Time Management – A Race Against The Clock To Oradea (The Lost Cities #5)

There are the trips not taken, the routes not followed, and the timetables that cannot be worked out. I rarely write about my stillborn sojourns. It is painful to recall aborted plans that started with hope and ended in hopelessness. These chances not taken can be summed up as an inversion of the famous Sinatra lyric from My Way, “Regrets, I’ve had a few…too few to mention” into “Regrets, I’ve had many, too many to mention.” My way ended up being the wrong way.

What worries me the most about my itinerary for the lost cities beyond the borders of Hungary is that it will never come to fruition. That is why I have tried to trick myself into believing the itinerary is for armchair travel only. Nevertheless, my underlying and unspoken aspiration is to make this dream become reality. The reason it might not is a matter of time. As I plan this potential journey, I am becoming acutely aware just how much time plays a part in the choices I make while traveling in Eastern Europe.

Managing time – Oradea City Hall Tower

Road Weary – Crossing The Upper Tisza
There is Eastern Europe, and then there is far Eastern Europe. I define the latter as places in the region that are remote from the popular tourist routes. The westernmost stretch of the Ukraine-Romania border is one of them. I consider this to be the wildest of the wild east.  This is not just because of both countries’ association with some of the most volatile European history since the beginning of the 20^th century, it is also because a stretch of the border is naturally demarcated by the Upper Tisza River. When I learned this a decade ago, it astonished me. My image of the Tisza had been informed by numerous crossings of the river on the Great Hungarian Plain. I had always thought of the Tisza as a broad, languid river flowing through flat land as it heads south to feed the Danube. That was until I saw photos of the Upper Tisza along the Ukraine-Romania border that showed a narrower, faster flowing river. The photos led me to daydream about one day crossing this natural border.

While developing my Lost Cities itinerary, I thought that there might be an opportunity to cross the Upper Tisza when I traveled from Uzhhorod to Oradea. That was until I looked closely at a map and noticed that the Ukraine-Romania border was to the southeast of Uzhhorod, whereas Oradea was directly to the south. Trying to find a way to cross the Upper Tisza between Oradea and Uzhhorod would require a detour. On the map, this detour did not look that difficult, but railways in the area are few. Roads are often the only option. I have been on enough to-lane highways in Ukraine and Romania to know that traveling on them is time consuming due to their narrowness and condition. Despite these drawbacks, I researched a potential trip routed through the small city of Satu Mare in northwestern Romania.

The place to be – Satu Mare Railway Station in 1911
(Credit: Brück & Sohn Kunstverlag Meißen)

Clock Watching – Taking My Time
Bus travel in the remoter reaches of Eastern Europe is often the only means of transport. That is the case for anyone looking to get from Uzhhorod to Satu Mare. It requires two potentially exhausting bus rides. That is followed by a three-hour train journey between Satu Mare and Oradea. All this adds up to at least a twelve-hour journey. Timeliness is not the strong suit of public transport in Romania. Neither is a border crossing from a country at war, to one that is a member of the European Union. Specific travel times are rendered meaningless. The best that can be hoped for are rough estimates of arrival times. In this context, a couple of hours can easily double. For this potential journey, time was working against me.

Sitting in an armchair months or years away from an actual trip between Uzhhorod and Oradea, it is easy for me to delude myself into believing anything might be possible. Pushing the boundaries of endurance is appealing from a distance. I know from experience just how different reality can be, especially when bus travel is involved. I love riding on trains because I find even the worst ones to be more comfortable and relaxing than traveling on a bus. The trains I have been on in Ukraine and Romania are slower than buses, but they have everything else to recommend them. For instance, on a train I can stretch my legs while not worrying about the numerous near misses that occur on bad roads with drivers who love to risk everyone’s life. Furthermore, I do not have to sit in cramped quarters among fellow passengers whose clothes are permeated with the smell of cigarette smoke. Avoiding these annoyances makes the slower pace of train travel more tolerable.

There is also the historical accuracy that comes with train journeys to the lost cities on my itinerary. When Uzhhorod and Oradea were known as Ungvar and Nagyvarad in Austria-Hungary, those who traveled to them would have done so by train. Contemporary railway lines still follow much of the network laid down by the Hungarian National Railways network during the last half of the 19^th century. Taking trains offers me an opportunity to follow the exact same routes in many cases. I am seeing the same landscape, as citizens of the empire saw it over a century ago. It is possible on these journeys to relive a semblance of the past while traveling at the same speed as citizens of the empire did long before me.

A New Direction – Puspokladany Railway Station (Credit: Aspectomat)

Mental Sanity – A New Direction
My love for train travel led me to decide that my best bet for efficiency and mental sanity will be to travel in a straight shot south from Uzhhorod to Oradea. This will not be easy. Traveling through rural areas that have changed little since the days of Austria-Hungary takes patience. The one thing that has changed is national borders. This inevitably leads to delays. Add to that, the usual issues with poor infrastructure found in some of the poorer parts of Eastern Europe and my journey from Uzhhorod to Oradea will either be an adventure or a nightmare. In this case, probably both. I began researching more straightforward and expedient options for the journey. This led me in another bizarre direction, the town of Puspokladany in eastern Hungary.

Click here for: The Long Haul – An Exhausting Journey To Oradea (The Lost Cities #6)

Difficult Destination – The Journey To Uzhhorod (The Lost Cities #4)

There comes a time when I am developing a travel itinerary that fear takes hold and threatens to stop me from visiting the one place that is integral to the whole plan. In this case, that place happens to be Uzhhorod. That small city on the southwestern edge of Ukraine, a stone’s throw from Slovakia, and within a short drive of Hungary is my challenge, my obstacle, and my opportunity. The lost cities itinerary I have spent the past several days developing is now dependent upon an obscure city that kingdoms, empires, and nations have inherited, but never really knew what to do with it.

Uzhhorod is an outlier. Look no further than the fact that its location has helped it escape the worst of a horrific war. Uzhhorod is as hard to grasp as it is to access. A city that I have previously avoided because I did not have the time nor the energy to visit it, a city that has the most multiple personalities in its disorders, a city whose history is a mixed-up mumble jumble of ethnicities, languages, nationalities, and cultures that it defies logic. A city that adds another layer of complexity to my lost cities beyond the Hungarian border project. A city that has been lost to every entity that has tried to claim it since the turn of the 20^th century. A city that represents a place not only on the map, but inside of me. And now Uzhhorod has come back to baffle me.

