Veronika Wild

First glimpses - approaching Sintra from the Railway Station Sintra (pop. 385,654) is only 25 Kilometres from Lisbon and takes about 40 minutes to reach by train from Lisbon’s beautiful breezy Rossio station. I left at around 10 a.m. but the two lovely girls I’d met at the hostel had to work until 12, so they went by Uber and by the time I had walked from the station to the main square, we arrived at about the same time. I fell in love with Sintra at first sight. When I saw its lush vegetation – some of it subtropical, including palms, and its abundance of big trees, I realised what I had been missing in Lisbon. The ratio of trees to buildings was decidedly reversed. Through a quirk of geography – it too is built on very hilly ground, but is protected from wild Atlantic weather by a ridge of mountains, it retains a pleasant moist climate all year round, and makes it much greener than most of the rest of Portugal. Mists swirled around half hidden castles in the mountain tops, giving...

The town of Tittmoning, just over the Austrian border. Its castle still casts an anxious gaze towards the Alpine regions to its South One branch of the family I was rather fond of hadn’t made it to the family reunion and no one had heard from them in a while, so soon after, I took a train to Austria to see how they were faring. The Trains For the most part, the trains in Europe are excellent. Clean, fast, ubiquitous and so smooth that people literally use them as their office on the way to work. One Swiss train even had proper tablecloths and real crockery and cutlery in the dining car. Some of the regional trains in Germany had compartments which were set up to easily transport bicycles, wheelchairs, scooters and strollers and they were very frequent, if not always on time. I am so jealous that so much of Europe is so   easily accessible by train. Train - bike holidays are encouraged in Germany with special compartments to accommodate cyclists   The bad news is that – S...

  My trip didn’t start out all that well. Almost as soon as I got to Europe I came down with a particularly nasty 'flu -Influenza A to be precise, which put me in hospital for the best part of the first week, despite having had a 'flu shot before I left. Although the hospital cleared me in time for the reunion and my granddaughter had to explore Europe on her own, I was often really tired and miserable and didn't manage to do half the things I'd planned. Nevertheless, it was lovely to see everyone again and I did manage to do a couple of side trips as well as a few excursions in the Stuttgart area.  Many thanks to all the people who rang enquiring about my welfare - so many that, the hospital got quite cross and begged them to stop, also the doctors, nurses and staff and the very kind person -a complete stranger, who brought me a phone charger after my son put out a call on the internet). This is about all I saw of Switzerland, apart from the train in and out I neve...