It’s Saturday and another travel day, this time 2.5 hours from Graz to Baden bei Wien. We get up at 6:00 and are ready to go by 8:30, but our train doesn’t leave until 10:26. It’s a holiday, “Austria Day,” so everything is closed up tight. It’s odd to see the typically buzzing square empty (except for the skateboarders). We linger over our breakfast and have second cups of coffee.
We decide to walk to the Bahnhof as it only takes about 20 minutes. When we get to our track, we find the train waiting, so we can board and get all set up at our table without rushing. It’s the same train we rode from Vienna (its route is Prague to Graz and back). There’s a family wagon on one side of us with games and play spaces for kids and then a quiet car on the other side. I am constantly impressed by the quality of transportation here, and everything perfectly on time so no worries about connections. I write part of the way and then read (Flights by Olga Tokarczug, the perfect travel book). It’s a very relaxing journey.
We change trains in Wiener Neustadt for the 20 minute ride to Baden. Although we have only 10 minutes to change trains, we find our next train waiting right across the Gleis, and again are able to board without any stress. Once again, it’s such relaxed travel I don’t have any anxiety about arriving at Baden or finding our hotel.
We get to Baden without incident after about 20 minutes and elect to walk again as it’s a nice day and the GPS says it’s only 12 minutes away. I find my energy is always up upon arrival in a new place, but I forget that our walking pace is much slower than Google Maps predicts, so our walk stretches out to closer to 1/2 hour. By this time it’s about 1:30, and we are both getting ravenous as we only had one piece of toast for breakfast and had skipped our mid-morning snack. I also realize that while I had an expresso on the train, we hadn’t really been drinking water. By the time we drag our bags up the steps to “At the Park Hotel” we are both hot, tired, dehydrated and hungry despite the effortless travel day.
The receptionist recommends a restaurant (“Amterl”) and I ask if she will call and make us a reservation. Initially I am proud that I was able to ask for help, but then we realize we are locked in to a lunch decision when a piece of bread from the bakery around the corner might have provided that fast relief we needed. We drop our bags in the room and make our way to the restaurant, but for some reason don’t think to eat a snack or drink water.
It’s been quite a while since we’ve let ourselves get this hungry and tired: it’s one of the basic rules we try to follow, eating something every few hours and staying hydrated. But I find once we get in this state, it’s hard to make good decisions or tolerate any delay or obstruction. Getting service seems to take forever and we are both impatient. I’d taken off my jacket and am only wearing a t-shirt, and am now under-dressed for the weather. The waiter gives me a blanket and then we get some water. Things start looking up.
We end up having a great lunch—I get gnocchi and Kitty a chicken and vegetable noodle stir-fry. We even split a desert. We have a perfect seat in the main square. I enjoy watching the people and the dogs. One looks just like a young Sebastian. The town is decorated with hundreds of pumpkins and gourds and there’s a decided holiday feeling. Baden is a very quiet and peaceful town surrounded by wooded mountains. The average age is also older, so we are feeling quite spry and youthful. There are multiple baths in town (the smell of sulfur lingers in the air). I’m considering a massage.
We go back to the room for down time and read for a couple of hours before going back out for a walk around town at sunset. Baden bei Wein is a health resort. We were here for a few days following a trip through Yugoslavia in 1988, though we can’t remember who actually recommended it. Back in those days we stayed for about 3 days at a 2 star pension, and now we are in a very nice 3 star hotel. I remember more about hiking in the Wienerwald than the town itself. It’s even wealthier than Graz (from our first impressions), with lots of gardens and beautiful homes and well-dressed people strolling the beautifully tended streets. The drought seems less severe here and the weather is cooler than what we’ve experienced in weeks.
Our hotel room overlooks a miniature golf course with large maple trees. It’s very comfortable with a balcony. We’ve decided to just go to bed early and skip supper given our late and filling lunch. We are drinking lots of water, and do plan to get breakfast at 7:00, so skipping a meal feels OK despite our day!
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