Day 5 – Vienna/Breclav

I ran a marathon the day before I started my trip and with very little training. As you can imagine, my legs were very stiff the first day but from then on I seemed fine. However, my ankle was still sore and with no bruising or swelling, I think I may have a stress fracture. My girlfriend was very annoyed today as I always have a habit of diagnosing myself, and this was just one example. Obviously it’s not going to ruin my holiday so I will continue on, break through the pain barrier, fight the good fight, finish the race, all that… Today however, we thought it was for the best that we should rest today. We had been walking a lot recently (we regretted not bringing a pedometer with us) and our feet just weren’t used to it. With so much to see, and not willing to spend money on taxi’s or public transport if it can be avoided, it is easiest to walk, and probably better for us anyway!

In the morning after checking out, we headed to the nearest shop and bought baguettes, ham, snacks and drinks and headed to the Imperial Palace gardens. Yesterday, we had sat for 30mins watching what looked like a dance class, playing Gatsby music and doing weird swing dancing. It was quite enjoyable, weird and interesting. Today they weren’t there, but we found a nice area and literally sat all day, reading books and talking, people watching and eating. We also were treated to a wedding and some ducks who had been touring the area for the best part of 4hrs. We had planned to get the night train from Vienna to Budapest (although it is only 3.5hrs away) which detoured to Breclav in Czech Republic, with a lengthly 5hr stopover. In all honesty, I thought this would be fine as the train station would have all our needs. You know, a big station, buzzing with people like us, a McDonald’s and a Starbucks…

After heading back to the hostel to collect our bags, the trip to the train station proved to be no hassle and we got on the train. It was going to Berlin without any changing of trains and I was tempted. We shared a cabin with one other man, very nice guy who read his book the whole time. After some pleasant exchanges, and some laughing at the rude and loud passport control officers on the border, he was surprised to see us get off at Breclav. He obviously thought that we were trying to get off the at the wrong stop. When we got off, I now realised the reason for his concern, and why the ticket man asked me ‘three’ times if I was sure about this – “Breclav? Are you sure? Breclav Czech Republic? Well OK then.” Breclav was a small rural train station, the one that has nobody working there, no trains scheduled for another 5hrs and maybe a half lit vending machine if your lucky. My girlfriend took it well.

After the train did its checks it was off again, leaving us with a couple of engineers and ticket officers (all of whom went home), a couple of homeless people, a drunken backpacker and a rather shady looking woman. They all eventually disappeared too. The place was empty but we stayed on the platform outside as I didn’t want to go inside the tiny, open-plan ‘lobby’. We went for a look to see, but it was just a place that nobody could feel safe in. I thought it would be best to stay away from the entrance and closer to the tracks. In hindsight now, I realise that nobody would be able to see us if anything did happen. To be fair though, nobody was there anyway and it was probably the best of some really bad options.

I didn’t sleep at all but my girlfriend did doze off a few times, despite her being scared as well. This was definitely an experience but I would recommend you visit Czech Republic during the day as it gets frustratingly cold at night!! I watched tankers and freight trains with cargo and cars pass back and forth, retuning without their goods and I worked out the filtering system used in Breclav to separate the fast and slow trains. I basically tried everything I could to turn it into a positive experience and kept thinking that when the train comes we can just go to sleep comfortably.

Again, I was wrong! We boarded the train and were instantly met with a stench of people and when turning the corner, the people themselves, all on the floor cuddling their bags and sleeping. Trying to find our seats we had reserved, we walked down the corridor and unintentionally woke them all up. Peering into the compartments on our way didn’t give us much hope in us sleeping comfortably either. At our compartment, it was so dark and inhabited an Indian man and woman with their baby, an English backpacker and a man sprawled over two seats sleeping. He was woken up to let us sit down and when he gathered himself, started shouting this Russian/Polish nonsense at me, I was in no mood to be shouting and kept telling him to lower his tone. He either didn’t understand or chose not to comply. I made it clear that the Indian family were in our seats and we weren’t moving until we got ours, so if the abusive man wanted his wife’s seat back (we had worked out that she was away for a ‘fag’) then he can sort it out. The English backpacker politely left as he hadn’t a reservation at all so I took his seat and we were all happy…ish. It was so cramped. These 4 people it seemed, had taken all of their belongings on this train, from a scary looking doll to a bloody washing machine. As a result, we had nowhere to put our bags so mine sat on my lap and my girlfriend had hers on the floor. That would have been fine, except that every few minutes the Russian couple would go for a smoke and wake the whole cabin trying to get past. A long night ahead it would seem.

Drifting asleep for 5 or 10 minutes at a time until being rudely awoken by the twats to our right was the norm and lasted the whole journey. When we arrived in Budapest in the morning, I was glad to see the back of them but remembered what I was told before I left for this trip – ‘There are no bad memories, only good memories and stories to tell’. It felt like this was the latter, but at the same time, a memory that I will never want to experience again. Goodbye Breclav!