Eight Days in Austria, Two Days in Switzerland, Five Days in France and Three Books

H and I had planned a German rail jaunt which would take us back to Budapest but reports of Deutsche-Bahn’s service were so discouraging we decided to give it a miss using Salzburg as our starting point instead. Best skip to the end if you’re only here for books: this will be a long one.

Salzburg‘s about the size of Bath, my hometown, both UNESCO-listed so magnets for tourists but while we have hills they have mountains. It’s a lovely place to amble around enjoying the views and a coffee here and there while avoiding anything to do with The Sound of Music or Mozart, although we did stumble upon his parents’ graves in a beautiful, leafy cemetery.

Our only bit of culture was the DomQuartier, the religious heart of old Salzburg, which houses a cathedral, a palace and St Peter’s Abbey. The cathedral site dates back to the eighth century although the actual building burnt down several times. The current version is Baroque, as is most of the city, but surprisingly restrained.

The St Rupert’s Day celebrations were in full swing by the weekend. We seemed to have gone from one cos play event with the Jane Austen festival in Bath to another with lots of fairgoers dressed in traditional Tyrolean costume despite the rapidly rising temperatures. We were relieved to be travelling on air-conditioned trains for most of Saturday, having decided to take the scenic route to Innsbruck, picking up the Zurich train at Zell am See where we spent a walking holiday years ago. What a treat to see dramatic mountain scenery against the bluest of skies.

Innsbruck is an attractive enough town but its main draw is the mountains which overlook it. I was nursing a minor injury so left it to H to explore on foot but we did take the Stubaitalbahn whose tracks wind around the mountain foothills until it reaches Fulpmes, not much more than a hamlet before tourists began arriving, I imagine, reminding me of Robert Seethaler’s A Whole Life.

I can’t resist a botanical garden and, by chance, there was one a short walk from our apartment. Lots of alpines, as you’d expect, but also some surprises including two large, very healthy banana plants, presumably wrapped in fleece in winter. My favourite was a patch of prairie planting buzzing with bees. Home for lunch via an automat which sold local produce, a smart idea, and very welcome on an Austrian Sunday when everything closes.

From Innsbruck we caught the train to Zurich, following the same route H and I had travelled towards the end our first holiday, hitching around Europe starting in Amsterdam. The scenery was as stunning as Saturday’s trip but Wednesday was a grey day with the summits swathed in cloud. The weather in Zurich was distinctly chilly, but we were only there for two nights thanks to eye-watering Swiss prices.

We’d imagined ourselves walking around Zurich’s vast lake in the sun but given the weather decided to visit the Museum Reitberg instead. An extensive collection of artefacts from around the world, from elegant Chinese ceramics to the prow of an Oceanic war canoe, it’s housed in two nineteenth century villas, one now an extension of the other. Unusually, there are shelves and shelves of ‘open storage’ on show in the basement. Such a good idea, and one I’m pleased to see the V&A have taken up in their East Storehouse. A brilliant museum, and affordable, too.

Our next stop was Strasbourg after an enjoyable lunch and catch up with A at the same Basel cafe where we met her after our walking holiday in Adelboden eight years ago. Lots to explore in this city whose old town looks more German than French, including visiting the European Parliament but we both decided that would make us too sad.

On our way to the historical museum we passed through Place Gutenberg named after the inventor of the movable type printing press. He was born in Mainz and went back there after his training in Strasbourg which still seems determined to claim him as their own. Once the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, the city has a long, complex and interesting history thanks to its position in the Franco-German borderland of the Alsace made clear by the excellent museum. My favourite exhibits, though, were the paintings by Giuseppe Arcimboldo celebrating the Corporation of Gardeners.

We left wandering around the picturesque old town until Monday when there were fewer tourists like us cluttering up the narrow, cobbled streets. Ditto Strasbourg’s imposing, Romanesque Gothic cathedral, built from red sandstone between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. Once the tallest in the world, its 142-metre spire can apparently be seen from as far away as the Black Forest. I was pleased to see a touching tribute to the stonemasons in the cathedral churchyard. Inside there’s an astronomical clock which attracts a crowd every fifteen minutes, although there wasn’t much of a show when we were there.

Our last two days in Strasbourg were quite lazy, much of it spent outdoors while there was still fine weather to enjoy. Naturally that involved a visit to the botanical gardens where I spotted two frogs so still, I had to check they were real before we left. One had disappeared, presumably taking a dip in the pond.

We did nip into St Pierre-le-Jeune, our neighbourhood church, on our last day. Daubed with thick white paint during the Reformation, colourful frescoes were revealed towards the end of the nineteenth century and are being slowly restored. An absolute gem which we nearly missed . A late afternoon train to Lille followed by Eurostar after breakfast meant we were home well before Mischief’s feeding time on Thursday.

And the books? I read more than usual this holiday but three stood out. Stinging Fly contributor Cath Sweeney’s spare, episodic Breakdown sees a woman drive away from her Dublin home one morning continuing onto the ferry to Fishguard, notifications from friends and family filling her phone, unable to continue with the burden of domesticity.

Staying with Irish writers, John Boyne’s Air brings his impressive Elements series to a close, reuniting two main characters as Aaron, last seen in Fire, takes his fourteen-year-old across the world from Sydney to the tiny Irish island to which his ex-wife’s mother had fled the horror of her husband’s paedophilia in the opening novella, Water.

The third was Ann Napolitano’s modern take on Little Women, Hello Beautiful, an absorbing, nicely turned-out tearjerker which follows four Italian American sisters over several decades.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for sticking with me. Back to books on Friday…