Palatial transport – Uzhhorod Railway Station (Credit: Elke Wetzig)

Magical Thinking – Tendencies To Avoidance
Buses, I hate them. Border officials, I fear them. Transfers at train stations, I loathe them. These are the barriers that are causing me consternation as I try to find the best way to Uzhhorod. This should not bother me as much as it does. I love challenges. I am not so sure I love multiple challenges. Kosice to Uzhhorod is not an easy journey, even if there was no war going on in Ukraine. No trains travel there directly. The best routes I have found are indirect ones which require confusing acts of avoidance followed by unavoidable obstacles. My first mistake was to assume I could somehow make this journey easy on myself. Easy would mean straightforward. In the best of all worlds, I would find a train (always my preferred method of travel) from Kosice to the border. Then I could take a quick transfer by taxi into Uzhhorod. I discovered that is impossible.

That did not keep me from descending into the realm of magical thinking with a train taking me straight from Kosice to Uzhhorod. Never mind the different railway gauges, never mind border control, never mind the war going on, never mind reality, never mind that in these war-torn times almost everyone is heading in the opposite direction. My absurd railway fantasies were stillborn not long after they were first formulated. And still I kept thinking this should be so easy. Two major regional cities, Kosice and Uzhhorod, not very far apart, should somehow be connected. What I failed to take into consideration was that nothing had been easy here since the start of World War I had been through endless upheavals. The tumultuous times have occurred with such frequency that it is almost as though they have been institutionalized.

Made for waiting – Cierna nad Tisou Railway Station (Credit: Matijak)

Taking Sides – On The Brink
After being brought to the brink of depression by the lack of a straight shot between Kosice and Uzhhorod, I decided on the most sensible course of action. I would do whatever it takes to get there. The two travel options I found were not exactly appealing. The first was to get a bus from Kosice to the Slovakia-Ukraine border. That sounded rather simple, until I learned that it took four hours and ten minutes to cover less than one hundred kilometers. I did not even bother exploring that one further because all I could imagine was a rickety bus, belching out diesel fumes, while trying to dodge planet sized potholes That might sound like an exaggeration, but no more of an exaggeration than a bus traveling an average speed of 50 kilometers per hour all the way from Kosice to Uzhhorod.

The most difficult destinations to access are often the most rewarding. By that standard, Uzhhorod should be positively sensational, though at this point I am having my doubts. I will be thrilled if I can get there in the least stressful and most straightforward manner possible. I did manage to find a way of avoiding buses, but there is going to be no way of getting around border control. The journey will consist of first taking a train from Kosice to Cierna nad Tisou. I found the name of the latter more wonderful than the idea of changing trains there. From Cierna nad Tisou, I will take another train onward to Chop, which is where the official border crossing into Ukraine is located. Chop, as a name, always sounds so strange to me. I know from experience that the name is nothing to laugh at because the border officials there are very serious. I have spent many hours at rail sidings in Chop while train cars were modified for a different railway gauge. This was a small price to pay for a journey to Lviv in western Ukraine.

A beautiful past – Postcard of Ungvar (Uzhhorod) during the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Credit: Old Ungvar)

Obstacle Course – Waiting On The Border
At Chop, there will be a second train transfer for the trip onward to Uzhhorod. The only thing more difficult than this minor odyssey will be plotting my next route into Romania. Three lost cities – Kosice, Uzhhorod, and Oradea – in succession, each of which are in different countries. Most things in the lives of Eastern Europeans have gotten easier since the Iron Curtain collapsed, travel is not one of them. Neighbors in this neck of the woods are not very neighborly when it comes to crossing borders. Traveling from Slovakia to Ukraine and Ukraine to Romania still requires passing through tight border control. I wish that the situation was different, but it is not likely to change for the better until the ongoing Ukraine-Russia War is resolved. That resolution keeps getting pushed ever deeper into the future. That means longer waits for anyone hoping to visit the lost cities.

Click here for: Time Management – A Race Against The Clock To Oradea (The Lost Cities #5)

Eastern Questions – Plotting Paths To Kosice & Uzhhorod (The Lost Cities #3)

Budapest, Vienna, and Prague. Those three cities are as far eastward in Europe as most foreign visitors are likely to get. An argument can be made that none of those cities are even in Eastern Europe. Vienna and Prague see themselves as part of Central Europe. Budapest is close to the midpoint of Europe. As for Eastern Europe, it starts somewhere beyond those three cities. For purposes of my journey to the lost cities of Hungary, Eastern Europe could be said to start the moment I leave Bratislava and head eastward into the heart of Slovakia. This is a land little known to westerners, but of endless fascination for those who dare to visit it. Even from an armchair halfway across the world, I feel my pulse begin to quicken as I plan a journey into a remote and fundamentally different region of Eastern Europe. Whereas Vienna, Prague, and Budapest seem to enjoy being perpetually preserved in the past. The lost cities next on my itinerary have never been able to escape it.

The old and the new – Kosice (Credit: Draco)

Internal Affairs – Getting To Kosice
I find it strange to think that Bratislava and Kosice, the two cities which dominate the western and eastern halves of Slovakia today, were officially known as Pozsony and Kassa not so long ago. Other than Transylvania, Bratislava and Kosice were the greatest losses suffered by Hungary in the post-World War I Treaty of Trianon. Pozsony had become the coronation capital for Hungarian kings after the Ottoman Turks occupied much of Hungary, Kassa was home to one of the most magnificent cathedrals in Europe that housed the tomb of Ferenc Rakoczi, who led Hungary’s war of independence in the early 18^th century. As I continue to plan my itinerary for the seven lost cities found just beyond the current border of Hungary, Bratislava and Kosice loom the largest. Because of their importance, they have ample rail connections. For example, Bratislava is just an hour and 14 minutes by train from the previous stop at Eisenstadt in eastern Austria. Best of all, I can sidestep Vienna on that short journey. I would much rather see the countryside of the Burgenland (formerly West Hungary) than pass through the busy railway stations and urban sprawl of Vienna. 

Traveling onward from Bratislava to Kosice will be more time consuming due to the distance between Slovakia’s two largest cities. The average train journey between them takes five and a half hours. This raises an interesting point. The only time I traveled to Kosice was over a decade ago on a same day round trip from Budapest. That journey took three and a half hours. This is an hour and a half faster than the journey between Bratislava and Kosice. The railway network in Hungary was created with Budapest as its main hub. Long before Kosice was connected to Bratislava, the city’s first railway connection opened in 1860 via Miskolc, in what is today northern Hungary. The line I took on my first trip to Kosice followed this same route. The difference is that it now crosses the Hungary-Slovakia border.

