My last day in Austria had begun. On the morning of June 9, 2010 I packed my suitcase early and strolled into town one last time with my brother and my sister-in-law. It was market day again in my home town of Weiz and the locals were picking up fresh produce, meat and bread from the local merchants. After a nice lunch we were ready to head out for one final excursion. We started driving through the hilly winding roads of Eastern Styria, past the villages of Anger, Birkfeld, Ratten and Rettenegg, to the 1372 metre high mountain pass of Pfaffensattel. This road connects the Austrian provinces of Styria and Lower Austria, snakes through a heavily forested, scarcely populated region of my home province of Styria and arrives in the Mürz Valley. From here we continued on to the town of Semmering, most well known as a popular spa town and a favourite vacation getaway for the Viennese aristocracy at the turn of the 20th century. As I was leaving today by night train from Vienna to Rome, I went straight to the train station in Semmering to find out when the next direct train to Vienna would arrive. It was not due until about a quarter to five, so we still had a couple of hours to explore the town. The Semmering Railway, incidentally, was the first mountain railway in Europe to be built with a standard gauge track. With its 14 tunnels, 16 viaducts (some of them two stories high) and more than 100 curved stone bridges, this railway, completed in 1854, is one of the most important miracles of railway engineering in the world. Due to its uniqueness, it has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998. Our stroll through town took us past the historic Südbahnhotel (Southern Railway Hotel), built in the dreamy historicist style and opened in 1882. Until World War I this grand hotel was a favourite destination among Viennese aristocrats, artists, poets and writers. Between the two World Wars, this hotel experienced a revival but has seen a major decline after World War II when Austrians were looking to travel farther afield to places in Italy and Croatia. The Südbahnhotel has been shuttered for several decades now, but still serves as a venue for the Reichenau Theatre Festival. It is surrounded by countless other villas and mansions from the second half of the 19th and early 20th century, and its main rival, the Hotel Panhans, another grand hotel that was opened in 1888, stands fully renovated only about 15 minutes walk away. After our brief exploration of the town of Semmering it was time to say goodbye, a sad goodbye, to my brother and my sister-in-law, who I probably won't see until some time next year. A few minutes behind schedule, I hopped in the train and slowly chugged towards Vienna, all the while admiring the hilly forested scenery that passed by outside. At 7:30 pm, I finally boarded the night train to my next destination: Rome!

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