My Latest Travels: Spring in Europe by River and Rail

I’ve been spending so much time in Asia these last few years (164 blog posts and many Asia-related articles, galleries, and travel tips on The Mad Traveler main site), the sound of church bells this morning seems as exotic to me as the call of the muezzin the first time I woke up to it back in Ankara, Turkey some 16 years ago. Beyond that it is quiet in our temporary neighborhood here in Vienna. Birds calling, another church’s bells in the distance outlasting at the 1677 Baroque Rossau Church down at the corner of our block.

We’ve been here not even 48 hours and we are off by train using sponsored Eurail passes. On a magazine assignment, I am getting on board a Danube River cruise from Uniworld to see how the River Beatrice rates and to hop off for excursions in Passau, Salzburg, Melk, Vienna, and Budapest along the way. Then after a few days in Budapest it’s back to Austria to explore, perhaps a side trip to Bratislava or Prague, or… who knows?

Tonight and tomorrow we have a full schedule of meeting friends in and around Munich and Sunday we use that Eurail pass again to get to port on the Danube. The ultimate plan is to use that pass to get to Turkey in mid-May. For now, the photos – as well as the stories and anecdotes – will come faster than I can keep up with, plus along the way I have to get the paycheck work done and submitted. If you are not already following The Mad Traveler Facebook page, you might want to do so now to see more random photos from this journey.

Now click “publish” and off to Vienna’s U-Bahn to get to our first train journey. Let’s so if this train pass is as easy as they say it is…