Fortunately, there is no longer a delay for border control between Hungary and Slovakia since both are members of the European Union and Schengen Zone. The border still exists, waiting to cross it does not. It is also interesting to note that I could take a train from Bratislava to Budapest and then Budapest to Kosice in just over six hours, not including time to switch trains. That is not much longer than it takes to travel directly from Bratislava to Kosice. The reason for this goes back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire where railway lines that ran to, through or from Budapest were given top priority. Travel from Pozsony (Bratislava) to Kassa (Kosice) prior to World War was between two provincial cities. Nevertheless, I prefer a non-stop train from Bratislava to Kosice. This will allow me to see the countryside of central Slovakia, always a delight in a country known for its splendid nature.

Point of arrival – Postcard of Kosice Railway station in the 1920’s

Isolationism – Neither Here Nor There
The next lost city on my itinerary after Kosice is an outlier that will make the journey more difficult and fascinating. Uzhhorod is not on the Eastern European travel circuit. When it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Uzhhorod was known by its Hungarian name of Ungvar.  The city was then, as it is today, a geographical oddity, located in a neither here nor there netherworld. Uzhhorod is on the southwestern edge of Ukraine. The Carpathian Mountains separate it from the rest of the country. This has made it a safe haven during the Ukraine-Russia War. Uzhhorod has little strategic military value. The city has changed hands from Austria-Hungary to Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Union to Ukraine since World War I. And yet it remains as isolated as ever.

Uzhhorod is not far from Ukraine’s borders with Slovakia and Hungary. Historically, the city has more in common with Hungary and Slovakia than it does Ukraine. That should make it easier to access, but it doesn’t. The Ukrainian border is where the European Union comes to an end. This makes crossing over it more difficult. An added issue is that Ukraine uses a different railway gauge then its western neighbors. For those who choose to ride the rails, this means getting off one train and boarding another or waiting for a couple of hours as the train’s undercarriage is switched to fit the narrower gauge rails. There is the additional complicating factor of the Ukraine-Russia War.

Object of desire – Uzhhorod (Credit: Ekaterina Polischuk)

Going Nowhere – Challenge & Opportunity
Getting to Uzhhorod from Kosice will not be easy. Nothing worth doing ever is. I have never been there before, mainly because it is on the way to nowhere. This makes Uzhhorod the quintessential lost city. In the past, I could never really make it part of a multi-stop journey. I imagined it as a one-off, the end of a line that I either bypassed or avoided. An obscure destination that I could not fit into an existing journey. That is no longer true. My goal of visiting the lost cities of Hungary means that I must visit Uzhhorod. The only problem is the best way to get there. That is the challenge. It is also an opportunity.

Click here for: Difficult Destination – The Journey To Uzhhorod (The Lost Cities #4)

Retro Rail Ride – From Budapest to Eisenstadt & Bratislava (The Lost Cities #2)

The borders changed, the bureaucrats changed, the demographics changed, the economies changed, the politics changed, the names changed, the official languages changed, the centuries changed and still Budapest remains, as it did at the turn of the 20th century, the hub for anyone looking to reach the lost cities just beyond the borders of Hungary. In the last half of the 19^th century, Hungarian National Railway’s network of lines was developed with Budapest as the epicenter. That remains largely true today for the cities which were once part of the Kingdom of Hungary. The old cliché “the more things change, the more they stay the same” still applies in this case. Those traveling to the lost cities are likely to find themselves starting in Budapest. That is where my own journey to the lost cities now begins.

Ready to roll – Dawn at Budapest Nyugati (Western Railway Station)

Border Complications – National Insecurities
The shortest distance between two points is said to be a straight line. The shortest distance between the early 20^th century and the lost cities of Oradea (Nagyvarad), Timisoara (Temesvar), Subotica (Szabadka), Pozsony (Bratislava), Kosice (Kaschau), Eisenstadt (Kismarton), and Ungvar (Uzhhorod) is at the three railway stations (Nyugati – western/Keleti – eastern/Deli – southern) in Budapest. Many things have changed, and some stayed the same since the early 20^th century regarding the lost cities. Rail connections are one of them. While Budapest is still the best place to begin any journey to all seven lost cities, national borders cause complications. These are a legacy from the aftermath of World War I when border control inhibited pre-existing rail routes. It took 84 years, accession to the European Union and Schengen Zone for borderless travel between Hungary, Austria and Slovakia. This is also slated to happen with Romania when it becomes part of the Schengen Zone in 2024. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Serbia and Ukraine. Borders are always complicating factors, the ones between Hungary and its neighbors still act as irritants for the traveler. The situation has improved, but it is still an obstacle the traveler must have overcome.

The complications of borders were expected after the Treaty of Trianon went into effect on June 4, 1920. The nations which had gained the lost cities were suspicious of Hungary’s future intentions toward them. Even with large numbers of Hungarians migrating out of the lost cities and into the newly constituted Republic of Hungary, there were still large numbers of Hungarians that were the cause of consternation for Romania (formed in 1866), Yugoslavia (formed in 1918), and Czechoslovakia (formed in 1918), Austria was a different matter altogether, but it too eyed Hungary warily. Better to make travel between these nations and Hungary more difficult. Borders were a form of security. Judging by the coming of another world war, they were not a very good one.

Awaiting arrivals – Eisenstadt Railway Station

Living On The Edge – Burgenland & Bratislava
As any traveler does before setting out on a journey, I am searching for the best route between my destinations. It makes sense to start in Budapest since it was the transport hub for the Hungarian half (Transleithania) of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. From Budapest, the question is where to go first. That decision will go a long way in determining the route I will take to travel from one city to the next. I am not looking for the quickest route between the lost cities. I am searching for the one that will prove most intellectually satisfying. One of the most important elements of any journey is getting off to a good start. That might sound simplistic, but when it comes to travel my experience has been that the beginning of a journey van either set the traveler up for success or failure. With that in mind, I want to ease into this journey. Looking at the seven lost cities, Eisenstadt in Eastern Austria stands out as low hanging fruit ripe to be plucked with a leisurely rail ride.

