One of Europe's most beautiful trips, the Semmering Railway

My wife and I have been on a beautiful train journey in Austria. We flew to Vienna and from there we boarded the Emona, the train to the capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana. Emona was the ancient Roman name for Ljubljana. It is a six-hour trip and we booked it, of course, because of the very scenic 25-mile (40 km) track which starts at Gloggnitz and leads over the Semmering Pass to Mürzzuschlag. From Wiki: ”A trip on the Semmering railway, which is in full use 160 years after its building, still impresses the traveller as a special experience by its varied landscape, the typical style of its mansions and the characteristic sequence of viaducts and tunnel constructions. In 1998 the Semmering railway was added to the list of the UNESCO World Heritage sites.”

Here are a few impressions of our trip.

Very nice trip, the train does not look very busy? I must stop dreaming of America and India, and enjoy more of these European treats!

A little more info for anyone interested... :http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/785

Ed.

Thanks Ed for the link to UNESCO. No, not very busy, but we were there the first week of November. I guess in Summer it's much more crowded.

By strange coincidence, Michael Portillo's BBC TV programme "Great Continental Railway Journeys" is showing a re-run of his visit to the Semmering Pass tonight!

"Armed with his 1913 railway guide, Michael Portillo travels the Habsburg imperial line from Vienna across the awe-inspiring Semmering Pass, a handmade railway line blasted through the Alps. Michael's journey takes him through a patchwork of nations which a century ago formed part of the Austro Hungarian empire. His destination is the Adriatic port of Trieste. In Vienna, he encounters a pre-Cold War spy and hears for himself the concert that caused a riot in 1913. At the winter sports resort of Semmering, rails of a slippier kind prove hard to navigate when Michael takes to a toboggan."

Can I ask which site or agency you used to buy your train tickets?

Ed.

@Ed (caravanman): I used the website of the Austrian Railways: https://www.oebb.at/de/.

Very smooth and simple, and good service at Wien Hauptbahnhof (Vienna Main Train Station). My wife and I travelled in Business Class and First Class. Strangely, the Emona (Vienna-Ljubljana) had no WiFi. The trains in Slovenia were old - back to the Seventies, which was a nice nostalgic touch.