Munich - Day Twenty Three

The train ride from Milan to Munich (Verona to Munich more specifically) was the most impressive of my journey so far. Picture postcard Italian landscapes of pretty vineyards, rolling hills, crisp blue lakes and distant mountains gradually gave way to the towering Alps of Austria.

Huge, gravity defying road bridges are built far higher than they have to be, as if the engineers were just trying to prove a point. As the snowy peaks of Austria begin to fall, there is a definite change in the feel of the landscape, and things feel a little more Bavarian; with forests of pine trees and well organised German villages.

I had the sort of six person, compartmentalised train carriage that I always think of when I imagine European rail travel (it felt like I was in a classic movie, or a Poirot thriller), and I was lucky enough to share it with Saskia and Gijs - Dutch students who have been on a hitchhiking competition with nineteen other two-person teams from their university in Utrecht. They had both spent the last week or so hitching down from the Netherlands through Germany and Austria to Italy. They hadn't won the competition, but that wasn't the point at all; along the way they had experienced huge amounts of kindness from so many people - often being put up for the night, or taken home and fed by the drivers who had given them lifts.

They were recovering from a big party in Italy the night before, and were taking there first train journey of their trip so far. They picked a good one; the scenery was spectacular and it was a beautiful sunny day. I was almost sad to get off the train in Munich.