Due to the starting and final destinations for this initial leg of the journey being in different countries, it will require multiple transfers and take almost four hours. I can think of worse things than riding the rails across western Hungary and then hopscotching between a couple of stations before arrival in the Austrian province of Burgenland. It only seems right that I should finish this first leg of the journey in what became a newly created ninth Austrian province in 1921. Along the way I will be passing through Sopron, known as the most loyal city in Hungary because it voted to stay part of the country during the messy aftermath of the post- World War I treaty making process.

Eisenstadt is a good first lost city to visit for logistical reasons. Of the seven lost cities, it is the furthest one to the west and in near proximity to Bratislava, which will be second on my itinerary.   Bratislava, known by Hungarians as Pozsony, has done better economically than any of the other lost cities. The reason can be summed up as location and size. Bratislava is just 30 kilometers from Vienna. It has become something of a bedroom community to the Austrian capital. Bratislava also became the capital of Slovakia in 1994. As the seat of government, the city had a self-reinforcing economy. Due to Slovakia’s lower taxes and cost of living (not the case anymore), businesses and people poured into the city. It was the largest city in the newly created country.  Bratislava continues its impressive growth today. The city’s Old Town is spectacular, and the surrounding area has much to recommend it.

Power & prosperity – Bratislava (Credit: Jorge Franganillo)

Lost & Found – The Eastern Frontier
From Bratislava I really have only one choice, head eastward. This is the direction that has captivated me ever since I first set foot in the region. As much as I love Budapest and Bratislava, nothing fires my imagination like heading ever deeper into Eastern Europe. This is the true heart of a region that has been greatly misunderstood by the western world. It is also a region that the Treaty of Trianon upended to a greater extent than anywhere else. The heartlands of historic Hungary can still be found in eastern Slovakia, sub-Carpathian Ukraine, and western Romania. These places are home to the lost cities that are the next stage in planning my itinerary.

Click here for: Eastern Questions – Plotting Paths To Kosice & Uzhhorod (The Lost Cities #3)

The Other Side of the Border – Lesser Hungary (The Lost Cities #1)

Would I like to do my travels across Eastern Europe all over again? I am not so sure that I would. I find the thought exhausting. While there are some places I would love to see one more time, the idea of enduring more flight delays, layovers, and missed connections makes me want to pull the covers over my head and go back to bed. My distaste for doing it all over again extends beyond airplanes and airports. Bus rides are one of the most exhausting things I have ever done. I still love to travel, but I do not miss the pre-planning or changes in plans, working out trip logistics, jet lag, sleepless nights, dodging real and perceived dangers, Not to mention a litany of minor irritations. I endured such less-than-ideal experiences to pursue my Eastern European travel dreams.

Staying power – Astoria Grand Hotel in Oradea (Nagyvarad)

Well Manored – Palace of Transport
There is only one thing that makes me want to do it all over again. If I could do certain parts of my travels just a little bit differently, then I would be advantageous to repeating them. Specifically, I would love to visit a handful of cities that were once part of the Kingdom of Hungary but ended up on the wrong side of the border due to the post-World War I Treaty of Trianon. These cities were easy for me to overlook when I first began to visit Hungary. Mainly because I knew nothing about them. Guidebooks dedicated to the country did not offer coverage of them because they are now in other countries.

I first became aware of the beautiful cities just beyond Hungary’s borders on a train journey to Transylvania. Not long after crossing over the border from Hungary into Romania the train pulled into Oradea. All I knew about the city was that its Hungarian name was Nagyvarad. This was a name I became familiar with due to a stop on Metro Line 3 on the Budapest metro. I knew nothing about this city that had gone by that name until 1920 and still does for the quarter of its population that are ethnic Hungarians. The train stopped in Oradea to pick up more passengers who would be traveling onward to Transylvania. What caught my eye was Oradea’s Railway Station. The tan colored, multi-story structure reminded me of a manor house. Rather than being surrounded by gardens and green space, this one had platforms with passengers waiting for trains. The station had a presence about it that impressed me. I thought there had to be much more in Oradea worth seeing. I pulled out my Rough Guide to Romania and discovered that Oradea had mansions and palaces from the Austro-Hungarian era among many other attractions. This appealed to me. I made a mental note to one day visit the city. I would return on a day trip two years later.

Ready for arrival – Platforms at Oradea (Nagyvarad) Railway Station
(Credit: Attila Nagy-Meuleman)

The Lost Lands – Historic Hungary
Oradea turned out to be just the beginning in discovering several beautiful cities just beyond the borders of Hungary which had historically been part of it. I was already acutely aware how much Hungarians were pained by losing two-thirds of the Kingdom of Hungary’s territory. The region whose loss caused the greatest consternation was Transylvania. This continues to be an open wound that is likely to fester well into the future. The losses of Upper Hungary (Slovakia), Vojvodina (northern Serbia), the Banat (western Romania) and Burgenland *West Hungary) were also a blow to Hungarians. These regions are collectively termed “the lost lands” which were part of “Historic Hungary.”

Prior to passing through Oradea, I had never heard Hungarians talk about what could be called the “lost cities.”  These include Oradea (Nagyvarad), Timisoara (Temesvar), Subotica (Szabadka), Pozsony (Bratislava), Kosice (Kaschau), Eisenstadt (Kismarton), and Ungvar (Uzhhorod). Each one of these cities had a long and historically resonant past in the Kingdom of Hungary. I made it a point to visit each one of them (except Uzhhorod) during an eight-year period. If I had to do it over again, I would visit each of these cities on the same trip rather than piecemeal. That is because of their connection to Hungary. They are links in a chain that was broken after World War I and can never be repaired. The demography of these cities has changed. They now have fewer Hungarians and more inhabitants from the dominant ethnic group of the nations in which they are located.  

Right on time – Facade of the Oradea (Nagyvarad) Railway Station

Change & Continuity – Going In Different Directions
Visiting these cities on a single journey would be fascinating. Using Budapest as a hub, the cities could be visited either clockwise or counterclockwise. I could still go back and do this journey but having visited all but one of the cities already, I am not keen to follow in my own footsteps. At least, not in the flesh. The next best thing to visiting “the lost cities” in person is visiting them vicariously. That is what I intend to do by writing about this hypothetical journey. I have written about most of these cities in the past. Now I want to connect all of them together. A single itinerary that takes me back in time and forward in travel. There is no better time than the past, present and future to undertake this journey. While the cities have a rich Hungarian heritage, they also have a history with the other ethnic groups who inhabited them then, as they do today.

