefan's Cathedral in Vienna, September 1988

Entrance of Art Gallery in Vienna, September 1988

Entrance to the Residenz in Vienna, September 1988

Italianate Church Close to Karlsplatz in Vienna, September 1988

Entrance to Karlsplatz Underground Station in Vienna, September 1988

Building Close to Karlsplatz in Vienna, September 1988

Prater Ferris Wheel in Vienna, September 1988