These ethnic groups have been in the ascendant since the end of World War II. Their influence has been profound. Their attachment to these cities cannot be denied. The cities were never lost to them in the same context which Hungarians use that term. It was a new beginning for Austria, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia (in 1994) and Ukraine (in 1991) with the assimilation of these cities into their own countries. The ethnic complexity in each of the cities still exists, albeit to a much lesser degree than just before the outbreak of World War I. The war and Treaty of Trianon changed everything, irreparably severing these cities from centuries of history, and reorienting them in a different direction going forward. This journey to the lost cities is about change and continuity. Two contradictory impulses that explain the history of Eastern Europe from the early 20^th century to the present.

Click here for: Retro Rail Ride – From Budapest to Eisenstadt & Bratislava (The Lost Cities #2)

Playing The Victim – Imagining The Worst In Sarajevo (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #80)

My travels to Eastern Europe began with a trip to the Balkans in 2009. I chose Eastern Europe as my destination of choice because of my interest in its 20^th century history. The Balkans were a great starting point because the region had been the setting for one of the most transformative moments in world history. Specifically, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. When the shots that sounded the death knell of Franz Ferdinand rang out in the streets of Sarajevo, they were also the starting gun for World War I. Nothing was ever the same in Europe and much of the world after Gavrilo Princip, the Bosnian Serb assassin, pulled the trigger.

I have always found it mind boggling that the assassination of an intensely disliked Habsburg royal who had managed to offend the powers that be in both halves of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy ended up being the impetus for that empire to destroy itself. Furthermore, three other empires did the same thing all because a man whose main avocation in life was delinquency managed to commit murder while standing on a sidewalk in front of Schiller’s delicatessen. All this sounds ridiculously improbable, but it was not impossible.

Beginning of the end – Serbian property destroyed in Sarajevo after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Fathomless Depths – A Lack of Experience
Visiting the site of the Archduke’s assassination in Sarajevo, I was able to fathom how it occurred.  Nevertheless, I found the thought of what the assassination led to unfathomable. Tens of millions of dead all because an intensely disliked blowhard was gunned down by a wayward assassin. If someone were to pitch a movie with such a premise, I doubt they could find anyone to donate a dollar towards the production. Such phrases as “you can’t make this stuff up” “the truth is stranger than fiction” and “never let history get in the way of a good story” all come to mind. Sarajevo was one of many such moments in my travels across Eastern Europe when I had trouble coming to terms with the past. I found a single event easy to understand, it was the vast ramifications associated with an event that confounded me. That was especially true with the assassination in Sarajevo.

The trouble with trying to understand what happened in the past is that in most cases we have nothing in our lives to which we can compare it. I have stood on many battlefields contemplating how events unfolded, but it always feels distant because I lack personal experience. I have often wondered if I would still be interested in military history if I had ever seen the true face of battle. The same holds true for my fascination with historical sites associated with some of the darkest moments in the history of Eastern Europe. I find these deeply disturbing and often try to put myself in the place of those who were there, but I am still far removed in time and place.

Willful destruction – Looted property from Serb shops in Sarajevo

Post-Traumatic – The Fathomless Depths
I could not fathom going back to visit such places if I had been a bystander, let alone a victim or perpetrator, to what had occurred. Anyone who has ever heard a person scream out of sheer terror or horrific pain as they are being attacked knows how deeply unsettling that can be. Seeing the same thing happen to innocent civilians is an unbearable thought. I cannot say for sure, but if I had personally witnessed the Archduke’s assassination it would have been shocking, but not traumatizing. What occurred in its aftermath would have been the real horror. This was the violence perpetrated by the masses against Sarajevo’s Serbian community who had nothing to do with the assassination. This aspect of the assassination is only commented on in a few sentences or a footnote at most in history books. That does not do the anger, hatred, and rage justice. Watching people attacked on the street by angry mobs would have been intensely traumatic. Much more so than the Archduke’s assassination. That is because I cannot identify with Franz Ferdinand. I can identify with innocent bystanders since that would have been the role I was most likely to play in Sarajevo. Violence directed against civilians by an angry mob is a terrifying thought.

I imagine that most people are like me and identify more with victims than perpetrators, the powerless rather than the powerful. Innocence died that day in Sarajevo. Watching someone get kicked and beaten who is like you would be traumatizing. The inevitable question would be “Am I next?” Riots are chaotic and take on a life of their own. Rioters cease to think of themselves and identify with their fellow rioters. Chaotic violence has the capacity to turn on anyone who might be perceived as a guilty party. Herd mentality can lead people to commit acts of violence they would otherwise be considered distasteful or unthinkable. Violence is an animal instinct. One that is neither reasonable nor rational. The predator is likely to deem anyone who is different their prey.

Mob rule – Crowds on the streets in Sarajevo following anti-Serb riot

Bearing The Brunt – No Good Options
The Serbs of Sarajevo suffered the excesses of violent instincts after the assassination. Livelihoods were destroyed in a matter of minutes. Shops were ransacked and personal property plundered. Blows landed on Serbs unlucky enough to be standing on the street or guarding their homes or shops. Ironically, the assassin, Gavrilo Princip got off rather easy in the immediate aftermath of his murderous action. While Princip was arrested and roughed up, he could not be beaten to an inch of his life by the Austro-Hungarian authorities because they needed answers from him to rout out any potential co-conspirators. There were a limited number of them.

Those Serbs in Sarajevo who were not party to the assassination ended up bearing the brunt of public anger. While some of them likely shared Princip’s anti-Habsburg sympathies, they were not the ones resorting to violence. They were easy targets, as we all are when caught on the wrong side of a situation gone horribly wrong. I could have been one of those people caught up in the maelstrom and faced with bad options. Either fight back against mob violence, take a beating. or run for my life. After the Archduke’s assassination there were no good options and a lot of victims.

You Can Take It With You – Baggage Handler at Bontida (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #79)

They say you can’t take it with you. I have found that in terms of travel that is not true. I have always taken “it” with me. For a long time, I did not realize that I was carrying “it” with me wherever I went. I thought that I was traveling to experience new places, new people, new languages, and new cultures. I was going to see famous, infamous, and obscure sights. I was going to go from reading history in books, to experiencing history where it happened. I was going to escape the repetition and dullness of daily life by traveling to places that stimulated my curiosity. I was going to get away from it all and I thought I did. I did not notice anyone or anything following me. Then one day, I finally realized that I carried the world I thought I left behind within me.

You can take it with you. There is no finer example than the time I spent in Riga, Latvia. The weather was cold, humid, and blustery. The opposite of what it had been in Kyiv when I left there a day earlier. The climatic change led to me catching a terrible cold. Sore throat, fever, chills, clogged sinuses, I had caught an awful cold. The physical part of this cold would be mitigated with medication. The mental part was another matter altogether. It could not be cured by anything in a bottle. What I really needed was my mom. That might not sound like the most macho thing for a middle-aged man to say, but while lying in the bed at night fending off fever dreams, I wished that my mom would walk into the room. Her presence would have comforted me. She always did when I was a child. Now I was in Riga, as far from home in place and time as I had ever been. My mother would not be coming to check on me. This was the moment when I realized how much I relied on her. I carried my mother with me wherever I went, in sickness and in health.

Chilled – Autumn in Riga (Credit: Laurijs Svirskis)

Keeping Watch – In The Eyes of Strangers
I have spent an inordinate amount of time looking into stranger’s eyes. Behind ticket counters at train stations, at bakeries while picking up breakfast, during check-in at hotels, on numerous free tours, I searched in stranger’s eyes for affirmation. This is much more difficult in foreign countries where I cannot speak the language. I must look for signs. Perhaps a subtle warmth in the eyes, knowing glance, or hint of a smile. I did not need much more than that. That was exactly what I received on free tours in Bucharest and Bratislava, Prague and Pula, among many other places in Eastern Europe. Acknowledgement from the guide meant the world to me. Once that was done, I could relax, listen, and go back to being a loner. I did not need to be the center of attention, only an acknowledgement. That need has always been inside of me.

I always talked too much as a child, probably because I felt like no one was really listening to me. I have learned to live with being largely ignored, but only after an acknowledgement. If one was not forthcoming, then I would continue to search. The need comes from a childhood where my dad had disappeared, and my mom was distracted with trying to meet our most basic needs. There was no one to really listen, but my mom always acknowledged me and my two siblings. As for my father, he never knew what I was missing. Unfortunately, I did and still do, no matter how far I am from home, I still search for affirmation in the eyes of strangers.

Affirmation – Guide on the Free Tour of Bucharest

Illicit Love Affair – An Epic Tragedy
I carried a lot of baggage to Bontida and none of it was on my back. I went to see the ruined home of the Transylvanian aristocrat, Miklos Banffy whose Transylvania Trilogy I had read with intense interest. That lost world fascinated me with its elegant balls, crazed eccentrics, illicit love affairs, intellectual endeavors, and sporting pursuits. That grand splendor was dealt the first of several fatal blows by the First World War. The world which had existed prior to the war never really returned afterwards. It struggled on like a bad marriage momentarily saved by material possessions and money. There was no going back to the way things used to be. Memories evoked sadness rather than joy because they were a reminder of all that had been lost. Everyone was left fending for themselves.

The old order had been upended to the point that no one knew what came next. Some picked up the pieces and rebuilt a semblance of their lives, others took to slowly killing themselves, while still others practiced the fine art of self-delusion. There were plenty of poisons to pick from. Radical ideologies were among the most lethal. Banffy erred on the side of truth masquerading as fiction with his epic trilogy. I felt a kinship with the lost world he so elegantly portrayed. Another great writer of the early 20^th century, Marcel Proust, once said, “the only true paradises are the ones we have lost.” I didn’t quite realize at the time of my visit to Banffy Kastely that I was searching for a paradise I had lost. Slowly the truth revealed itself to me. I was searching one lost world for another. 

Light and darkness – View from a ruined room at Banffy Kastely

The Lost World – Transylvanian Trauma
The lost world of Transylvanian aristocracy portrayed by Banffy reminded me of the one our family lost when my father walked away from it all. We went from wealthy to working class overnight. The upper economic echelon of society was no longer open to us. Love turned to loneliness, and the emotional tumult took a toll on everyone. No one was ever the same. Some of us were better, some of us were worse, none of us were left unscathed.  The baggage I carried to Banffy Kastely was the heaviness in my heart brought all the way from home. They say you can’t take it with you. I know better. I know the truth.

Click here for: Playing The Victim – Imagining The Worst In Sarajevo (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #80)

Situational Awareness – Bullet Holes In Budapest (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #78)

The average tourist who visits Hungary becomes so entranced by Budapest that they can be led to believe that only glory and beauty are found among the hills of Buda and along the wide avenues of Pest. Who can blame them? With the Danube flowing right through the heart of the city, tourists are left starry eyed as soon as they stand on its banks. On the Pest side of the Danube, they see one of the most spectacular Parliament buildings in the world, on the Buda side rises Castle Hill with domes and steeples reaching up to the sky. And then there are the three historic bridges (Chain, Liberty, and Margit) rising above the river. One of those bridges has an arterial link to Margit Island which floats in the middle of the Danube.

If that is not enough, there is also continental Europe’s first metro line, a clutch of outstanding historic bath houses, Hero’s Square, and Andrassy Avenue, Hungary’s version of the Champ Elysees. The list of attractions in Budapest is long and illustrious. A visitor could spend weeks in Budapest completely satisfied by its many charms. Many are likely to believe they have seen the best of Hungary. The problem is that Budapest happens to be a super-sized, steroidal Hungary. Is this reality? Not really. To really know a place, you not only have to see it in the best of times, but also understand what happened there in far worse times. 

Scars on the memory – Bullet holes at the former War Ministry building on Castle Hill in Budapest

Beyond Glory – Rediscovering Reality
I often think that every woman dreams of a life affirming romance, just as every man imagines themselves in battle with a gun in his hand. Which of these two delusions are more dangerous is debatable. I can only speak for myself from the perspective of a man who has traveled around Eastern Europe searching for tangible remnants of history’s worst moments. When I found them, I wondered less about what happened and more about whether I could have faced the moment when my life was at stake with courage. When it comes to war, I have trouble seeing beyond my own lack of experience. This is personal. I guess my passion for standing in the exact place where history happened could be considered something of a romance, a dark rather than dreamy one. This was one of the main reasons I visited Budapest. I wanted to see the bullet holes in certain buildings, as much as I wanted to see the city’s most famous and uplifting attractions.

Budapest has plenty of places where the reality of history can still be experienced. These are not marked by magnificent political and military figures portrayed in public monuments and sculptures. Those memory markers give a more glorious view of the past. Even those Hungarian leaders who suffered a less than heroic fate, such as Ferenc Rakoczi and Lajos Kossuth, are portrayed in a glorious light. There are no statues of Rakoczi and Kossuth living out their final years far from their beloved homeland. Better the myth, then the reality. Budapest is there to remind us. Some parts of history cannot be hidden. They are waiting to be rediscovered. We tend to forget that light always casts shadows.

Battle scarred – Buda Castle in 1945

Snapshots – The Wounds of War
The worst times in the modern history of Budapest were World War II and the Hungarian Revolution. Much of the history surrounding those events is preserved in multiple museums found in the city. Museums are one way to engage with this history, but they keep visitors at a distance from the harsh reality of warfare. That reality does still exist in tangible form. At the old War Ministry on Castle Hill, the Citadella, and the former Ministry of Agriculture across from the Hungarian Parliament, I have run my hands across bullet holes scarring their stone facades. These are the wounds of war left behind by bullets fired during the Battle of Budapest in 1944-45 and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Those two events cost tens of thousands their lives and Hungarians their freedom. The iron curtain’s descent started when the Red Army stormed the city during the final winter of World War II. It was extended by the Red Army’s return in the autumn of 1956.

Tangible evidence of the destruction inflicted upon Budapest is still accessible. When I probed these wounds with my hands, I was reaching back to touch a time when soldiers and civilians were confronted with life and death decisions. A city now known for tourism was an epicenter of terror back then. People ran for their lives on the same sidewalks where tourists snap selfies. The debris and bodies from those times have vanished. Buildings in the city have been restored to their former grandeur with only a few exceptions. The city that stands today has very little in common with what happened during the worst of times. But look close enough and the scars that time could not heal remain. I often wonder what all the starry-eyed tourists make of the bullet holes. That is if they notice them at all.

Out of the shadows – Bronze markers for bullet holes from the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in Budapest

Acts of Violence – Acts of Remembrance
The bullet holes in Budapest are an antidote to the heroic versions of history that stalk the streets and museums of the Hungarian capital. The scars remain for a reason. This is a past that cannot be papered over or explained away, it demands contemplation. It has been said that history is a messy business, it is also a bloody one. The bullet holes are a warning of what happened and what could happen again. Tourists are likely to see them as a curiosity, but they are the closest anyone will ever get to the most important historical events that shaped modern Hungary. The bullet holes might not look like much, but they were the ultimate outcome of radical ideologies, deep rooted hatreds, and tremendous amounts of fear. Acts of violence then, acts of remembrance now. A time when life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ended with bullets flying through flesh and shattering stone. Those bullet holes in Budapest brought me up close and personal to the reality of war. I hope to never get any closer.

Click here for: You Can Take It With You – Baggage Handler at Bontida (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #79)

You Can Take It With You – Baggage Handler at Bontida (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #79)

Fine Dining & Driving – The Austrian Way (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #77c)

Fine dining, like most of the other finer things in life, is not very useful to me. Give me a dive restaurant with strange characters hanging around the fringes and I come alive. Give me table settings, seating arrangements, waiters pouring glasses of water for me, and I become a bundle of nerves. This probably has something to do with the fact that I never learned to tuck my shirt in, tie a tie, or figure out why anyone would need a special fork to eat a salad. My idea of a good meal is to be brought a sizable portion of tasty food, then left alone to dine while I read a book or newspaper. I find anything that gets in the way of me devouring food and information at the same time extremely irritating. My own mother once told me to stop being anti-social. I took this motherly advice as a compliment.

So, you can imagine my anxiety when I endured fine dining at the guesthouse in Gallbrunn where I was staying the night. The waiter turned out to be the same young man who had shown me to my room. He was attired in a perfectly pressed pair of pants and a shirt so white that it could have acted as a source of illumination. There was not a hair on his head out of place. His manners were exquisite. This was all a bit too much for me. I needed a bottle of Xanax to get me through his meal. Instead, I got a glass of water so sparkling that it glittered like diamonds. The menu was one of those sizably elegant tableaus that screamed sophistication. I found the entire guesthouse dining experience to be nerve wracking in the extreme. I was not looking for a meal fit for a king, I was just looking for something to eat.

Dining in – At the Guesthouse in Gallbrunn

Elegance & Expense – Less Than Great
I am always amazed at how the Austrians can take a normal experience and transform into something of the utmost elegance. In this case, that was not for the better. The food was good, the atmosphere was not. The bill was alarmingly high for what amounted to an above average dining experience. I wondered how anyone could afford to dine out or endure the high cost of living in Austria. I once met a Brit on a flight who was teaching in Sweden. I asked him how anyone could ever afford to live in a place where the taxes were high and consumer prices even higher. He said the taxes were tolerable because they paid for social benefits. Swedes also knew how to cut costs, such as avoiding restaurants because they were too expensive. I imagine Austrians do the same thing. The locals can choose to dine in, rather than out. Fleecing foreigners and those on business trips is a sure money maker.

I could stomach my meal’s cost because this was a vacation, but I still could not help but wonder why I needed to pay a premium for food presentation, not so sizable portions, and impeccably mannered staff. It was all a bit too much. That pretty much sums up my opinion of Austria. A place where only the best will do. The guest pays the price for a nation full of perfectionists. Even if the food was not five-star quality, the restaurant did everything to make it seem that way. The meal would have tasted a whole lot better if not for what I had already been facing back in my room. The internet was still not working. That drove me to distraction. It made the guesthouse seem less than great in my eyes.

Fine dining – At the guesthouse in Gallbrunn

The Austrian Way – Top Of The Line
No matter how hard the guesthouse staff tried at check-in and dinner, I kept coming back to the Wi-Fi malfunctioning. I could easily survive a night without going online, but that was not really the issue. I was obsessing over the fact that Austrians ran this guesthouse, and they should be held to a higher standard. In my mind, they were all perfectionists. I could not imagine why they allowed such a glaring deficiency in customer service. There was no excuse for the internet outage other than it was Sunday. That meant Herr fix-it was probably not available. That would be fine except for what the waiter told me when I mentioned the Wi-fi not working. “Yes. That has been happening.” All I could then think of was how they had let this issue linger. Why didn’t they get it fixed? I was acting neurotic about a minor problem. Perhaps I had spent too much time in Austria. Imperfections, let alone malfunctions, are not the Austrian way.

The internet problems would persist and there would be no quick fix for them during my one-night stay. I went back to my room for an unmemorable evening that mercifully ended in a good night’s sleep. The next morning after check-out, an airport transfer arranged by the guesthouse whisked me away to Vienna International Airport. The fifteen-minute drive cost over half what the guesthouse room did. The driver was a middle aged, barrel chested, talkative Austrian, driving a very nice Mercedes. The car looked like it was almost new, just like everything else in Austria. The driver not only offered airport transfers, but also tours of the countryside. Wherever anyone wanted to go he was willing to take them for a price. Judging by the cost of my short ride to the airport, I could only imagine the exorbitant – or extortionate – rate he charged. No wonder he was driving such a top-of-the-line car. The work must be nice. if you can get it.

The way home – Vienna International Airport (Credit: C Stadler/BWAG)

Revealing Results – Too Good To Be True
As for me, I was ready to leave Austria. I would like to say the country is overpriced, but it enjoys such an outstanding reputation that many visitors will gladly pay those high prices while on holiday. Austria has done a great job of managing its reputation. Despite my misgivings, I must admit that it really does have a lot to offer visitors. This includes world class art museums, soaring Alps, splendid classical music, Habsburg history and evocative castles. Austria often lives up to its reputation. When it does not, the results can be revealing. Austria sounds too good to be true. In my opinion it is.

Click here for: Situational Awareness – Bullet Holes In Budapest (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #78)

One Night Stay – Visiting Gallbrunn (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #77b)

The more I visited Austria, the more it reminded me of the Twilight Zone. Vienna, at first sensational and then deeply disconcerting. The alps, an ideal landscape so remote as to be unattainable. Fairy tale castles, so neat and clean that they render history impotent. As soon as I set foot in Austria, I passed into a world between the real and the unreal without realizing it. Everything that at first glance seemed so amazing, eventually became disconcerting. A tension permeates the place. It is felt rather than seen. Never more so than in Gallbrunn, the town into which I traveled and stayed for a single night before fleeing from fantasy land the next morning.

Made to order -Aerial view of Gallbrunn (Credit: Mark Slusarczyk)

Another Planet – A Rage For Perfection
If my Uber journey into Gallbrunn had been an episode of the Twilight Zone, the shooting script would have said, “sleek, black sedan enters a tidy Austrian village that looks deserted. There are no humans in sight. Everyone in Gallbrunn is either inside their homes or dead. Perhaps both. Behind the drawn curtains of brightly painted pastel homes, someone or something stirs.” That description pretty much sums up Gallbrunn on the afternoon I entered it. While the village is only a fifteen-minute drive from Vienna’s airport and a thirty-minute drive from the city center, I might as well have landed on another planet. Gallbrunn looked like it was waiting for people to arrive. Locals, rather than tourists. The town should have had a sign that said, “Vacancy.”

I noticed that every house in the village looked like it had just received a fresh coat of paint prior to my arrival. The Austrian rage for perfection glowed radiant in the afternoon light. I imagined that Gallbrunn was the ideal of what a village in Lower Austria should look like. Nothing would ever go out of style if it was constantly refurbished. I had never seen a small town so well-kept. The amount of effort to keep up the pristine appearance of Gallbrunn had to be considerable. I am sure the locals would say this is normal. I could not find anyone outside their homes to ask. Perhaps the town was deserted because it was a Sunday afternoon. Either that or all the locals were recovering from sweeping the sidewalks and streets for the past six days.

Striving for perfection – Church in Galbrunn (Credit: Waerfalu)

Interior Design – Order, Organization & Obsession
Judging by the cleanliness in Gallbrunn, the town must spend an inordinate amount of money on sanitation. What would have been community pride in most places, looked like neurosis to me. There was something both charming and creepy about the village. The charm came from its quaintness and look of simple prosperity. The creepiness from sterility. The guest house where I stayed suffered from this same kind of aesthetic. Its lemon-yellow exterior was an uplifting confection. While on the inside, everything had been polished to perfection. There was not a single item out of place. Order and organization to the point of obsession ruled. The staff and furnishings were exactly where they were supposed to be.  I found it impressive to the point of bizarre. There was nothing ad hoc about it. I began to feel uptight. Even the small talk was measured.  The idea of spontaneity did not exist here.
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Though Austria is far from my favorite place, I must say that Austrians in general have always been helpful, if reserved towards me. They are intelligent, well-mannered, and insanely organized. The moment I stepped into the guesthouse lobby everything was ready for my arrival. Like clockwork, the front desk clerk had everything laid out. All they needed was a passport and signature. Then a smartly dressed young man showed me to my room. The guest house had all the right boxes checked for optimal customer service. Nothing was left to chance. Everything was done with such efficiency that it made me feel uneasy. Formality was the guesthouse’s strong suit. If there is one trait that distinguishes Americans from Austrians, I would say it is informality. I found it kind of creepy to get the white glove treatment in a place where I was paying a hundred euros to spend one night. The guesthouse was the equivalent of a Hampton Inn rather than the Hilton.

Picture of perfection – Building in Gallbrunn (Credit: Waerfelu)

Into Oblivion – An Afternoon Stroll
After checking in I took a stroll around Galbrunn to get a feel for the town. What I saw confirmed my suspicions that Gallbrunn was lacking in life. That place was as sterile as a surgical unit. The only thing happening on this day in Gallbrunn was nothing. No one felt the need to step outside their home though the weather was fine. Perhaps they were enjoying quieter pursuits such as polishing floors, furniture, and anything else that threatened to collect dust. Galbrunn was a great place to enjoy silence. While walking around, I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. Finding a single person beyond the guesthouse staff was impossible. There are missing persons searches and any person searches. Gellbrunn fell into the latter. I could not imagine what people in Gellbrun do for fun. Maybe that is what Vienna is for. A reminder that there is life after all.

The strangeness continued back at the guesthouse with the Wi-Fi not working. This meant I would not be able to distract myself with a cyber journey into oblivion. This forced me to focus on my surroundings. So instead of surfing the internet for historical information on Gallbrunn, I was forced to search for something of interest among its modern iteration. I have never been one for staring at whitewashed hotel room walls or obsessively fluffing pillows. I am more apt to walk the guesthouse’s halls and loiter in the lobby while searching for anything or anyone of interest. That plan failed after a few minutes. The thought of another walk around the deserted town felt hopeless. I kept asking myself why I had left Vienna. It was also unreal, but with more fascinating amusements for tourists to distract themselves. The only thing I could look forward to was dinner in the guesthouse dining room. That too would be utterly forgettable in a most memorable way.

Click here for: Fine Dining & Driving – The Austrian Way (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #77c)